Country Placement!

Hey Everyone!

It feels like forever since my last post, but I'm excited to finally kick off my blog with some amazing news.....I'm going to Ecuador! I got the call last night from my district's Outbound Chair, and I'm totally stoked because it was my second choice. I started doing some research on it yesterday (and a bit more today, snowday, woo!) and I really think that it's the perfect country for me. It's so naturally beautiful, traditional, and unique, and plus, Spanish is the only language that I can semi-speak besides English, so it'll be good not to have to start a new language from scratch and instead just work on continuing to build my Spanish skills. Rotary definitely didn't disappoint. ;) (Then again, they wouldn't have even disappointed had they told me I was going to somewhere crazy like Iceland or South Africa :P) 

I also found out a few weeks ago that my first orientation is this Saturday, February 2. Then, after the orientation there's a swimming/bowling/ice skating event for all of the outbounds and inbounds in my district from the 2nd to the 3rd, so I'm excited for that. It will be cool to meet everyone and see what countries everybody will be going to. I doubt that anyone else in my district will be going to Ecuador, though, because the entire multi-district that I'm in (Ohio-Erie), only had around 2-3 spots for Ecuador out of nearly 100 kids, so the other one or two spots probably went to people from other districts in Ohio-Erie (confusing, I know, I'm still trying to figure Rotary out myself :P). I think my district (6380) has around 15 other outbounds, so it's not too big or too small :) The orientation's going to be in Canada, though, since 6380 is half in Canada and half in Michigan, so that means waking up at five a.m. to cross the bridge (or maybe some cool underwater tunnel thing that connects Michigan with Canada. I've never been on it, but it sounds pretty sweet. Then again, I'm amazed by the strangest things...:P)

Other than the big country news and information about the first orientation, not much has been going on lately. School has been pretty rough and I've been kinda stressed lately, so finding out that I'm going to Ecuador is really just what I needed. I'll be posting again in a week or so to let you all know how the orientation weekend went! :D 

Until next time,

Stephanie