I got in!! I am so excited! After more than a month of waiting I got a call from the same woman who organized my interview event telling me I am a finalist for CBYX AFS. I got my call on Monday, March 21st at 8:03 pm. It had been a really rough day and since the quarter was ending that Thursday I was overwhelmed with work. I was doing my technology project when I got a call on my cell phone from a number that wasn't in my contacts. I had been waiting for the call all throughout March and if they had called me any other week I would've flipped out as soon as I saw the number, but I had been so distracted and overwhelmed that I didn't really think about it. The possibility that it could be CBYX only ran through my head when the woman on the phone said "Is this Ava Taylor?" Then, when she told me her name I knew what was happening. I knew from reading other blogs that the person that organizes the regional interview event (at least for AFS) is the same person that calls you and tells you if you've been selected. I started screaming crying and I had to hand the phone over to my parents because I was freaking out so much. I spent the rest of the night calling everyone that I had been talking about the process with to let them know that I had been accepted.
I thought I would use this post to also talk a little bit about the waiting process, because it was brutal. Also, having talked with friends of mine also applying for years abroad, it seems that a lot of people that apply go through the same phases, so I thought this might be helpful for anyone applying and waiting for the decision. My interview was January 30th, and before that I spent more time worrying about the interview than anything else. However, after the interview was over, I really started worrying about whether or not I had gotten in, since there was nothing else to wait for and nothing else that was in my control. For the first week after the interview, my friend Jo, who also applied, and I couldn't think about anything else. It was all we wanted to talk about. I spent all of my spare time (which was pretty much all the time because we had a huge snow storm and didn't have school that entire week) going over the interview in my head thinking about what I did wrong or rereading my essays and cringing at some of the things that I said. It was overwhelming, and I started this blog simply because I couldn't think or do anything else. I also spent countless hours reading everyone's blogs and watching people's YouTube videos from their exchange. Jo and I once spent an entire night watching videos on how to pack for an exchange. At some points it got so bad I started having bad dreams about being late for interviews or getting rejected from the program.
However, during the next few weeks, Jo and I both started to calm down . We started thinking that even if we did get in we might not go just because it would be really hard and junior year seemed like an awesome year that we didn't want to miss. That week we had course selections at my school, and I started getting really sad about missing all of the interesting classes next year and not being able to get my IB diploma (even though I didn't even know if I was in or not). In reality, we both knew that we would never pass up the opportunity if we got it, but we just started understanding the reality of it all. Also, being back in school was a nice distraction because we could spend our time doing school work and not obsessing over anything exchange related. We tried to have an "exchange cleanse" where we didn't talk about it for the rest of the month but that was too hard and we abandoned that a few days later.
Then March came. Although CBYX told us that we would find out from mid to late March, Jo and I both began worrying as soon as March started. We had read on blogs that the year before AFS finalists found out on March 7th and that the year before that they found out on March 3rd. We had a theory that they tell us that they are going to call us in mid to late march and then surprise us in early March, but unfortunately that wasn't true. Also, at the interview event they said that they were trying to get interviews done earlier this year, so we thought acceptances would come earlier too. During the first week of March I was an absolute mess. I was under constant stress and I felt so much anxiety over it all I couldn't concentrate on anything else. Every time the phone rang, my heart dropped a little bit, and if it wasn't someone in my contacts, my heart dropped even more. At one point, our home phone got a call from an unknown number and I ran to go pick it up. The phone call started with "Congratulations! You've been selected..." and I thought for sure that it was CBYX. However, all I'd been selected for was a "free cruise to the Bahamas," which was a serious disappointment. During the next weeks in March I started becoming more and more hopeless about the call, and convinced myself that it probably wasn't going to come until April. With schoolwork piling up I was able to distract myself, but it was still a constant stressor in the back of my mind all the time.
