Cornhusker-to-be
It was Monday the 27th of June 2022 and I came home after a long day, not feeling too well. Honestly, I wasn’t feeling well at all… But that changed quite suddenly. At 7.04 my phone rang and a well-known number appeared on the screen. I picked it up and realized almost immediately what it meant, what it was. The call that I’ve been waiting for for such a long time. It felt like an eternity since I first got the idea of becoming an exchange student and started dreaming of this day coming. It’s been a dream of me to experience this. Up until now I had no idea how it feels because I’ve only heard others explain it but then I got to live through the moment of finding out about my placement. I finally got placed. I got a family and a school in which I’m going to spend the upcoming school year. And it feels wonderful. It’s now definite that I’m going and I know where. I can now do research on the place where I’ll be staying in particular, I can start getting to know the people and much more, including the next steps of the preparative process. A whole new chapter has just started…
Well, since you’re here I assume you’d probably like to know what my placement is like and where I’m going after all. And I’m not here to keep you wondering, we waited for it together, you all deserve to know as much as I do!
I am going to move to a household of quite an ordinary American family with two kids under the roof. My host siblings – both sister and brother – are around my age and from what I know so far each and every member of the family seems incredibly sweet and fun! The family lives with their two adorable dogs in a small town called Doniphan, about ninety miles away from Nebraska’s capital Lincoln. The small high school is only a few blocks away from their (and soon-to-be mine) house so I will walk to school with my two siblings every morning.
Of course I contacted the family right away once I got my placement confirmation and we’ve stayed in touch ever since. Every question I ask they answer obligingly and just always do everything in their power to help me as much as possible with whatever I need. They’ve been nothing but the sweetest to me every time we exchanged a couple words through text messages. We are now planning a video call between me with my parents here and them on the other side of the ocean. I’m very much looking forward to that. It’s literally only been a day since I first heard of them but I already feel treated like an actual member of the family.
Apart from getting to know my host family there are also other things for me to do now that I know more specifically what my exchange year is going to be like. We have just stepped into a new chapter of my story. By receiving a placement I got to the point when I can apply for a visa and start scheduling my departure. Some could say that I still have plenty of time but I like to get things done in advance and hate time pressure, so I usually try not to procrastinate and do what I must as soon as possible. That way I don’t have to stress that much when it comes to the deadline approaching. But back to my pre-departure process… I sat down and began another one of the annoying and tedious obligations. It took me three hours in total to complete filling in the visa application, including all of the snack breaks and little rest times i had to take in order to start focusing better again. 😀
And so now I have an appointment at the US Embassy arranged at the end of July and am looking for plane tickets to be ready to fly off in early August. Things just got real serious. I’m actually leaving and starting my exchange year in a few weeks. I can’t believe that time flew by so fast…
