And now I'll introduce my constant companion: impatience.

The title pretty much says it all. I have literally no new news regarding Rotary. None. And it's really irritating. I understand that there are a lot of people who need to sign that thing, but....I want an email or a letter or something. :( The only new thing that has anything to do with Rotary is this: my searches have transformed. Instead of just looking at pictures and articles, I'm now looking for schools. Yes, I zoom in on the map of a city or town and scan for the schools. And then I find their websites. And make google translate them. You could say I'm obsessed. But really, there's no singular, specific thing I'm obsessed with...just...next year in general.

Beyond that...fourth quarter has started. Senioritis is spreading within my cells. The senior trip and history club convention are coming up. Prom is coming up, I'm going to Zachary's. I'm excited...egads. I need to find a dress.... We've begun to talk about skip day. Graduation committee has been selected. The play is over. It's practically April and when I was walking into school today it was below freezing. Spring break is approaching, which means going to DC with my aunt and uncle. Which is very exciting. I love DC.

Right now, everything is a smooshed-up ball of....madness. There are three weeks left of actual AP Chem left: two weeks of new material and one of review, spring break in the middle and then the exam. Senior year is trying to kill me. I'm trying not to die. Focusing on next year is...doing something to my brain and cognitive processes. I can't tell if the constant presence of the idea of next year is making this year worse or better....

Oh! I've finally started thinking about German!!! Yes....ich hasse schnee. Es ist wahr. I have some of my dad's old books, and his Pimsleur tapes from eons ago. They're actual cassette tapes. I'm going to start learning German!!!!

Ack for such a...random, rambling post. Please forgive my lack of development and organization. English teachers reading this, I ask for mercy.

What now?

So half of this post just got deleted. Grr. And it saved RIGHT AFTER IT WAS DELETED. So now I'm going to try and rewrite it.....


I'll start with Tuesday. It was good. Feels like a millenium ago. Or at the very least, a fortnight. That write-up I wrote up and posted? It wasn't the one that got read. :( Take out all of the parenthetical phrases, the introduction of my cello, Siggy and any mention of poltergeists and ghosts and you've pretty much got what was read. Oh well. It still went pretty well. No Rotarians seemed to hate me. Hopefully it's the same story in Distrikt 1860.

Speaking of Distrikt 1860: I want my host family to contact me. I've been doing loads of research, just going down the clubliste on 1860's website. Which I had tried to link to in the part of this post that got deleted. But it didn't work anyway. So...I dunno. I suppose I'll try to figure that out and then link it in another post in the future. But...I know my family might not even have my guarantee form yet. All I know is that it's in Germany. I've known that since orientation. It's there...I don't know who has it, but...hopefully if it hasn't been in my host family's hands yet it will be soon and then it CAN BE IN MINE. That would be nice. But it would be nicer if my host family doesn't have something against curly hair (my hair is curly...very very curly) and they email me or send me a letter or something. Because don't get me wrong, it's fun to just google images and google maps and wikipedia the towns that the clubs are named after. It's fun. But there are a lot of clubs. It would be nice to be able to know where I'm going and just research that singular place. 

Yesterday was good. Epic and awesome, really. I went to a birthday party of a friend. Lots of friends there, lots of good times to be had. Rock Band was played (not by me, of course...that would have been bad), jokes and fish faces were made (one of the guys HATES fish faces. hahahahahahaha) and Zachary was hugged. A lot. He was there. :) Before yesterday, it had been like, two weeks since I'd seen him. Then we went to get food. That was fun. Mom and dad went out to eat, too, and they BROUGHT ME HOME STEAK. I like steak. Steak is good. Okay, rant over.

Everything is progressing. Slowly. I got my passport application sent out - it was half renewal half not. As soon as that comes in, things should (hopefully) move faster. I'll have to get new pictures for my resident alien permit once I get to Germany....the requirements make me sad: I can't have my glasses on (which is DUMB because I WEAR glasses) and I can't smile!! How lame is that? As a rule, I don't take very good pictures, but at least if I'm smiling it looks like I'm not angry....

Also. I need to start making my powerpoint presentation for the Jamestown weekend coming up. I'll do it after the play. Hmm...speaking of things I need to do, I have a mini-paper I need to write for forensics. Glarg. Enough post-age for now. Until later, Sarah Lynne.

Thinking...

