It's official. 7 weeks until I leave Brewster. I found out that Malaysia YES people, along with India and Thailand all leave directly from DC after the PDO. There's a country specific Gateway Orientation after the PDO, but immediately after that I depart for the next year of my life.
The school year is drawing to a very slow close.
There are 22 days of classes left, and then 2 weeks of finals. My mind is a million other places, Malaysia being one of them, and it's not easy to focus on Einstein's theory of relativity and finite sequences of numbers when I know that I have 49 days to get ready for the next year of my life.
I had my AFS in home interview. The woman who interviewed me was very nice, her daughter had gone to Chile with AFS last year and she is currently hosting an Indonesian and a Thai boy. As I've already been accepted to AFS, the questions were mostly about my personality, family activities and what I'm looking for in a host family. It was very laid-back and we talked a lot about travel in general. Both of my parents were sitting with me and Mrs. Lage at the table, and they were not exactly shy about their questions... My mom is really very upset about me leaving. I'm the baby of the family by about 10 years and she didn't expect me to leave until college in 3 years. Mrs. Lage was very helpful, she told my mom about a liaison program where my mom would be a go-to person for an exchange student coming to America. My mom is very interested and really excited about the opportunity- I'm really hoping this will decrease her worry over me leaving.
In other news, I heard back from the other scholarships I applied for. I was made an alternate for the CBYX scholarship to Germany. I also won a YFU Skylink Travel House Scholarship to Venezuela. I was the only one in the country to receive this honor and deciding between Venezuela and Malaysia was one of the most challenging decisions of my life. Venezuela is a beautiful country and the people are very warm and friendly, and Spanish would probably be more useful to learn than Malay. However, it is closer to the U.S. and I can learn Spanish anywhere. Malaysia offers me a radically different culture and I really find the goals of KLYES Abroad to be important and the Department of State connection will open all kinds of doors for me. Still, penning my e-mail declining the scholarship was not an easy thing to do.
I'd like to send a huge congratulations to my SHOCK family! SHOCK is 5 of us who were the main creepers members of the YES Facebook group. SHOCK stands for Sara,, Hannah (me), Olivia, Carly and Katie. Originally, Carly and Olive were alternates, but they have been moved up to finalists. SHOCK will be reppin' all over the world next year- Sara in Indonesia, me in Malaysia, Olivia in Turkey, Carly in Thailand and Katie in Bosnia and Herzegovina. This means we'll be seeing each other at the PDO in DC, beyond excited!
Finally, I am the proud sister of a new dog! My house now shelters a big 4 year old, liver colored Pomeranian.named Kirby. My parents picked  him up a couple hours before my AFS interview and I was just praying the whole time that he wouldn't pee on my interviewer.
That's what's going on in my world