When I did get the call, I immediately started feeling mixed emotions. I knew I wasn't leaving for another 5 months, but the thought of leaving all of these people that I was calling to tell about my acceptance was really sad. I can't even explain how excited I am to be living in another country, speaking a new language, living with a new family, and meeting new people, but my life in Baltimore is pretty awesome and I know that it won't be the same when I return for senior year. I'm so happy with my group of friends and all of the activities and clubs I do after school, and to think that all of that will be 4000 miles away next year is pretty crazy. By the time I come back, my friends will all have cars, boyfriends, new friends, and will have spent an entire year together while I was somewhere different. Next year, I won't be any of my friends' first choice to call when something happens to them, and I won't see them every single day in school to hear everything that is going on in their lives. All of the little things that make up my life in Baltimore, from waiting at the bus stop to all of the little cafes I go to do homework in, are not going to be there next year, which is something that is really hard for me to wrap my head around. And the fact that I have no idea where I am going to be placed or what my host family is like makes it even more nerve-racking. I can't think about the new wonderful things about my life next year because I have no idea what my life is going to be like. Instead, all I can think about is what isn't going to be there, all of he parts of my life in Baltimore that I am going to miss next year. I thought I could imagine what it would be like to be away from my parents for a year but now that it was actually happening I couldn't imagine anything. I used to think about what it would be like speaking German with new friends or taking walks where I lived, but now that I knew I was actually going to be in Germany next year I couldn't allow myself to think of anything. It was like I had a subconscious block keeping me from imagining anything since I had no idea where I was going to live or what the experience would be like.
I also started getting nervous. What would my host family be like? How will I make friends? What will happen to my friends while I'm gone? How homesick will I get? I know that people sometimes have to switch families (usually due to compatibility issues) and I am really nervous that I might not get along well with the host family I am put with. I am very independent here in Baltimore and usually don't spent a lot of time at home (I am usually out hanging with friends, at clubs, or getting some food). The little amount of time I spend at home even bothers my real family sometimes, and I have no idea how much time my host family will expect to be with me. Of course, I am going to do my best to be accommodating towards my host family and I am sure that I am going to want to spend lots of time with them to get to know them, but I am worried that I won't be given the same amount of independence or that we might not be really compatible. Also, I am very confused about how I am going to make friends in Germany. Lots of people have told me to not let people speak English with me so that I can really learn the language and become fluent as soon as possible, but I have no idea how I will be able to make friends with the little German that I know. I want to be able to speak English with them but I don't want to hinder my language learning, or force them to speak a language that they don't want to. I am going to try my best to balance my language learning with my social life, and I don't have a hard time making friends here, but I honestly have no idea what the situation is going to be like and what is going to happen while I'm over there.
It also didn't help that my friend Jo was an alternate instead of a finalist. We had been through the whole process together but now we couldn't talk about it the same way we used to. My friend, Ellsie, however is going to Switzerland with AFS so we were able to talk about how we were feeling. Now that we were accepted we were more excited in a lot of ways, but at the same time it seemed like we wanted it less now that we had it, which seems ungrateful but also makes sense. It was just that now we were facing the reality of it all and understanding everything that could go wrong or that could be challenging for us, which I don't think is necessarily a bad thing. We are still optimistic about it though, and neither of us can stop talking about it.
