Christmas Party

This past Saturday I had a Christmas Party that was sponsored by my local Rotary district. I enjoyed myself very much because there was so many international people there. I met people I hadn't met before, inbounds and future outbounds as well. There was this girl who is doing the New Generations program (ages 19-25) that had just arrived from Brazil on Wednesday. I spoke to her the little Portugese I know and she said I have a Sao Paulo accent. I felf flattered. Hmm, maybe I should try to learn Portugese after French. I'll see how it goes. I spoke a lot with the French exchange student that is here for now, trying to improve my French as much as I can. Not an easy thing to do though, I honestly think I'll leave without knowing enough to get around :p. She was telling me though that her host brother that is living in France left without knowing any French at all and after four months he's really good. So I hope that's my story as well :DD. I also met this other girl who is going to Itay, and we agreed to visit each other. I hope I'm allowed to do that with Rotary.... So I noticed not many boy do exchanges as much as girls do, there was only one boy that was at the Christmas party, and he just recently decided to do it because he was barely being interviewed there... Another reason why girls are more logical than boys. :)) At the party we all did a gift exchange and I recieved Starbucks coffee cups and coffee, very neat :D

On to other news. Well this past summer I went to Germany with a program called GAPP (German American Pertnership Program) and I met many people because I went to school for a while and so on. So my school does exchanges with that school and therefore my school has 2 German exchanges. I met them while I was in Germany. And one of them has been having problems with her host family. I decided to host her because I would want someone to do the same if i was having the same problems if I was abroad. It should be a good experience.

                                            Some of the people i met while in Germany : ))

Plans for the Weekend

Hello, people. Well, this past Saturday I met with the Rotary Youth Exchange Chair, I don't mean the inatimate object chair btw. So I met with him to make half of my payment :DD, $500 cash money to be exact. So that's out of the way now, halfway there. Rotary is really inexpensive compared to other programs out there...AFS... yea, I'm very grateful for the Rotary Exchange Program, they have made all this possible for me. I love you Rotary. :) I also kind of turned in my application, I just need some signatures and the teacher recommendation part. And this Saturday I have the RYE Christmas Party! :) I hope it's fun, but before the party I have to take my ACT :ppp, not what I want, but it's for the benefits of my future...

Well that's about all the Exchange gossip i have. Not all that exciting, but i'm sure it will be once 2011 rolls in... I hope

Alacka Day!

Good Morrow, well today was the annual Renaissance Festival that every senior class organizes and runs. And I believe we did a good job at improvising. I did a booth with a friend of mine and it was a big hit. Apperantly a lot of people would pay to pie their friends in the face. hmm :/ . So that was an all day event and now i'm exhausted.

The famous "Whip It Good" booth, and friend :)

Our booth sign

(Some of my senior class in costume)

Over on to my exchange... I'm going to France!!! Oui! Finally I know what country I'm going to. No more responding to people "Idon't know, but I'm going somewhere ;p" So yess, France it is. I'll know what district I go to once I submit my application and it arrives in France. Until then, I'll finish it up, and learn some much need French. Mind you, I've never taken a legit French class, I've kind of been unlucky to go to schools where French isn't an offered language. I'll figure something out. Oh yea, and I should be in France before August 24 !

Officially In !

  Hiii, well yesterday, Saturday, I went to the Rotary Youth Exchange interview/ get together. I arrived at the house we were meeting up at around 9ish am, and it was nice. Other exchange students were there, the same ones I met in the first meeting and other soon to be exchange students. Suprisingly we were all girls, hmm. The first activity we did was carve pumpkins, I've never carved one before, hm, intresting. We chated a bit and it was nice meeting students that have gone because they can tell you what you might feel in a few months or so :D. Like I met this girl who just came back from Germany, and she was communicationg really well with the German exchange students in well, German of course :). She went to Germany without knowing any German what so ever. That will be me. Je ne parle pas Francais. I probably spelled that wrong :p. I had my interview there. They asked things that you should know, because it's all about you. It went really well, I have the charm to make people laugh I guess ;)).
If you want to know specific questions, you can ask. I'll be happy to tell you :D. But I hear that it varies with districts, but is all good. So they wrote down 4 possible choices to where i might be sent to. France, Belgium, Italy, and the Netherlands. I know I've been saying how much I want France, and I still do, but I've been thinking a lot about Italy. Maybe I'm just over thinking everything. I want the perfect exchange. I'm sure it'll be perfect in any country :D
I can't wait until they tell me where... Where I'm I going officially !

