#year exchange

[cherrylia-blog]

Exchange student thoughts

Am I the only one out here who can barely care about anything else than going on exchange in about 3 months?! School is almost over and finals are approaching, I have my last projects due in a really short time and all I can think about is hopping on that plane and have a year to myself: to discover, make friends, learn a bunch of stuff, eat DELICIOUS food, hang out at different and cool places… All at once, I feel great about experiencing something that few get to experience, to finally be independent and find myself somewhere else, but I’m also wondering about how things will change when I’ll get back, how I’ll change especially, knowing that things won’t ever be the same as they are now. If that’s a good thing or not, that depends and is yet to be discovered.. It makes me think about each of our small worlds, that mean nothing but everything at the same time…

I want time to fly past school and summer and it to take me to my host country. Still, I don’t want it to because that’ll mean that my exchange is finally starting and there’s no turning back! This, meaning that I will eventually have to come back home. Maybe I won’t want to! From the moment I get on the plane, time will be ticking 11 months away and I’ll have the responsibility to make it count.

I want to appreciate what comes before I leave, but I find myself thinking: “maybe I’d like to sleep through those times”. I want my last summer to be successful: get a job to have all that extra money overseas, hang out with my friends, become a better me and fix my ever-so-tiring habits, maybe get that guy I really like even if I know it can’t last..

I want to ace my exams and zoom into summer, but I just lack motivation right now and want to sleep all the time. Everything around me at the moment is just a blur in my mind and since the last couple of months, I’ve only been thinking about my selfish desires. I know it is wrong and bad, so I truly hope you guys can relate, but the only thing keeping me moving is my departure abroad and for some reason, I blame my actions and feelings on my upcoming exchange.

I just want to go so bad I’m scared to miss out on great things that could happen. However, if I stop thinking about my exchange, I’m scared that I won’t be ready enough…

I don’t really know how to conclude this post, so I’ll just give a big and loving shout out to y'all exchange students out there : those who’re about to leave on exchange and those who’re about to return home. I wonder if anyone feels the same as me?

[cherrylia-blog]

Application process

Surprisingly, applying for exchange wasn’t that hard! 

Here are the steps I took to get into the RYE

1. Contact the organization. If you don’t do this, forget it unless your school approaches you with Rotary because unlike other programs, the information isn’t up all over the Internet.

2. Preliminary application form. It was about a page long with questions about yourself (hobbies, countries you’ve visited, contact info, extracurricular activities, etc.). I sent a copy of that to the Rotary person and got ``ready`` for my interview.

3. Interview. This was the part when you get chosen to be part of the RYE!!! It really isn’t that hard. All I can tell you is be confident, be yourself, don’t lie, try to get involved in your school to tell your interviewers about how much you love volunteering (hehehe), get familiar with international issues (I was asked questions about problems in the world) and smile!!! My friend, going to Slovakia, was asked a bunch of questions about the Canadian government (the type you cram in your heard for a civics test) while I wasn’t... JUST IN CASE you didn’t pay attention in civics, please try to get informed a little, you never know what questions you’d have to answer. But really, other than that, DO NOT STRESS :DD I promise it’s super chill.

4. After my interview, I got an e-mail telling me I was accepted into the program *throws confetti*. Then, I had to fill out this long a** application form!!! I had to go to the doctor’s, get a full body exam, get my missing vaccine and TB test, go to the dentist, get a copy of my report card and do all of that fun stuff. The long application part is rather easy. Just leave it to your parents ;) It’s basically a bunch of technical info you need to provide Rotary so they can send it to your host country and make sure everything is 200 for you ^^

5. Good job mate, you are officially a Rotary outbound student for the next year!!!

[cherrylia-blog]

My story so far pt.1

今日は! 

**Disclaimer** I am only stating my personal opinions and stating my own story. I do not mean to make any program look bad but for the sake of helping out lovelies seeking info, (since all the blogs I’ve read didn’t contain the exact information I was looking for), I will name organizations and talk about my experience with them. 

Alrighty, let’s start from the beginning. My first post ``First Steps`` talks about the way I became interested in an exchange and how I got into doing research. Hence, I will tell you how I ended up choosing Rotary for my exchange. 

When I first started reading blogs, and making my own research, I specifically searched for ``Japan exchange programs``. I looked over many websites. Some of them were for university students, some were only short-term exchanges, some were only offered for the US... Also, some websites were just sketchy so I didn’t bother looking deeply into them. Basically, the three organizations I got an e-mail reply from (I hadn’t contacted Rotary at the time) were ASSE, YES Canada and AFS. As I got the reply from ASSE, I had read bad stories about it and just to be safe I didn’t reply to the e-mail I got to not get further engaged.

I was thinking about going with YES Canada but the reply time to e-mails was too long. I just felt like they didn’t take me seriously and didn’t want to pair up with an organization who didn’t actually really care for their e-mails.. AFS became my first choice but as all the programs I looked into cost between 10 and 15 thousand dollars (AFS being the most expensive one), I had no choice but to find a job and work my butt off for the next 10 months to pay for my exchange.

Why didn’t my parents want to pay? Simply because they didn’t get why the programs were so expensive...

HOWEVER, when I had contacted AFS, the lovely lady I talked with informed me that there was only one spot left for the year I wanted to go. Mind you that I wanted to go for March 2016, having in mind going with AFS. Before I even started looking for a job to pay for the 15 grand, I remembered Rotary! The only reason why I hadn’t contacted them at first was because it seemed like an untouchable organization (not a lot of information about exchange with them can be found online)... I still took my chance : I looked online for a Rotary Club in my city and contacted two clubs in my region by e-mail and on Facebook. 

Little did I know, Rotary would solve all my problems! Stay tuned for part 2 ;)