AFS Ashoka Youth Venture Week!

Dinosaur at the Smithsonian museum of natural history

 Two weeks ago I got to go to Washington D.C. for the AFS Ashoka Youth Venture workshops. My flight on Wednesday got delayed due to the "snowquester" (that didn't even happen), but I still managed to arrive right as Wednesday was ending. Many people had issues with delayed flights so instead of spending the first day in workshops I got to explore D.C. which included going to the D.C. 'mall,' going to two of the Smithsonian museums, checking out George Washington University, and going to Chinatown. I also got to go to Georgetown University before I left for my flight and the campus was gorgeous! Spending that day exploring D.C. has only made me want to live in D.C. more and I feel so lucky to have received this opportunity from AFS.

The Hope Diamond!

My day exploring ended with an "international fair" and it was amazing how well each country set up its stand. There were YES alumnus from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Tunisia so I got to practice quite a bit of Arabic while I was at the conference. The following days I went to the Ashoka offices and the workshops were absolutely incredible! In a nutshell (this is going to be the best quick summary I can give sorry, but three full days of workshop is hard to fit in) AFS is incorporating the ideas of initiating community projects from the Ashoka Youth Venture and is now going to encourage students while they are on study abroad and upon their return home to create a project that will create good in their community. I am so excited to begin to initiating this in the San Antonio chapter and wherever else in the world I end up being with AFS. This workshop was an incredible learning opportunity and it has taught me many things in regards to brainstorming and successfully focusing in on one specific project. I look forward to seeing the new and amazing things AFS students and volunteers will be doing!
      The good news of this month is that I was chosen for the AFS volunteer of the month spotlight! The article can be found here http://afsvolunteerblog.org/?p=40650
      Also, I am currently I a patiently waiting for:
       1. My Middlebury admissions status that will be released this 
Saturday!
       2. My NSLI-Y notification could arrive anytime until the end of April, but Arabic summer and Russian summer students already received good news so notification season has officially begun!
       3. I had my CBYX interview last week and now I am simply waiting to hear back.
        4. I will know about the admissions statuses for all of the colleges I applied to by April 1st! I know it's soon, but I can't believe the wait is nearly over.

Send as many good vibes my way as possible! Inshallah I'll have more good things to report on soon!
      

CBYX

     More good news! Today I found out that I am a semi-finalist for CBYX!!!! In my region 134 people applied and 64 students were chosen to move onto the semi-final stage. I will be hearing about my interview soon, and once the interview is over it will all be a matter of waiting. These next few months are full of finding out what the future holds for me, and I am looking forward to knowing with a surety how I will spend my first year after I graduate.Wish me luck!

Spanish Spelling Success

     This weekend I reached the pinnacle of my status as a language nerd. I won first place in the San Antonio Spanish Spelling bee. Each year teachers select two students from their school to represent the school in the spelling bee, one for the native category and one for the non-native category. The non-native category is defined as students who were not born in a Spanish speaking country. Even though it seems that the non-native category would be easier it was actually the one that lasted longer because non-native students tend to study more since they are not as comfortable with the language.
   I won through two words: otorrinolaringólogo and sanguijuela. The girl that received second place misspelled otorrinolaringólogo, luckily my mom had drilled that word into my head and made sure that I could spell it in my sleep forwards and backwards. After that I was given sanguijuela and it was all over.
    I am so grateful that my Spanish teacher opened up this opportunity for me and for the various people that helped me practice. All of those practices truly paid off and I feel so lucky to have this experience my senior year!

Ashoka Youth Venture

This year AFS started a new program in connection with Ashoka Youth Ventures. Ashoka Youth Ventures serves to help people become changemakers and create something that will benefit society, you can look into it more at https://www.ashoka.org/youthventure. This is a scholarship program that will last four days, and only three students were selected. I just found out today that I have been selected to participate in this training opportunity, so I will be headed up to D.C next month! I'm ridiculously excited for this!

Thought I'd Share This

I found this Ted Talk today on traveling and I thought I would share it! It's a really great video and the speaker offers a great perspective on traveling. Comment if you have any opinions you would like to share.

AFS Mid-Year Orientation and Matisyahu

My amazing group!

      Last week I finally became an official volunteer for AFS! I have been volunteering with AFS ever since I came back from my study abroad in Paraguay in 2011, but it did not become official until now. As an official volunteer I was able to be one of the group leaders. The mid-year orientation consisted of reviewing of topics such as safety and being an ambassador, but also included goal setting and a reflection of their year so far. All of the exchange students from the Austin and San Antonio area were there and being able to spend a weekend with them was just another reminder of why I love being around exchange students and why I love studying abroad.

The other exciting thing of the week is that I got to go to the Matisyahu concert in San Marcos! I had gone to the San Antonio concert in November and it was absolutely amazing (it included getting on stage and singing with Matisyahu for One Day!) Go to 2:55 on the video. Both concerts were truly amazing and for the concert in San Marcos I got a vip pass so I was able to meet him! My friend and I decided to give Matisyahu a baja sweater from the downtown market because we wanted to attempt to do something memorable, and it was honestly nerve-wracking for me. Luckily, it ended up being a success. He decided to put it on right away and in one of his pictures on instagram from later on the week he was wearing it! For those of you that are in an area where Matisyahu is going for his acoustic show I definitely recommend going! 

Here's a video of one of my favorite songs he performed.

    Since this blog is mainly for writing about studying abroad I'll give a quick update on my plans. I recently had my NSLI-Y interview. Now I just have to wait patiently for my notification sometime in April or maybe even late March. I also decided to apply to CBYX, which is a year abroad scholarship to Germany. I really want to take a gap year and I decided that I might as well give it a shot and open up as many opportunities as I can. Wish me luck!

  

Semi-Finals...Round Two

I am so excited to finally have a reason to update my blog!  I'm a NSLI-Y semi-finalist!!!! I decided to apply for the year abroad program because I loved my NSLI-Y summer so much and I know that a year abroad would be an absolutely incredible opportunity that would help my Arabic grow so much. Two of the girls that were on my trip to Oman also reapplied and they are also semi-finalists! I'm really excited for everything in the upcoming months and inshallah everything will go well!