Also, I got the call while we were hosting a German exchange student. We went to Heidelberg last summer and I stayed with her and her family, and this year she came to visit Baltimore. This is an exchange that happens between my school (Baltimore City College) and their school in Heidelberg (Bunsen Gymnasium). The way the exchange works is that while we are in school, the German students go out as a group to explore different parts of the Baltimore/Washington DC region, and then during the afternoons and weekends they spend time with us and our families. My friends Jo, Ellsie, and Elvis also hosted students so we all hung out together a lot. The past two and a half weeks have been so much fun for me and the other hosts and we were all really sad when they left. I was very sad to see Karolin and all of the other students leave, but I am also super excited because I am really hoping that while I am in Germany with CBYX I will be able to go visit them in Heidelberg. Karolin said her family would be happy to host and so I will get to see them again also! When Karolin was here, it really showed me was how much I had grown during this past year. When I went to Heidelberg, although I wasn't shy or timid, I wasn't as confident and outgoing as I am now. I wasn't able to form relationships as fast and wasn't as comfortable initiating conversations with people I didn't know. Although I think not being in a familiar place contributed to it, I do think that I have become a more open and sociable person over this past year. Also, I wasn't using my time in Heidelberg to the fullest. I would go home and facetime my friends to tell them about my day and how amazing it was being in Germany instead of spending time with my host family and bonding with them. I wasn't exactly sure how much time I was supposed to be spending with them and because I had only taken 1 year of German I didn't feel very comfortable testing out my language skills with them because I hardly knew how to say anything. I didn't do my best to learn the language because almost everyone knew English and I didn't think I would be able to learn much in just two weeks. I made a lot of mistakes in Heidelberg and didn't use the experience the way I should've, and honestly I'm glad I went because now I know what not to do when on an exchange. I know that at first I am still going to feel tempted to facetime my friends and my parents all the time, but I am definitely going to do my best to really try to immerse myself in my family, language and culture. I feel like that experience prepared me and let me know what I should do differently this time. I am not expecting my experience to be perfect and I know that I will mess up a whole lot, but I feel like the way I've grown this year has made me ready to do something like this.
Hosting has also made me more excited to leave then I ever could've imagined. Hearing the Germans speak with each other, hearing about their lives in Heidelberg, and knowing that I will be able to speak German well enough to talk with them when I visit next year immediately makes me forget any fears that I have about leaving. I've lived in Baltimore my whole life and I've been lucky to travel as much as I have but I am so ready to do something this monumental in my life. I might have overly high expectations, but I think that a year abroad is going to totally my perspective on a lot of things. I've honestly never been this excited about anything in my life and I know that this is going to be incredibly challenging, but I can't wait to overcome those challenges and be able to have those experiences and grow from them. I don't think the feelings and emotions you have on exchange can be replicated in many other circumstances, and I am so grateful that I have the chance to experience that. I think one of the reasons that I am writing so much about the things that I am sad or nervous about is because it is harder for me to put into words the excitement I am feeling about leaving. I can easily talk about all of the things I am going to miss, but I can't really describe how thrilled I am to live a new life next year, especially one that I have no idea what it's going to be like. I also feel like a lot of the time the nervousness and the fear about leaving aren't really talked about, and I wasn't sure if I was the only one feeling this way. Sometimes I feel like I'm ungrateful or undeserving of the scholarship because of how nervous and sad I am to go, but I think it is totally natural to feel that way. Although I don't feel 100% prepared and ready to do this, it is not an opportunity I would ever in a million years pass up, and I feel like part of the point is that we're not prepared and we can't really imagine how hard it is going to be, but that we make the best out of the experience despite anything that happens.
I am so excited and honored to be accepted and I can't wait for next year! I will probably use this blog to share everything that's happening with my family, friends, and teachers. Also, congratulations to anyone else that has been accepted as a finalist or an alternate
However, during the next few weeks, Jo and I both started to calm down . We started thinking that even if we did get in we might not go just because it would be really hard and junior year seemed like an awesome year that we didn't want to miss. That week we had course selections at my school, and I started getting really sad about missing all of the interesting classes next year and not being able to get my IB diploma (even though I didn't even know if I was in or not). In reality, we both knew that we would never pass up the opportunity if we got it, but we just started understanding the reality of it all. Also, being back in school was a nice distraction because we could spend our time doing school work and not obsessing over anything exchange related. We tried to have an "exchange cleanse" where we didn't talk about it for the rest of the month but that was too hard and we abandoned that a few days later.
