District Conference!

Hello fellow Earthlings,

It's already the end of April! Where oh where did the time go? A bit has happened this month with school and Rotary stuff, and there's only about 3 months and three weeks until I leave for Ecuador! I still don't have my city, which is starting to drive me a bit nuts, but I'll hopefully know that within the next few weeks. :)

Hmm...let's see. I suppose I'll talk about the events this month in chronological order, which means that I'll start with the 10th. This month on the 10th, I had a meeting at Applebee's with a Rotarian named Gary Sobatta from the Novi Rotary Club and the president from my sponsor club, Paul. Gary has been to Ecuador quite a few times to work on a major clean water project (Agua Limpia) and my sponsor club representative, Lorrie, set the meeting up for me to learn about Ecuador and the project. I learned a lot during the meeting, and it was interesting to hear first hand facts about Ecuador. :)

Next, on the 17th, I had my National Honor Society induction! This doesn't have anything to do with exchange, but I thought it was worth mentioning since it was an exciting thing that happened this month, too.

Now, here goes the really long portion of my blog post, so bear with me:

Saturday was the district 6380 conference in Rochester, Mi, that I and all of the other inbounds and outbounds attended. It was from 7:30 a.m. to about 5:30 p.m., and the whole day was so much fun! First, when we arrived at 7:30, after a bit of confusion about what we were supposed to do, we all walked to the fire department down the street to eat breakfast. I sat with a few of the other outbounds, and we were served pancakes and sausage by firemen and boyscouts; one of our "servers" was the most adorable 7 or 8 year old boyscout ever, haha. Everyone there was so nice and it was a really good start to the day. Then, we all walked back to the Royal Park Hotel and went to the memorial service to honor all of the Rotarians that have passed away throughout the year. Next, we went into another room and had a really fun and interesting session with Alan Monroe about the Shelter Box Program. There, all of the inbounds and outbounds split up into tables and I was at a table with Albena (outbound to Russia), Charline (inbound from France) and Rina (inbound from Japan). We then learned what Shelter Boxes are (they are basically big bins that contain everything necessary for families to survive if their homes were destroyed by natural disasters, such as tents, water filters, etc.) and learned about how much they help families in need. We also learned that Shelter Boxes are really hard to get through customs, so we participated in a group activity where all of us had to deal with "crabby customs officers" and work together to get all of the Shelter Boxes through customs. After that, we were split back into our groups, and did a exercise that resembled what Shelter Box deliverers do to get to know each other when they are deployed on a mission and don't have a lot of time to get to know one another (which was getting all of your team members through a small rope without touching it). The moral of that exercise was that in order for the Shelter Box delivery mission to be a success, all members need to work together and have a plan. Overall, the Shelter Box portion of the day was a lot of fun and I learned so much about how natural disasters affect families, and how there aren't always enough Shelter Boxes for all of the families in need. For anyone who is reading this and would like more information or to help, please go to  http://www.shelterboxusa.org/

              (Here's a pic of all of us in the Shelter Box session with Alan Monroe)

After the Shelter Box Program, we had lunch from about 12 to 1. I sat with about 5 or 6 Rotarians, as well as another exchange student. Lunch went really well, and the Rotarians asked a lot of questions about the  exchange program because they weren't very familiar with it. After lunch, all of the inbound students gave a two minute speech about how exchange affected them, and it was really cool to hear them talk about their exchange experiences. It was also helpful, since I'll probably have to do something like that in Ecuador. Also, after the exchange students gave their speeches, we ended up raising over $2,000, which was enough for two Shelter Boxes! Woo!