            This coming Tuesday is the Rotary Student of the Month Luncheon at my club. It's also the first time I'll be in front of my club as their sponsored youth exchange student. I know I'm not going to be there because of that, but it's still a little...nerve-wracking? That write-up I posted last time is going to be read, and there are going to be students from the other schools in the club's area there, too. But I'm going to be "The Youth Exchange Student." Probably even the crazy youth exchange student.

            Watching the news lately has been scary, too. Looking at everything that's going on in Libya and Japan...I'm thinking about one of the girls from my district who's going to Japan, thinking about the family that was maybe going to be her first host family, thinking maybe she won't be going to the district she was originally going to go to because of the flooding. On a more ridiculous level with Japan, I'm thinking about Makoto Nagano - an all-star on G4's Ninja Warrior. The one who my mom and I cheer for every time we watch the show. 

            I'm thinking about school and how awful I'm being. It's really hard to think about how to find the pH of a solution of .10 M acetic acid titrated with .025 M potassium hydroxide. It's also really difficult to actually sit down and work on comprehension questions for English, when I could be doing research on Schwetzingen, or Sankt Wendel (check them out, they're insanely gorgeous). 

            I want to know where I'm going. But chances are, I probably won't for at least a couple months. See, with Rotary, there's this thing called a Guarantee Form. It's this paper in the application that the outbound (an Exchange student who hasn't left yet - me) and his/her family has to sign. Then it gets submitted with the rest of the application, sent to the country and district (distrikt, for me) where we're going to to be signed by the distrikt president, the club's youth exchange officer, the first host family and a school administrator. I probably got at least one of those people wrong, but you get the idea. There are a lot of people who need to hold that form, who need to sign it. And though my first host family is going to see my email address, my mailing address, there's nothing to say that they're actually going to use it and contact me before I get the form back. I'm hoping they will, but I'm prepared to not know my specific placement until a month before I leave, maybe less. 

            It's really nice to be able to write all of this out. I know it's probably boring, but all of this stuff is floating around in my head constantly, no matter where I am, no matter what I'm supposed to be doing. To write it out, to make it tangible is relaxing, stress-relieving. It's good. 

            If you're reading this, awesome. Thank you. I really appreciate someone sitting down and reading this crazy ranty-blog. 

The Beginning

So...here I am. Just under five months before I go to Germany. Yep, you read that right. I'm going to Germany. Little old me, from little old cowtown New York, is going to Germany. How, you ask? I'm a Rotary Youth Exchange Student.

            I've always wanted to be an exchange student. Ever since I knew what an exchange student was, what it meant to be one, I've wanted to be one. I remember when I was younger and there was an exchange student in the school, I was too afraid to talk to them, even though I really wanted to. I guess I saw them as...gods of a sort. Then middle school and high school came along and I always dreamed of it, but never thought it could happen. But, lo and behold, it has. 

Earlier this year, my family and I had discussed the possibility of my being an exchange student, but it was more discussion of an idea, not discussion of a possibility or probability. Then one day, while I'm in the library (she's the librarian at my school) she plops this paper down in front of me and tells me to fill it out. I look at it, and it's the first application to be a Rotary Exchange Student. I fill it out, anxiously awaiting a response, of any kind. A week or so later, I get rousted from my term paper note-taking to receive a phone call. "I think it's Rotary," mom says. Of course, I jump up, after madly typing to my boyfriend Zachary that I would be back in a few minutes. On the phone, my club's youth exchange officer introduces himself to me, asks me how I am and if I'd be able to attend an interview the next week. Trying to contain myself, I asked mom and she said we could do it. Again, trying to contain myself, I tell him that I could indeed. 

            My year all of a sudden got more interesting. The next week, I woke on the day of the interview a little antsy, considering the fact that the day was double big: auditions for the school play and the interview that would determine whether I'd be attending college or some foreign high school the next year. 

            Skipping ahead, I've survived the interview process, gotten my general placement (Germany!!), done loads of research on District 1860 (my home for a year!) and gone Germany-crazy, in general. There's just so much to say, I really don't think I can put it all in one post...there's a lot. But I do have two more things to put here. I recently had to do a write-up about myself for another Rotary event. I'm going to put it here. 

            But before I do, I want to talk a little about my boyfriend. There are two reasons this blog is called Worlds Apart. One is the obvious: Germany is going to be a lot different than CowTown. The other is possibly equally as obvious: Zachary's not coming with me. And it's going to suck. This is my first serious relationship. It's with a guy who is absolutely amazing and blows my mind with his amazingness on a regular basis. I just want to let him know what he means to me. This blog is about my year abroad, and even though he's not going with, he's part of it.