Part of my blog is telling prospective AFS students, especially sophomores, what exchange is like. Well, here's a big thing: WAITING. Just to give you a little timeline....
In 2010 my sister had a friend who was an AFS student from Norway. She got our family to volunteer and through her we learned a lot about the program. The idea of exchange is planted in my mind.
I decide that America sucks and I can't stay here a moment longer; I'm going abroad!
2011 Everyday I research things on exchange. I go to
afsusa.org and
http://www.afsusa.org/student-exchange-blog/ and receive a great amount of help form the program's volunteers and students. I tell my parents about it and they jokingly humor me.
I decide, mostly because of Jake in Madrid's blog and Zorro, to go to Spain, (only after waiting awhile and relying on time to help me choose between France and Spain.) I submit my preliminary application and start attending online sessions with my parents. They still don't realize the seriousness of my intentions.
My parents get that, oh crap, our daughter is going away next year. I begin the long process of my full application in August.
Dear AFS students at this stage, don't give up. It's hard and frustrating, and almost nothing seems to go right, but applying is ultimately rewarding. Don't let this stage deter you from going abroad.
I submit my full Application in November. It seems like I'll never hear back, but finally, after lots of nervous waiting, AFS tells me I have to do some changes to my app on February 1st(just getting a missing signature and changing some health forms.) I re-submit on February 16th. A couple weeks later I have to re-submit again. This didn't worry me because basically every AFSer has to do this a few times.
March 5th I get accepted to AFS Spain! I have to wait a few months to hear about a host family, possibly until the day before departure on September 1st.
Now I'm waiting until I get to go. And it's AWFUL. I just want to go already. I'm prepared, I'm anxious, I'm sick of America, and what really kills me is that a few AFS Spain members that I connected to through Facebook have already received their host families! Those lucky-ducks who don't have to wait for that, at least. Now I'm up to thinking that the Spanish host families don't like me because of an ugly cover photo, a misleading letter, or the fact that I'm only 14, 15 when in Spain, and that no one's going to choose me and I'll just have to stay in America for the rest of my life and colleges won't accept me because I have nothing that sets me apart from the other students and my friends will think I'm a liar because I'll still be in America when I
promised I'd be gone next year and they'll say it was a really nasty prank and I'll become a boring uninteresting person who everyone hates and I won't even get to write a blog! Whew!
Dear AFS students, don't think like me. All the waiting...and waiting...and waiting...has driven me crazy.