Next, all of us exchange students went outside to a pretty garden area and we met with some interact students, and did an activity with them about how to spread the word about rotary/interact. That lasted for around a half hour, and then all of the inbounds/outbounds put on our red End Polio Now rain ponchos and handed them out to Rotarians as well, and made our way to downtown Rochester to do a flash mob type thing with everyone attending the conference, which turned out really well. Then, we walked back to the hotel and took a big group photo holding up our End Polio hand symbol thing (I'm pretty sure I'm not seen in most of the pictures because a tall guy was standing in front of me, but I made sure to hold my hand up high so I could be in the picture somewhere. :D) If it gets posted on our district website, I'll steal it and put it on here. I don't have a camera at the moment, so I couldn't take any pictures, but I'll get one soon and definitely take a bunch at the next orientation in July. :)

(Okay, I got it off of the website! Our Polio Freeze group photo, woo! You can see the top of my head if you look closely; I'm in the back row on the grass in the gap between the two people standing on the wall. If you can see the hand that looks like it doesn't belong to anyone, it's mine :P haha) 

After the Polio Freeze picture, unfortunately it was time for all of us to say our goodbyes and go home. I of course didn't want to see the day end, though, because I had so much fun hanging out with everyone. But, now I'm looking forward to the next orientation, July 12-14, as well as my departure (exact date TBD, but it will be around Aug. 21 according to IYWT).

Well, I think that's all for now folks. I know that this post was quite the eyeful, so props to you if you read all of that! I think next time will be a vlog, so I can get in the habit of doing them; hopefully it will be soon, because that will mean that I'll know my city then. :D Oh, and I added a few little trinkets around the page, like a translator to the right and an email follower thing at the bottom if your interested in making use of those. :)

Until Host Club Time,

Steph

Vlog #1

Hello again,

I know it is earlier than I said I'd post, but I made my first vlog and posted it on youtube so I thought I'd share it here. I tried to post it here as well, but the file is too big and I can't figure out how to shrink it. :P So, here's the link if you're interested! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCoRGfxNpHQ

It's basically a summary of everything that I already wrote about in previous blog entries, so if you're new to my blog and want to skip all of the long posts below, well, here you go. :)

Now, until next time (district conference or finding out my host club!),

Stephanie

Orientation #2

Hello all! Sorry it has been so long since my last post, but there hasn't been much worth posting about except the orientation from last weekend (March 23). I'm still anxiously waiting to find out my host club so I know where in Ecuador I'll be staying, which means that I'm constantly checking my email and, therefore, constantly being disappointed. But, on the bright side, I received information from my travel agent at It's Your World Travel and set up an account on the travel agency's website, which means I can now start filling out the required paperwork in order to obtain my visa. :) Also, the website said that that I'm expected to arrive in Ecuador on August 21, which means that I leave in approximately four months and 20 days! It feels like just yesterday that I found out about Rotary and was accepted into the program, so it feels surreal that I leave next season. (I know no one uses the phrase "next season," but it makes it sound really close, which it is :P) It's crazy and exciting at the same time.

Okay, now the orientation. :) It took place in Ypsilanti at the Ypsilanti Free Methodist Church and included another district, 6600. The main focus of this orientation was to get familiar with the travel agency we are working with and its procedures, so a representative from It's Your World Travel spoke for the majority of the day. Most of it was dry facts that I already knew, but he told a few funny stories and shared some country specific information which was nice.  I was told that it would be a bit more difficult to get my visa than students going to most other countries because I had a lot of specific paperwork to fill out, but that's okay because Ecuador's worth it. ;) Then, a member from my district's "committee" spoke for around an hour about cultural differences that we may notice while we are gone, and we started by comparing the differences between the two countries in my district, the USA and Canada. One of the bigger differences people noticed was definitely the dialect (Canadians say "ay" and "aboot" :P). Then, another member of the district committee gave a funny presentation about the stages that exchange students normally go through throughout their year abroad. Lunch was somewhere in between all of that, which was fun because I sat with a couple of the other outbounds that I haven't seen since the last orientation. Then, a woman from my district briefly spoke to us about the district conference, which is coming up on April 27 in Rochester, Mi. All of the inbounds and outbounds will be there, and it sounds like it will be fun. After that, there won't be anymore events or orientations until the last orientation from July 12-14 in Westerville, Ohio, which will include all of the districts in Ohio-Erie. 

