Finalmente

This is one of my favorite spanish words, and I use it all the time. It means "finally" or "at last". You may be asking "Why is this blog post titled finally in Spanish?" Which is a very good question. The anser to which is that yesterday, I  finally ordered my t-shirts!!!! Disclaimer: my life is a mess. As you may or may not know, they were supposed to be ordered in December. However, as it tends to do, December ran away from me and became January and then Febuary, which became March, and then April, but as May comes to a close, I have finally caught him. Now, in two weeks max, I will have 200 marvelous t-shirts in my possession (which you should buy for $25 or 3+ for $20 a piece). {sigh} This may not seem like a big step, but to me it is. My stress level has gone down 1,000% and now I'm simply exited.

RYE vs. College

     I have so much in common with the soon-to-be college students! They have to fill out rigourous applications, decide what to pack, host going away (well, graduation) parties, and spend an extended period of time away from home. However there are some small differences, like the fact that I do not get to come home for Christmas, will be simultaneously learning a different language, my classes will not be as challenging, and it does not cost a fraction as much (thank heaven!). But, among these there is one itsy bitsy, tiny little difference; these soon-to-be college students are 18 and I am 15.
     When I here stories about students who had to come home because they could not handle being so far away from their families, I usually think two things. The first is,"What?!?" Because I'm expected and plan on embarking on a similar endevour, and I am significantly younger than all of them. On the other hand, those stories also give the piece of me that is scared beyond imaginable an excuse to quit. That is by far the more dangerous thought. I try to keep it at bay by reminding myself that I have worked far to hard for this to give it up now, and a whole string of other reasons why I cannot quit, nomader what.
     These stories remind me that I was chosen to be a RYE ambassador for a reson, and it was not because they thought I was a quitter. However, after filling out the RYE application ;-) , and completing next year, I think I will be able to take anything College throws at me!

:-)

Journal 2.0 -- Brought to you by the Carmens

It's actually more of a scrapbook than a journal, but IMJ.

     At the Rotary District Conference, I was reminded that I need to be keeping a journal, and be writing in it every day. I thought "Does February count as yesterday?" Which is when I realized that I needed to get back on the writing wagon. However, the only problem was that my old journal was a plain, stereotypical composition notebook, and even though it had a pink Eiffel Tower on the front, and I wrote in every color imaginable, it was B-O-R-I-N-G.
     The next day, I had the honor of looking at Carmen's journal ,which is amazing, beautiful, and well kept up. She had little pieces of scrap paper with journal entries stapled into her pristine journal. That made me think, "If I did that I could write in my journal throughout my day, back them up on super cool paper so that they would be beautiful and exiting, and put other stuff in it, like pictures, and not just entries... what if I made a scrapbook!!!! So that's just what I did.
     It just so happens, that I had recently received a perfect scrapbook-to-be from my Aunt Carmen for my birthday, and is the perrrfect thing for my purposes. Currently my journal 2.0 is everything that I had hoped for, and more, and I write in 4 or 5 times a week instead of once every three months. I learned from this that what you want is the way you should get to have it. Don't let anyone tell you differently. If you love it, it will be successful.
     By the way, IMJ is the best thing ever. If you are writing a journal for any reason, I highly recommend living by it. It stands for It's My Journal, and it means that my journal is for me and so I can do what I want with it and write what I want in it. I use the acronym to remind myself that there are no journal police, and no laws that say how my journal must look or what it must say. IMJ is the basis for my Journal 2.0, so feel free to you know, be inspired or something, just use my secrets for good, wasabi.

.

Btw, their supposed to be blurry. Secrets are secrets, and all of them cannot be shared. :-)

Strive for Information

Dear Readers,
Thank you sooo much for reading my blog! This blog is mostly for you, and I would like to make the content as relevant as I can. Therefore, I was wondering if there are any questions that you have concerning my exchange. Please email me/or comment below anything that you would like to know, and I will do my best to answer it in post.
Thank you again!
-w

The Rotary Kool-Aid

This weekend, I skipped school and attended the 2015 District 6540 Conference with my fellow RYE people and about 130 Rotarians. Even though I was one of the only young people there, it was a good experience because I got to see all the other amazing things that Rotary does; such as, ending Polio, the Little Free Library program, Interact, Rotaract, shopping trips with local in need families, and establishing orphanages in India. It was really cool and as one of our speakers, Eric Niebuhr, said "I've got the RYLA fire in my belly, and have drank the Rotary Kool-Aid." I want to continue to be part of the Rotary Family by being in Interact in high school, Rotaract in college, and becoming a Rotarian as soon as I can. The Rotarians really do function as a family, and where ever in the world I go, I know that there will be a near by club for me to join full of committed, kind, amazing people. I also learned that there is a Rotary International theme every year, this year it is "Light Up Rotary".

I also got to further establish my bond with the RYE students, both inbounds and outbounds. Our relationship is special because we are all going through the same things. It's also different than most, because we have spent only four weekends together, but during that time, they never left my sight. It has been fun to get to know people my age from around the world, and the ones from right here in northern Indiana! (Shout out to these amazing people,  I love you guys and will miss you so much!) We only have one more conference left, Calvin College in July, which is sad, and not everyone is coming. :-(

Temuco, Chile!!!!!!!!!!

Even though 10 of them may seem a little excessive, there are not half enough exclamation marks in the title to express how exited I am to go to Temuco, Chile! Temuco has a population of 267,619 people, is 416 miles south of Santiago, and has a climate much like northern Indiana. Last week, on the Saturday night that I was in RYLA I got an email from my host district, 4355 (which is the Santiatgo district) and then the following morning, I got a Facebook message from both my host sister and my host mom!! They both seem really nice!! I will have a mom, dad, 11 year old brother, 16 year old brother, and 13 year old sister in my first host family!!!!!  They also have a puppy, their house is really cute, and I am super exited because my siblings are around my age!  I hope that I am right when I say that I think they are the perfect host family for me! (Did I mension that I am super, crazy exited about this!! :-)  =-O )

Beautiful Temuco, Chile

Map of Chile
see my new home?

The RYLA Fire

Last weekend I went to RYLA or Rotary Youth Leadership Awards. For my district, 6540, it is hosted at Camp Tecumseh and occurs from Friday morning until Sunday afternoon. All of the exchange students got to go, both inbound and outbound, so when we first got there we had a little group because we all new each other. I got to meet other high school kids from all over our district who are just as driven to do good and share the same values and passions as me. We are all unique, expressive teenagers who are, or trying to, follow our passions and chase our dreams. I have come to realize that many people use religion to become a better person and help the world. Even though I do not believe in the religion that drives them so passionately to fix the world, I believe in the peace, hope, helpfulness, and friendship that they spread and the things that they are accomplishing. I now have established a "Whatever floats your boat and helps you make the world better" opinion. Even though one might think that I would be distant from my extremely religions peers, I think they are the people that have the most similar personality to mine. We also got to listen to many amazing speakers (I think that all of them were Rotarians). These included an entomologist (who had a tarantula that I got to pet), a mixed martial arts 3rd degree black belt, a comedian/magician/mime, and a college RA who started an Interact club at his local high school. Finally, and probably most importantly, we did a series of super fun team building exercises. I had a group of ten amazing people who I spent my entire weekend with. One of my favorite of these activities was where we all had to be standing on a tiny-tiny wooden box at the same time, without touching the ground, and sing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. We ate meals together, and hung out together all the time, and by the end of the weekend, they were like my second family. This was an amazingly fun, full, and inspirational experience. If you are a current high school student, I highly recommend going; you do not even have to be in RYE to participate! And as they say... I've got the RYLA fire in my belly!