Premature Hope

Hello everyone,

My name is Alicia. :) If you want to know more about me as a person check out the profile. Right now I’m only thinking of one thing, foreign exchange.

Once upon a time, there was a teenager. She was sitting on her couch after a tiring day of school, doing normal teenager things, when her mother came home. She gave her mom the appropriate, “Hey,” and went back to her normal teenage life. After a couple of minutes, the girl’s mother came back into the room with some papers in her hands. The mom sat down next to the girl and revealed the content of her papers. The very first thing the girl read was, “American Students and their Parents. Change Your Life. Change Your World.”

Doesn’t it sound a little like Cinderella? Of course, I immediately grabbed the sheets and kept on reading. The papers were information about a scholarship my mother’s company, Chevron, is giving to lucky sons and daughters of their employees. At first, I thought, “Another college thing,” but than, my common sense kicked in and I processed what I saw. Photos of people of various ethnic backgrounds and the target title of “American” students. Foreign Exchange Baby!

The exchange program is called Youth for Understanding, YFU for short. I immediately started the application process. The application turned out to be roughly 16 pages long. It required a teacher recommendation that my English teacher filled out for me. (Made me sound like an angel.) A counselor approval was also required along with a couple of essay questions. Since I would only be applying for a full scholarship, I would technically be going to another country for free. (I would do that application and be happy about it. At least, that’s what I kept telling myself.)

In the end I ended up applying for 4 scholarships. The Chevron Scholarship offered a wide variety of countries. The others only offered the Discover Japan Program.
•Chevron Corporation Scholarship
oDiscover Japan – Summer
oDiscover Greece – Summer
oDiscover Germany – Summer
•Mazda/Nationwide Community
oDiscover Japan – Summer
•Kikkoman National Scholarship
oDiscover Japan – Summer
•Toyota Motor Sales USA
oDiscover Japan – Summer

I turned in my application a day before the final post marketed date, which was January 5th, 2010. I cut the deadline a little close, but the end result was the same. I could now be a potential recipient of a scholarship to go to another country. Epic, right?

February 17, I came home to find that there was a message waiting for me from YFU. The message was from the interviewer! Basically, it stated that she, Kerry Bremhorst, would like to set a date for my interview. I called her the next day as soon as I got home from school. The meeting was set at Starbucks for the next day.

That was a bad day at school for me. Wow, was I nervous! I kept asking my friends all day, “What should I do? Got any advice? What should I wear?” In the end, I went to Starbucks wearing skinny jeans, cute flats, and a pretty blouse underneath my pea coat. I got a drink, which was not the smartest thing to do, all the sugar added to my anxiety, especially, when Kerry was 15 minutes late. Don’t get me wrong that’s not bad, but 15 minutes is a long time think about what could go wrong and finish a highly caffeinated drink.

The interview started off pretty comical. I sat right next to the door, so when she walked in looking straight ahead she didn’t see me. She immediately began asking the two girls in the lounge chairs “Is one of you, Alicia?” I got up, went over, and called out to her, but she didn’t hear me. I think I startled her a little bit when I tapped on her shoulder. Kerry was really nice though and turned out to be the District Director.

The questions were along the lines of:
•What do you think you can teach your host family about America?
•What’s an obstacle you have had to overcome?
•What’s your family life like?

Things like that. She said that I interviewed very well, a couple of times, so I guess I did well. :) The interview mostly determines what kind of family you will be placed in if you get the scholarship. Therefore, I don’t think it really has any weight in the decision for who gets the scholarships. All in all, it felt great to get it over with.

I have joined a group on Facebook called YFU Japan ‘2010 Summer Exchange Program. The people in the group have all applied to go to Japan on scholarships as well. They seem to be the only ones who really get how torturous waiting can be. It has helped knowing that I’m not the only one going crazy.

It is currently April 20, 2010. The scholarship applicants are supposed to be told of their status Mid to Late April. Now, only time will tell. I really hope my next post will contain lots of exclamation marks and positive cheer. My fingers are crossed.