Lately I've been thinking about beginning video blogs to post here and on youtube occasionally in place of  regular blog entries, because from reading other exchange blogs, I've noticed that most exchange students get too busy to blog while they are in their host countries, and I think vlogs will be a quicker alternative to blogs when I don't have much time. I'll mostly do the vlogs while I'm in Ecuador, but I'll probably do one or two while I'm here first. :)

Until next time (which will either be after the district conference or when I find out my host club!),

Stephanie

Orientation!

Why hello there to the two or three people that actually read my blog! ;)

Where to start...Well, pretty much all of last week was kinda boring. I didn't really do much besides schoolwork/act prep after school. I have a feeling that the rest of winter is just going to slowly drag on....but, enough of my complaining. :D

Orientation was last weekend, and it went really well! A lot was packed into 2 days though, let me tell ya. I was practically dead on the ride home on Sunday.  I shall start with Saturday morning:

I awoke before the crack of dawn at the dark and early time of 5 am, and left my house at about 6 with my dad pestering me to get out of the door because I was "running late." (I was on schedule though, mind you. He told me we'd leave at 6:15!) Then, we got to the Ambassador Bridge around 25 minutes later (we didn't end up taking the tunnel. Boo.) and drove in the cornfields of Canada for about 2 hours until we got to the place where my orientation was-I think it was called Blenheim District High School, but I can't remember for sure. And when I say we drove through the cornfields of Canada the whole way, I mean it. There was nothing there. Just fields, windmills, and a few trees here and there. But hey, on the bright side, no traffic ;) Anyways, we got to the high school, and we were pretty much the first ones there so we just sat in the parking lot waiting for someone to come so that we knew we were at the right place. Then, when they did, we got inside and registered and I started talking to some of the fellow outbounds there until the leaders of the district exchange program (I'm not sure what to call them. I know there's a name for them. Oh yeah, I'll call them the exchange committee!) started talking to us and giving us a run down of how the day would go. We started off doing an ice breaker, which was cool because it wasn't the kind of ice breaker where you have to stand up and "tell a little about yourself." For the ice breaker, we were each given a sheet of paper with a list of interests for each outbound on it, and we had to go up and meet everyone and match their name with their interest. That took about ten minutes, and then we got right to business. ;)

We were given a folder, a bag, and a big fancy binder, and inside the folder were a bajillion papers with information that someone from the "exchange committee" briefly went over. Then, the parents and students split up for separate sessions. All of the students went to the library, where some members of the committee talked to us about the upcoming events that we have to attend within the next few months, when we should be finding out other information about our exchange such as our host district and city, our "homework" assignments, and the new insurance policy. Then, we were given scenarios about problems that could occur in our host countries and had to discuss amongst ourselves how we would deal with them. I learned quite a bit during that part, which was good.

Then, everyone went to the cafeteria and we had lunch. I didn't really eat much because I wasn't a big fan of the options, but I had a good time talking to everyone. After that, the committee basically just talked about stuff that I mostly already knew so I kinda stopped paying attention. They gave us directions to go get our blazer fittings, and us Americans got to go first :P Haha. The girls got fitted at a store called Cleo Ricki's in a mall in Chatham, which I thought was pretty stylish. :) Our pants are black and I our blazers are supposed to be a mediumish blue instead of navy blue like I thought, which is nice. After we finished getting fitted for our blazers, the orientation was officially over and the swimming/bowling/skiing event started.

I got dropped off at a funky building, which is where everyone attending (outbounds, inbounds, rebounds-pretty much anyone who wanted to go) dropped their stuff off and ate dinner. For the first few hours, everyone just kinda hungout, talked, listened to music, played games, whatever they wanted. It was pretty fun, and I met a lot of new people. Then, we walked to a pool called Gable Ree's Rotary Pool (I think that's the name..once again, so horrible with names) and we went swimming for around 1 or 2 hours. I had a lot of fun, and that was probably my favorite part of the night. Then, we went to a bowling alley, which was pretty funky. Instead of having 12 pins at the end of the lane, there were 5, and the bowling ball was tiny and didn't have finger holes. I'm not really into bowling, so that was eh, but it was still pretty cool. We were there for around 2 more hours, and then we went to the ice skating rink. I didn't have skates, so I borrowed a pair from one of the other exchangers. Skating was fun, but I wasn't really good at it! I felt accomplished at the end, though, because I didn't fall like I thought I would. :D We got back to the main building at around midnight, and everyone just kinda hung around until lights out, which was at 1:30 am. We had to get up at around 7:30 am the next day, which was crazy! My dad picked me up at 10 am, and I was extremely exhausted the whole way home!

