#5 Regional PDO

Konichiwa!

I had my Regional Pre-Departure Orientation on Saturday :).

(Sadly, I totally forgot to take pictures, which really sucks because I will most likely never see the people I met at my PDO ever again. But, I had a great time. I’ll try to capture the few memories using this blog.)

So, my orientation was located at a high school in a town not far from San Francisco. This orientation was for American and International students in the area. This means there were people from the US who were being prepared for their departure to another country and there were also people who had come from other countries, studied in the US, and were being prepared to go home.

My mom and I got to the high school at around 10:45, so 15 minutes early. There weren’t that many people there… People really didn’t start flooding in until 11. Anyways, it was awkward in the beginning which is what tends to happen when people don’t know each other.

The parents were eventually kicked out and the American students were separated from the International ones. We all introduced ourselves and we included the country we were going to. It was kind of funny because as we went around the circle a pattern developed it went like this, Japan, Japan, Japan, France, Japan, Japan, Japan, Thailand, Japan, Japan, Japan, Sweden, Japan, Japan, Japan, France. Basically, there was a LOT of Japan. Haha. There was a brother and a sister that came in late and they were both going to India for a year. I thought that was kind of cool.

I have to say the YFU volunteers were very unorganized. The whole thing was poorly planned out. (I had to email and my mom had to call to figure out where the thing was in the first place.) They didn’t really know what to do, so we basically had a question/answer thing going on the whole time. One volunteer was a YFU alumni, she had gone on exchange for a year in Japan when she was a sophomore in high school. The other volunteer was a man who goes to Japan on business all the time. So, it was kind of lucky for those of us who were going to Japan.

We had lunch. I just started introducing myself to everyone and eventually we had a huge circle of people eating lunch and talking about everything. That was one of the best parts. We all got to talk about our excitement, what we were looking forward to, our fears, and just everything else that was going on. It was pretty cool getting to know everyone. I even met Minny! We talked on our YFU Japan ‘2010 Summer Exchange Program Group on Facebook. :)

After the lunch we did our question/answer thing again with our YFU volunteers. The questions ranged from, “How much can our suitcase weigh?” to “Will we be going to school?” I knew most of the information, having researched YFU thoroughly beforehand, but hearing it again was reassuring.

The parents came back around 3. They were separated from us, where they got to do their own informational meeting. While they were in their meeting we played games, the international students were there too. It was really cool to meet them. I met guys from Germany, Chile, Lafia, Lithuania, and Georgia. There were girls too but I didn’t meet them, there was one from Germany, I think.

Overall, I had a good time. The volunteers were nice, a little unprepared, but nice; the American exchangers were cool; and the International exchangers were interesting.


Update:

I got host family gifts after the PDO. I got a couple t-shirts from San Francisco and some Ghirardelli chocolates. I might make an album and a mixed CD but that might be a little much… I still don’t know who my host family is or where I will be staying. So, I still have that to look forward to. :)

I got my departure date! I will be driving down to Berkeley on June 11th, than flying to Tokyo on June 14th. I return on July 27th, a day after school starts. Hmm.

#4 Chevron Luncheon

Hola! (or I should probably be saying Konichiwa!)

So I’ve been really busy this week. I’ve been scouring my way through many books on Japan. The one I am currently reading is called Japan Made Easy. Haha, yeah right… I feel so unprepared. I’ll definitely try my best though.

Anyway, since I have been so busy I didn’t get to tell you that I went to a luncheon hosted by Chevron for all of the scholarship recipients in my area!

It was pretty interesting. The night before the luncheon my dad took me out and bought me some fancy (but not too fancy) clothes so I could wear something nice. :) I’m glad he did because there was not one person there wearing jeans.

