4 posts tagged “afs”

Only 3 to go

I am indeed counting down.  Only 19 more days!  It is quite exciting.  It would be ten times nicer though, if it started to snow.  Even a light flurrying would suffice.  I have a feeling that this year will be what Icelanders call a "red Christmas."  Meaning we'll have a Christmas without snow.  Last Saturday I went into Reykjavik and finished up my Christmas shopping.  It was a long day, I spent a bit more than expected, but it's finished and that accounts for something.  On Sunday afternoon Mamma, Júlíus, and I went to this Christmas craft meeting thing.   We painted ceramic Christmas decorations.  It was kind of fun.  My snowman came out rather cute, if I do say so.  On Monday we all decorated gingerbread cookies.  It was rather enjoyable.  My gingerbread man had a tie.  He was classy like that.  I even managed to create a Jackson Pollock Christmas tree.  Although, my first attempt turned into a 60´s psychedelic type tree.

My Psychedelic 60s and Jackson Pollock Christmas trees

1 comment

Yesterday I mailed all of my Christmas packages.  It was a tad hectic and extremely expensive, so hopefully all of you back home who get something from me appreciate it.  Today I´m going into Reykjavik with Mamma and Gunnar to the AFS office.  It´s the International Volunteer Day, or something of that sort, and AFS participates in it.  So, we´re going down there to thank the volunteers and just chill. 

On Saturday there´s another exchange student thing going on.  In October Yoko Ono gave this Imagine Peace Tower to Iceland.  It´s basically this really big light column in the sky.  Well the 8th of December is the last day that it will be lit this year, because that was the day John died.  So all of the exchange students were invited to join in the festivities on that day.  It sounds pretty cool. 

Wintertime

I also have some exciting news.  On the 30th of December I'm going to Denmark!  It's Pabbi's birthday gift to Mamma.  We're going to visit her sister and celebrate her birthday there.  We're coming back home on the 7th or maybe the 6th, I'm not exactly sure.  We'll be staying in the town of Vamdrup which is actually a part of the city of Kolding.  I think it will be quite an enjoyable time.  We'll be there for the New Years celebrations and of course we'll have a birthday bash for Mamma.  I'm not quite sure what we'll be doing in between these festivities, but I'm sure Pabbi has some ideas bouncing around inside his head.  I just hope I get the chance to eat a Danish danish while in Denmark. 

I figure that it is due time for an update.

Well I'm still waiting for news of a host family but things haven't been completely uneventful.  I am now the happy, joyous recipient of the Speedwell Foundation AFS Scholarship!  And you are probably staring at these words thinking a big fat So What? Well I'll tell you what!  Studying abroad is by no means free, in fact the program to Iceland runs around $8,000.  This scholarship has paid in full for my year in Iceland, hence why I am happy, joyous, ecstatic, gracious, elated, thrilled, and plain old tickled pink! 

I had my Pre-Departure Orientation last weekend.  It was basically a meeting where you got together with other exchange students in your area and talk about culture-shock and some of the things you might encounter while abroad.  It was okay, nothing too exciting, but it definitely put things into perspective.  I leave in about 3 months and 1 week (around 100 days).  There's 22 days left of school.  Things are happening so quickly!  I want to go but at the same time there are so many things I'm going to miss.  Now that I know I'm leaving I'm appreciating things more, like a lazy afternoon when the weather is nice enough for me to read on a blanket in my backyard or a really pointless conversation with someone I'm going to miss like crazy.  It's like I'm trying to cram my everyday life and ingrain it in my mind so I won't forget. 

This is going to be difficult.

[edit]: check out my picture site under my links on the left.  it's not really all that spectacular yet, because obviously I have no amazing pics of Iceland yet, but in good time...

So, it's (semi-ish) official, I'm going to Iceland in August and shall not be returning until June.  For those of you too lazy to do the math, it's around 11 months. Why, you may ask am I going to a country, slightly smaller than the state of Kentucky with a population just shy of 300,000, where I do not speak the language for practically a year? To study of course!

Iceland

It's amazing how much wanderlust one little brochure can spark in people, myself included. I never would have imagined 5 months ago that I would be studying abroad. I mean 5 months ago I had just gotten back from a two week stint in Japan, was trying to speak English normally (It's amazing what two weeks of trying to make your English understandable to non-native-English-speakers can do. I came back saying things like "This building have many floor." ...crazy), preparing myself for the new school year (sophomore year...what a drag), and trying to salvage what was left of my summer break. I was most definitely not entertaining ideas of spending my junior year in a treeless, sulfur-smelling country, that's for sure. But somewhere along the line I was sucked in to the ever-alluring life that is foreign exchange. Basically, an AFS (American Field Service) representative talked to some of the history classes about study abroad and I found out about the program by "borrowing" someone's brochure. Inside held information on practically every country you could ever dream of visiting each with various programs ranging from a semester, year, summer homestay, language plus, or community service.  Of course they had the big ones like France, Germany, Italy, and Australia but I was surprised at some of the other choices such as Latvia, Dominican Republic, and Ghana.  At first I wanted to go back to Japan because I missed it so much, but then I remembered how crazy (read: really competitive) their schools are. So then I happened upon Iceland, it had always been such a mysterious country in my eyes. And, how many times in your life do you get the opportunity to go to Iceland? Not many.

So, I filled out my application, got a teacher recommendation, had an interview and sent it off. My application was accepted and sent off to AFS Iceland. Today I found out that AFS Iceland has accepted me. Now they are searching for a homestay family.  I wish them luck, for that task could prove challenging what with my allergies to normal household pets (cats, dogs, rabbits) and just my complete lack of normalcy.

So begins my study abroad adventure.