Overall, it was a fun weekend! I'm excited for the next orientation, which is on March 23. It's a multi district orientation, and I think we are combining with district 6600 for this one, but I'm not 100% sure. Anywho, I'll keep you guys posted if anything exciting happens between now and then! :)

Until next time,

Stephanie

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

Here I Go Again on my Own

Hey, I'm Stephanie! I live in Michigan, I'm a sophmore in high school, and I was recently accepted to be a foreign exchange student next year through Rotary. :)

I decided to start blogging during the year leading up to my exchange, so I can post about the process of being an exchange student with Rotary, everywhere from sponsor clubs and interviews to orientations and country placements, as well as everything in between. 

It all started for me in the beginning of my eighth grade year, when I saw an advertisement for ActionQuest summer programs on youtube. I spent forever on their website in awe thinking that their summer programs were the coolest thing in the world, only for my dreams to come crashing down when I realized that they would cost a teeny bit more than I got in my allowance. I spent awhile longer online looking for a cheaper alternative, and...voila! I found out that there were actually really neat year long programs for high school students to live with another family and attend school in another country, and I was sold. I've always been extremely excited to learn and help around the world, and this experience would give me the opportunity to do both.

It wasn't exactly easy to find a great program at first, but after alot of online searching, I found Rotary, and I knew that it was by far the best program. After getting my dad on board and sending out dozens of e-mails to a bunch different potential sponsor clubs in my area (since my city doesn't have a Rotary Club), I got a response from my now sponsor club, and my club interview happened that weekend. It was very relaxed. My dad and I met with my sponsor club's President and YEO, and we had lunch at a nearby National Coney Island. They were extremely nice, and I definitely shouldn't have been as nervous as I was. I then spent forever filling out the extensive Rotary application, which required four copies, and had the district interviews on November 10th.

The interviews weren't as relaxed this time, but, again, I shouldn't have been as worried as I was. There were around fifteen other applicants, and we each had to give a two minute speech about our families, ourselves, our communities, our sponsor clubs, and why we want to be exchange students, and then we waited for a few hours until our scheduled interview times. The committee interviewed both me and my parents, and I was interviewed first.  I was taken into a small room with five interviewers sitting at a table (one was a past exchanger), and they went around the table three times taking turns asking me questions. I had prepared for all of the questions beforehand, except one, so the questions were pretty easy. The interview is honestly a bit of blur for me because I was so nervous, but I was mostly asked questions about situations in my host country, such as "How would you go about making friends in your host country?" or "What would you do if your host sibling hated you because you were taking away their friends and their attention from their parents?" They also asked questions about what I hoped to gain from my exchange, my reactions to challenges the inbound students are facing after speaking with them, and the question I had absolutely NO idea how to answer, "How would you feel if you were placed in a country where women were treated as inferior to men?" I sort of mumbled my way through that one, and ended somewhere along the lines of "That's a good question, I don't know."  I walked away feeling fairly confident, though, because I met a rebound who said that our district usually accepts a lot of people, which is something that I didn't know beforehand. I then got my acceptance call two days later on Monday, and it felt like all of my hard work had finally paid off and a weight had been lifted off of my shoulders. :)

I should be finding out my country around mid-January! The district that I'm in had us submit our top ten choices, and mine were: Spain, Ecuador, Peru, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, and Austria. I can't wait to find out my country, and I would love to go pretty much anywhere. I would have the same amount of excitement to get my last choice as I would to get my first choice.  

My next post should be around the time that I find out my country placement.  Two more months, woo!

Until next time,

Stephanie