Then March came. Although CBYX told us that we would find out from mid to late March, Jo and I both began worrying as soon as March started. We had read on blogs that the year before AFS finalists found out on March 7th and that the year before that they found out on March 3rd. We had a theory that they tell us that they are going to call us in mid to late march and then surprise us in early March, but unfortunately that wasn't true. Also, at the interview event they said that they were trying to get interviews done earlier this year, so we thought acceptances would come earlier too. During the first week of March I was an absolute mess. I was under constant stress and I felt so much anxiety over it all I couldn't concentrate on anything else. Every time the phone rang, my heart dropped a little bit, and if it wasn't someone in my contacts, my heart dropped even more. At one point, our home phone got a call from an unknown number and I ran to go pick it up. The phone call started with "Congratulations! You've been selected..." and I thought for sure that it was CBYX. However, all I'd been selected for was a "free cruise to the Bahamas," which was a serious disappointment. During the next weeks in March I started becoming more and more hopeless about the call, and convinced myself that it probably wasn't going to come until April. With schoolwork piling up I was able to distract myself, but it was still a constant stressor in the back of my mind all the time.
When I did get the call, I immediately started feeling mixed emotions. I knew I wasn't leaving for another 5 months, but the thought of leaving all of these people that I was calling to tell about my acceptance was really sad. I can't even explain how excited I am to be living in another country, speaking a new language, living with a new family, and meeting new people, but my life in Baltimore is pretty awesome and I know that it won't be the same when I return for senior year. I'm so happy with my group of friends and all of the activities and clubs I do after school, and to think that all of that will be 4000 miles away next year is pretty crazy. By the time I come back, my friends will all have cars, boyfriends, new friends, and will have spent an entire year together while I was somewhere different. Next year, I won't be any of my friends' first choice to call when something happens to them, and I won't see them every single day in school to hear everything that is going on in their lives. All of the little things that make up my life in Baltimore, from waiting at the bus stop to all of the little cafes I go to do homework in, are not going to be there next year, which is something that is really hard for me to wrap my head around. And the fact that I have no idea where I am going to be placed or what my host family is like makes it even more nerve-racking. I can't think about the new wonderful things about my life next year because I have no idea what my life is going to be like. Instead, all I can think about is what isn't going to be there, all of he parts of my life in Baltimore that I am going to miss next year. I thought I could imagine what it would be like to be away from my parents for a year but now that it was actually happening I couldn't imagine anything. I used to think about what it would be like speaking German with new friends or taking walks where I lived, but now that I knew I was actually going to be in Germany next year I couldn't allow myself to think of anything. It was like I had a subconscious block keeping me from imagining anything since I had no idea where I was going to live or what the experience would be like.
I also started getting nervous. What would my host family be like? How will I make friends? What will happen to my friends while I'm gone? How homesick will I get? I know that people sometimes have to switch families (usually due to compatibility issues) and I am really nervous that I might not get along well with the host family I am put with. I am very independent here in Baltimore and usually don't spent a lot of time at home (I am usually out hanging with friends, at clubs, or getting some food). The little amount of time I spend at home even bothers my real family sometimes, and I have no idea how much time my host family will expect to be with me. Of course, I am going to do my best to be accommodating towards my host family and I am sure that I am going to want to spend lots of time with them to get to know them, but I am worried that I won't be given the same amount of independence or that we might not be really compatible. Also, I am very confused about how I am going to make friends in Germany. Lots of people have told me to not let people speak English with me so that I can really learn the language and become fluent as soon as possible, but I have no idea how I will be able to make friends with the little German that I know. I want to be able to speak English with them but I don't want to hinder my language learning, or force them to speak a language that they don't want to. I am going to try my best to balance my language learning with my social life, and I don't have a hard time making friends here, but I honestly have no idea what the situation is going to be like and what is going to happen while I'm over there.
It also didn't help that my friend Jo was an alternate instead of a finalist. We had been through the whole process together but now we couldn't talk about it the same way we used to. My friend, Ellsie, however is going to Switzerland with AFS so we were able to talk about how we were feeling. Now that we were accepted we were more excited in a lot of ways, but at the same time it seemed like we wanted it less now that we had it, which seems ungrateful but also makes sense. It was just that now we were facing the reality of it all and understanding everything that could go wrong or that could be challenging for us, which I don't think is necessarily a bad thing. We are still optimistic about it though, and neither of us can stop talking about it.
