These are some old journals I wrote in January but never posted. All about the year leading up to exchange!
It has been only 4
days since I got back from the RYE January orientation but it feels like a
year. Although it was just a weekend long, it was one of the best experiences I
have had my senior year. I left Orlando for the orientation excited, a little
nervous about attempting to speak Portuguese in front of a ton of people, and
overall just exhausted. After a long week of school I was having to speed pack
my bag and jump in the car to head to Lake Yale.
My first hiccup in
the whole experience was just getting there. I was supposed to follow Scott
Krogmann to the camp but because I am so terrible with directions I managed to
fail at finding the meeting place from which to follow him. After about 20
minutes of searching for a chick-fil-a in which I have still yet to ever see,
Scott was kind enough to come find me. At that point our tight time schedule
had become impossible and it was off to the races to get there. With a little
bit of speeding, a few orange lights and some crossed fingers we managed to get
there just at the last minute. Flustered and both exhausted, Caroline (who is
going to Thailand and rode with me) and I both managed to maneuver our way
through signing in. With the help of kind Rotarians and Rotex alike, we were
able to be completely on schedule for the night's events.
Once on track and
calmed down from the afternoon adventure, me and Caroline set out to find
people from our district. All 16 of us from 6980 had become friends after being
accepted into the program and were excited to see each other again. While we
clung to each other amidst the 74 students there, it did not take long for us
to begin branching out and meeting new people. By the end of the evening
everyone had begun to speak to other people and learn of other students going
to their same countries. The best part of that first evening for me was getting
to know my district number for Brazil-4420!!!!
After a freezing
night of half sleep (my cabin mates and I were unaware that there was a heater)
I was up Saturday for a day of learning and working. Kicking off the morning
with my butchered Portuguese I managed to get through the language workshop. In
the afternoon I rotated through different rooms with my assigned group, getting
to know and become friends a whole new set of people. By that evening, my group
had bonded over making a skit. I had also
befriended the other students going to brazil and had interacted with
all the students going to South America.
Only knowing each other for less than two days, all the students had
grown close. No one wanted to go to sleep that night as it got later and later.
We didn’t want parents to come, and we didn’t want to leave. Going back to
school and homework looked as unattractive as ever. Unfortunately, all good
things have to come to an end. Parents had to come, pictures had to be taken,
and goodbyes had to be said. Promises of "I will visit you, and you can
visit me" were made by students from all over Florida and excitement for
the June orientation was built. All the students came to the orientation
nervous, tired, and excited but left confident, exhausted, and ecstatic.
Jan. 20, 2012
The one thing that I
have been told from every single outbound and Rotex is the study as much of the
language as possible and that is just what I am trying to do. I have taken
Portuguese on full speed ahead. The two main things I am doing are Rosseta Stone
and taking a Portuguese class. Yes, I found out you can take Portuguese class.
For me, learning a new language is challenging but having studied Spanish I
understand many of the grammatical concepts and how the language works. My
biggest success since I have begun studying would have to be this past week. I
finished my unit in Rosseta Stone and as a benchmark, you are able to have a
conversation with a native speaker. I was nervous, unsure of what to expect and
clueless on how I was supposed to speak for an hour entirely in Portuguese.
Surprisingly, it was not too bad! The native speaker was encouraging and spoke
slowly. She was able to guide the conversation and laughed with me when I mixed
up car and dog (both words start with a c and have a throaty sound in the
middle of them). I learned that yes, I will make mistakes but that’s ok! I can
laugh at myself and learn. I can confidently say that I wont be mixing up car
and dog anytime soon!
