Hello! This is my very first ever blog, and I have created it for the sole purpose of keeping you up to date on my travels!! To get anybody reading this up to speed, I will explain exactly how my life has changed drastically in the past four and a half months...
A friend of mine introduced me to the program AFS, and we decided that we would both ask our parents if we could go to France next school year, 2013-2014. That night, I went home and casually asked my parents if they would support me in this huge life-changing event. Much to my surprise, they agreed without much hesitation! Excited to tell my friend the next day, I saw her and shared the good news when she informed me that she would not be able to join me. Caught up in reading student blogs and learning everything that I could about AFS, time flew by. When the application opened up, I was completely prepared to start and finish it in one night. After a painstaking amount of time in which I had to obtain letters of recommendation and transcripts, I finally decided on going to Italy instead of France. My reasoning behind the change in countries was simply because of the fact that I want to be an architect when I am older, and Italy has such neat old buildings everywhere that one might go! So once I decided to go to Italy, I was able to finish my application, and click the submit button. That moment was a bit of an eye-opener, because I realized that my dreams were coming to life! After getting a few emails from an AFS advisor, and fixing my application a few times, it was finally sent off to be reviewed by AFS-USA. I completed my in-home interview, applied for a few scholarships, and waited for an email to be received. About two weeks later, I received the news that my application was being sent to AFS-Italy! A very short time later, I saw the email delivering the news of my acceptance to AFS-Italy!
As of right now, I am simply waiting to hear about my host family, and I am trying to fundraise as much of my tuition cost as possible. However, any and all money that one might like to donate towards my fund would be GREATLY APPRECIATED! It will be made very easy to donate in a little while, when I get a donation widget from AFS added to this blog. So bookmark this page, it is a good one that you will not want to forget about! If everything goes according to plan, I will update this blog frequently when abroad, so that all of my American acquaintances can keep up with my soon-to-be crazy life!
That concludes the writing of my first entry, I hope many people enjoy my future posts. Thanks for reading, and remember to donate:)
~Ali