The funny thing was that there were only three YFU students there. All of the rest were REACH scholarship recipients, which is a college scholarship. The whole time people were coming up to me and my parents, asking which college I will be going to and what I’m going to major in. Eventually, we all made introductions over the microphone but not before I repeated the message a thousand times. Haha. I was pretty amazed when the introductions started. All of the students in that room must have had a 4.0 or higher. The schools they were naming off were top of the line (Harvard, Princeton, UCLA). It kind of made me feel special that I got to be there too. Not only was there a lot of brain power in the room, the chairman of Chevron came and made a speech. Talk about feeling special… I mean to top it all off they had strawberry shortcake!

It was a good day. :)

#3 Prom or Packet

Hey Guys!

Yesterday was my Junior Prom. :)

Yesterday was also the day that I got my Winner’s Packet!
(This was me getting ready 2 hours before my prom.)

Hmm… I wonder which one I was more excited for… Prom or Packet? Prom or Packet… Winner’s Packet won hands down! Haha.

The packet gave me official confirmation that I will be going to JAPAN! Woot!

It also had a Parent Handbook, a World Traveler’s Handbook, and a book containing the recollections of an exchange student that went to Japan in 1978.

Don't forget the legit YFU t-shirt!

For now I’m just waiting for information regarding the dates of my Pre-Departure Orientation and my actual departure date. I probably won’t know who my host family is for a while since I just found out I was going.

While I'm waiting I will study Japanese and read through all of my Winner’s Packet material. :)

#2 I'm Going to ?

Hey guys!

I’m just so happy that I get to continue blogging! If I didn’t get the scholarship, I wouldn’t have gone abroad. If I didn’t go abroad, I wouldn’t have had anything to write about. I mean, come on, this blog is called 2010 YFU Exchange. So, yay for blogging! Haha.

So, it has been a couple of days since I got The Email. At the moment, I am waiting for my official Winner’s Packet that contains all the details of my trip. Of course, I have been shamelessly running out to the mailbox everyday. :)

As I said before, I got the Chevron Corporation Scholarship (I never get tired of saying that.). With that particular scholarship I got to choose where I wanted to go. My first choice was the Discover Japan program, second was the Discover Greece program, and the third was the Discover Germany program.

Now, The Email told me that I got the scholarship. (Woohoo!) It did not tell me, however, if I got my first choice for the program. Will I be living on one of the many islands of Japan? Going to Greece, where the nature of Western civilization was created? Or maybe I will go to Germany, the former home of the famous Albert Einstein.

Who knows? I’ll tell you one thing. I can’t wait to find out. :)

Peace cannot be kept by force; it can only be achieved by understanding.
–Albert Einstein

#1 The Email

Hey everyone,

It has been 3 weeks since I last posted anything. Trust me, I know, the wait has been excruciatingly long. I was supposed to know if I had received a scholarship by the end of April. It is now May 11, 2010. But, as we all know. Things don’t always go as planned.

As I told you, I joined a group on Facebook, YFU Japan ‘2010 Summer Exchange Program. Everyone in this group has already got their acceptance (or rejection :/ ) letters. I mean everyone! Except for whom? Oh, right. Me.

So, I did what any other teenager would do. I called and emailed. But YFU couldn’t tell me if I had received anything yet. Apparently, what they don’t know they can’t tell you. They did tell me that there was a hold up on the sponsors end and that was all they knew.

So, I waited.

This morning, in Journalism class I sat at the computer, just like I have for the past couple months, checking my email and hoping something from YFU would be waiting. Exactly 126 days after I applied for the program, I got the email.



I GOT THE CHEVRON CORPORATIONS SCHOLARSHIP!!
I am going abroad!

I was literally jumping up and down in my seat from excitement. I am so glad we had a sub that period. I had to call my mom; I mean come on, wouldn’t you?

For now, I think all that complaining, waiting, and stress was totally worth it. All that waiting is totally cancelled out by the fact that I got the scholarship. It’s a once in a lifetime experience. That I get to experience!!

I’m full of anticipation for this summer to come.

WOOHOO!!!!