Good Times Going to Come

Alright... soo, since my last post, I still have not heard back from France. That was a bit of a shocker to me because most of the times messages are replied to right away. Maybe my district president did not foward the email to me like usually does. That's besides the point though. So on Oct. 30th I have my official interview!!!! Yes, oui!! It will be sort of like a gathering as well between the future outbound students and the inbound students. I've met some of the inbound students already, but I have others to meet. :))) This meeting is sort of casual considering there will be a swiming pool and tennis court to be used by us, Rotary is pretty casual. So fly :PP. I really can't wait for this, it just makes it so much real. This meeting will also be used to interview the rents, so it's the real deal. Keepin' it reeeaal. I have to try and finish my application by the 23rd of this month, whiich, i just probably get going with it. I'm so busy, I started on the letter to the host family already, just haven't finished it. But I will soon, I also have to do college applications and try to raise my GPA a bit more. Take some SATs and ACTs. Ahh! But after the storm, i will hopefully start my voyage to either France or Belgium :D.
I've been thinking of applying to another program called NSLI-Y for the summer program. It seems promising, it's free if i get the scholorship, so why not. Anything that is free and is of good meaning should be taken into consideration.What will I be loosing with applying, a bit of time only. I think I will consider going to Turkey for the summer. Learn some Turkish and eat some kebabs. I think... well that's all i have for now.

I WANT THIS YEAR TO BE ALMOST OVER!!!!

France...perhaps ??

Ok, so I loved the idea of going to Belgium, but France has always been on my mind ever since 6th grade. When my district's president sent a message to both Belgium and France asking if they would accept me they both said yes, but I guess he thought I wanted Belgium. I've been thinking about it a lot lately and I decided that eventhough France's life style is a lot more expensive, I would much rather sacrifice all that in order to spend the best 10 months of my life there! So i sent my local YE president an e-mail confessing my love for France and if there was a chance I can be placed there. Today I found out that he fowarded my e-mail to the French District and asked them if they would host me!!! I hope to find out tomorrow their response. I am grateful to which ever country they send me, but if there is a slight chance to be sent to my dream country, why not try to go for it??

So if anyone wants something, I suggest you go for it. Don't live with the "What if's". : D SI SE PUEDE!!

First Meeting :) and other stuff

Alrighty, howdy... yea no, i don't really say that eventhough i'm from Texas. So this past Friday I had my first real RotaryYouth Exchange meeting. I think it went well. Met the nice representatives and the others involved. I also met 3 of the foreigners that have just arrived. They were all girls from Belgium, France, and Germany. And 2 other rotex, i think that's how they call them, they are basically the people that had done an exchange before with the program. The director of the Youth Exchange said i would be going to.... Belgium! Which after some talk with the Belgium girl I think i'm satisfied :)). Because it's a small country, I can travel to many other countries around. France as well since I'll be living at the border most likely :)). We took pictures as a group. At first when the director said, "OK, it's picture time". I didn't get up because I thought it was only for the kids that came and the ones that went. But he said me too, so this means it's certain :D. How exciting! The director also passed out the yearly schedule with many activities planned, which makes it even more real!!
 Belgium

Group photo of the "crew" i suppose :p

Alright to other news not relating to the abroad. So Yesterday, Sunday, I went bike riding with my budy jackie and we went to a Raspa stand that's pretty far from my house. We were biking for about 3 hours :). I hadn't done it all summer, and i missed it. I'll do it tomorrow again, but just to the park this time. I also started school today :/, but i suppose this year will be better because I have something to look foward to. I had a nice first day, even if i do have tough classes. It's all good. Hope it stays this way :D

Raspa Shop with our bikes there :))

Alright, that's it for aujourd'hui (TODAY) okok

byebye :)

So it begins... sort of

   OK. Well my name is Liana. I'm from a city named Brownsville, TX. It barely qualifies to be named a city with a population of about 200,000 people(About 90% being of Hispanic decent).In my opinion, it's a good place to grow up in. Two different languages are spoken here, a bilingual city. English obviously, and Spanish. I happen to be one of the lucky many that speak both these languages, where upon in a different country it'd be a unique thing to know both these languages, but here, I'm just like everybody else....
   Well, on that note, I guess I'm not like everybody else, since I plan to do something not everyone agrees on. That is, go abroad for a whole school year to a completely different country! A country where I'll be lost in translation and not know how to get around. It's not official yet, but I feel as though it will happen. I plan to go with the Rotary Club of my area. I have already gotten in contact with them and they are making it all possible for me to go abroad after this year. As of right now, if I were to go, I would go to the French speaking part of Belgium, but I haven't actually gotten the chance to speak to them about my first choice which is France. And France actually wants someone. So it's definitely a possibility.
  Well I'll post some more later. Keep an update :) Adieu

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