Also, I got the call while we were hosting a German exchange student. We went to Heidelberg last summer and I stayed with her and her family, and this year she came to visit Baltimore. This is an exchange that happens between my school (Baltimore City College) and their school in Heidelberg (Bunsen Gymnasium). The way the exchange works is that while we are in school, the German students go out as a group to explore different parts of the Baltimore/Washington DC region, and then during the afternoons and weekends they spend time with us and our families. My friends Jo, Ellsie, and Elvis also hosted students so we all hung out together a lot. The past two and a half weeks have been so much fun for me and the other hosts and we were all really sad when they left. I was very sad to see Karolin and all of the other students leave, but I am also super excited because I am really hoping that while I am in Germany with CBYX I will be able to go visit them in Heidelberg. Karolin said her family would be happy to host and so I will get to see them again also! When Karolin was here, it really showed me was how much I had grown during this past year. When I went to Heidelberg, although I wasn't shy or timid, I wasn't as confident and outgoing as I am now. I wasn't able to form relationships as fast and wasn't as comfortable initiating conversations with people I didn't know. Although I think not being in a familiar place contributed to it, I do think that I have become a more open and sociable person over this past year. Also, I wasn't using my time in Heidelberg to the fullest. I would go home and facetime my friends to tell them about my day and how amazing it was being in Germany instead of spending time with my host family and bonding with them. I wasn't exactly sure how much time I was supposed to be spending with them and because I had only taken 1 year of German I didn't feel very comfortable testing out my language skills with them because I hardly knew how to say anything. I didn't do my best to learn the language because almost everyone knew English and I didn't think I would be able to learn much in just two weeks. I made a lot of mistakes in Heidelberg and didn't use the experience the way I should've, and honestly I'm glad I went because now I know what not to do when on an exchange. I know that at first I am still going to feel tempted to facetime my friends and my parents all the time, but I am definitely going to do my best to really try to immerse myself in my family, language and culture. I feel like that experience prepared me and let me know what I should do differently this time. I am not expecting my experience to be perfect and I know that I will mess up a whole lot, but I feel like the way I've grown this year has made me ready to do something like this.
Hosting has also made me more excited to leave then I ever could've imagined. Hearing the Germans speak with each other, hearing about their lives in Heidelberg, and knowing that I will be able to speak German well enough to talk with them when I visit next year immediately makes me forget any fears that I have about leaving. I've lived in Baltimore my whole life and I've been lucky to travel as much as I have but I am so ready to do something this monumental in my life. I might have overly high expectations, but I think that a year abroad is going to totally my perspective on a lot of things. I've honestly never been this excited about anything in my life and I know that this is going to be incredibly challenging, but I can't wait to overcome those challenges and be able to have those experiences and grow from them. I don't think the feelings and emotions you have on exchange can be replicated in many other circumstances, and I am so grateful that I have the chance to experience that. I think one of the reasons that I am writing so much about the things that I am sad or nervous about is because it is harder for me to put into words the excitement I am feeling about leaving. I can easily talk about all of the things I am going to miss, but I can't really describe how thrilled I am to live a new life next year, especially one that I have no idea what it's going to be like. I also feel like a lot of the time the nervousness and the fear about leaving aren't really talked about, and I wasn't sure if I was the only one feeling this way. Sometimes I feel like I'm ungrateful or undeserving of the scholarship because of how nervous and sad I am to go, but I think it is totally natural to feel that way. Although I don't feel 100% prepared and ready to do this, it is not an opportunity I would ever in a million years pass up, and I feel like part of the point is that we're not prepared and we can't really imagine how hard it is going to be, but that we make the best out of the experience despite anything that happens.
I am so excited and honored to be accepted and I can't wait for next year! I will probably use this blog to share everything that's happening with my family, friends, and teachers. Also, congratulations to anyone else that has been accepted as a finalist or an alternate