Saturday, June 26, 2010

Here or There??

Hello!!

I'm Sarah, and I am currently 15 years old. I live in the tiny tiny town of Randolph Vermont, and am a sophomore at Randolph Union High School. I am a typical small town girl: one brother and two parents, manager of the varsity baseball team, a member of our school's drama program, and Interact club, job at a seasonal restaurant, etc. However in seventh grade, I was lucky enough to travel to Japan for two weeks on an exchange with my school's sister school, in Shizukuishi, Japan (She-zoo-kwee-she). It was an experience I will never forget as it taught me so much about the world around me, along with myself. This two week experience is what made me want to become an exchange student as I entered High School. I wanted to once again feel the nerves and excitement as I am surrounded by a culture which is not my own. Be immersed in a country where I don't know the language, yet find myself feeling at home, and comfortable among new friends anyways. In Japan I stretched my boundaries and experienced strange foods, new religions, confusing toilets, and a whole culture I had never known or understood before. Coming back, I knew there was no better way to experience a culture than to live with in it. I knew instantly as the plane landed I wanted to travel abroad again, and with my parents support, the process began at the beginning of my sophomore year.

Last September I began talking with my school counselor about the many options which I could chose from in order to become an exchange student. After much consideration and discussion I settled on AFS (American Field Services), a program my mom traveled through as a Junior in High School, and one my entire family felt very comfortable working with.  After applying in December, I was accepted into the program within days. However I then waited anxiously for months to learn which country I would be accepted into. Knowing I wanted to go somewhere in Europe did not help me much in the process of choosing a country. France, Italy, Spain, Norway, Denmark, all sounded amazing to me. With the help of my parents however, I finally narrowed down the search, and chose countries I found I knew very little about with Switzerland, and the Netherlands, at the top of my list. Finally, on March 19th, the night of my schools Drama performance, I learned I was accepted to Switzerland!! What an amazing feeling I must tell you. I don't think I have ever been that excited/happy/full of joy before in my life. Like Christmas morning times 10000. Knowing your going to be an exchange student, yet not knowing which culture you will be experience is definitely not fun, as you have nothing to do but wait.  However as I waited, I spent most of my time daydreaming, and telling people about my exciting plans. 
 
 Right away, as people learned I wanted to travel abroad I got the question "Why?". Why would you want to leave everything behind, and spend a year in a place where you don't know anyone let alone the language? To this I simply laughed and answered "Why wouldn't I??"  However then I would simply answer with the reasons I had had when I first applied, which have now turned into my goals. As an exchange student next year, I hope to gain a better knowledge of both myself, and the world around me. I hope to expand my views on what day-to-day life is, and how people live. I hope to take in both the differences between my own culture and that of the Swiss, as well as the similarities. I hope to become more independent, outgoing, and confident in myself, and who I am as a person. Last but not least, I hope to make new life long friends, and learn a new language. Along with these goals, when I return, I hope to share my experiences with my community through presentations, word of mouth, my blog, etc. I hope to encourage others to learn about the world through exchange, and get people interested in learning about other cultures. Finally, I hope to continue working with AFS and volunteering my time to help students like myself understand what they are about to undergo as an Exchange student, like the many volunteers I have already met are doing for me. However, after the initial shock of learning I was going to be leaving Randolph for 11 months (WOW!!) I found that everyone seemed very excited for me, and wanted to know all about where I was going to be living, what life would be like, when I leave, etc. etc. etc. :)

While my adventure as an exchange student is about to begin, getting here was not an easy snap of the fingers. Other than the challenging, stressful task of the application and paper work, my biggest obstacle with which to over come, was the high tuition costs of the program. I managed to knock off a huge chunk of this tuition through the Global Leaders Merit Scholarship, along with a donation from my Local AFS chapter, a discount for my mother being a former AFS participant, and savings I had stored up while working last summer. However, even with all this, I still needed to fund raise $6,000. After considering a number of different fund raisers, I decided to send out letters explaining who I was, why I chose to travel abroad, and explaining the difficult situation I was in, in hope of receiving donations from my friends and family, along with local businesses around my town. Along with these letters I planned to continue my job at Onion Flats, (amazing restaurant!!), and put all money earned into my tuition. After spending hours drafting, and redrafting the letters, I started hearing back within a week of mailing. What made these donations, were the letters that flowed in with them saying how proud everyone was of me, and how nicely written my letter had been. It felt great to know that all my hard work had not gone to waist, and that I was being supported by everyone. Many people talked about how they were not surprised I was doing this as I have always loved traveling, and others wanted to know if I would take them along! I even started receiving donations from people I barely knew, who supported exchange in my community, and wanted to help me in any way they could. I know many of these people also plan to follow my exchange journey through this blog, which helps me to share my experiences and things I learn, with my community back home. (One of the reasons I wanted to become an exchange student through AFS!!!).  With all of this support and interest in what I was doing, the money I received to pay off the tuition was like icing on the cake to make me feel great about my decision to travel abroad.
 
With less then two months to go before I leave for my journey abroad there is still so much to do in my little town of Randolph. While I am so excited to leave, and start my new life in Switzerland, I can't hide the huge nerves forming in my stomach. Even so, I don't think it has really hit me yet that I've done it, I am an exchange students, and I will be spending next year Switzerland....WOW!!!  If you have any questions for me concerning anything about my exchange year/preparation, please feel free to ask (I myself have asked thousands the past few months!).

That's all for now! :)