1 week

I defiantly havn't done this whole blog like I wanted to. I wanted to update at least once a week, but as you can tell that hasn't been happening. I don't even really have an excuse why I havn't been doing it either, which is pretty bad, but let me recap what's been going on this summer then. So the last time I updated this was June 5th when my little sister Amanda graduated from elementary school.


june 26th-june 28th: Last Outbound Orientation



I have to say that I was looking forward to those days ever since we all had met that previous orientation back in January. It was good to see everyone's faces again and talk about how excited we were that our departure dates were even sooner than before.

soixante-dix!

so yesterday my baby sister graduated from elementary school, she is growing up so fast. we woke up & went to her LONG awards ceramony. she won a lot of awards i was really proud of her. im excited for her to move on to middle school, even though i won't be here. :(

87 days!

Yes it is 1 am, but im bored & have nothing better to do than spend my late hours of the night on the internet. so let's update you on some things. last weekend i went to my nana's house which is in Adel, Georgia. I also managed to change my hair color while I was up there, to brown.

Exciting News

So today I was sitting in AP Psychology & I was texting while waiting for the bell to ring. I got a new email, I thought it was just junk, but man oh man was i wrong. It was far from junk, & this is what it read.
Bonjour Sarah,
Je suis Françoise Génin, "your french mother"!!!! I can't speak english very well and my daugther isn't here now. She's on holyday with her school! Je vais donc te parler en Français pour le moment. Nous sommes content de t'accueillir chez nous pendant que notre fille sera au Canada. La famille se compose de Christian ' the father", Françoise ' the mother' et de deux filles Adélaïde 18 ans et Elore 15 ans. Nous habitons dans un petit village de 200 habitants en pleine campagne. Le village est en France juste derrière la frontière et nous allons travailler en Belgique tous les matins. Tu vivras dans 2 pays pour le début de ton séjour. Nous restons en contact et dés que tu as une question n'hésite pas à nous écrire. Envoye nous des photos de chez toi Big Kiss!!!!!! See you soon, Françoise

oh wait

scratch the begining part of what i posted yesterday. just forget about it totally.

yesterday around 4:30pm i was laying in bed at my mom's house messing around on my iPod when I got a new email, WHA WHA?!?! it was from Xavier Demoisy.

okay okay, who's that, right? right? he's the secretary and head of youth exchanges Rotary club Virton, Belgium!! Lets read the email!




OH SHOOT! I almost forgot, you don't know french!

but thats okay I promise, he also typed it in english! How nice of him!:)




now now, thats a whole lot better!

oh & believe me it, it gets even better! I found out today, my first host family!!!!
They are the Genin family!:))) I emailed them today! Now I just need a reply!

Where do I begin?

So a lot has been going on this past month. I havn't made a post in awhile, so here it goes. No, I still have no heard ANYTHING from rotary about my city, my families, my school, NOTHING. So yes, I am still waiting patiently for all that information. I did find out from Bokoff Kaplan that I will be leaving the United States of American on August 14, 2009 & I could not be anymore happier. Now on to more exciting things. About two weeks ago I skipped school & went out to eat with Mariah(going to Spain), Sara(from Spain), Laura(from Belgium), and Mrs.Daphne Cameron. We went to downtown Fernandina & at at the Marina. So many of our questions were answered, it was quite lovley I must say. Then we went "shopping" downtown. It was nice. So now on to more recent news. This past weekend was the district confrence for my district 6970. On Thursday night I went to Callahan and spent the night with Mariah. We didnt get to bed until pretty late, like 12. FIVE THIRTY. we had to leave at 5:30. sucked. So we got maybe at the most five hours of sleep, not cooool. Then we picked up Jennifer, stopped for Starbucks & Chickfla and off to Daytona it was. We got to Daytona right on time. We drove down Atlantic which seemed like FOREVER. We finally found the hotel. Took our stuff up to the room thingy & got dressed. We looked ridiculously tacky in those blazers up oh well. Then we got to talk to everyone and get pins from all the inbounds to put on our blazers, it was nifty.



Then we had this ceramony of flags or something of that nature. We practiced what seemed like forty million times. So finally it came time to have our flag thingy. We were lined up by countries in alphabetical order. Jody said our country, played the national anthem of our coutry, a bunch of old people clapped for us, then we all said thank you rotary to the rotary. MERCI ROTARY. Then when all that was done all the outbounds went back up stairs and ate pizza. Then we had some speech thingy where an inbound, rebound, and outbound made a speech. Then they gave an award to Borna from Croatia. It was sweet. So then we drove to Manatee Island, got unloaded and started the relay for life thing. It was really fun. Funniest time Ive had in awhile, just chilling with all the RYE outbounds and inbounds. I sware we walked that track 38329487239874 times. They had a bunch of live entertainment. It was funny when some random lady goes up there and everyone starts dancing with her.
told you it was pretty EPIC. so then more walking around and playing on this AMAZING playground. so hmn lets see. as it got dark it became more dark being the only thing lighting up the island was the candle lit bags and the moon light, the lights didnt work. then another proformer came and did this fire thingy. also the water in the bathroom didnt run, which was terribly gross. so after while, me, jennifer, kelsey, & lauren got a tad bit tired of walking around. i sorta kinda met up with grant & peter and ditched them, sorryy HAHA. so me, grant, and peter were holding hands skipping down the road it was EPIC, i gave grant a piggy back ride then dropped him. then peter pushed me and i kicked a bag over and it caught on fire so i had to put it out with my shoe. then we went to the dock and played NEVER HAVE I EVER which was a lameo game. then peter pushed me down the hill a few times. then i met back up with lauren, zach, and conor. went to the park, fell asleep, woke back up. went to laurens cars, tried to sleep for like 3 hours maybe, then woke back up. ending ceramony, left the camp. went to the board walk in daytona beach for starbucks, amazing naked juice, and a danish:D then we walked the beach. met up lauren & kelsey. then went to target, got me and bathing suit top. walked the boardwalk. got hennna tattoos and icees and pizza and other fun stuff. basically my trip was a dang blast. heres more pictures.

Public Speaking 6970

BONJOUR! so last saturday was our districts public speaking confrence thingy. So basically everyone in 6970 met at St.Johns community college where we had our interviews at the very begining of this whole process of Rotary Youth Exchange. So I caught a ride with Mariah(going to Spain) and her mommy. We had very interesting conversations on the ride to Palatka. So we finally get there and I am just so excited to see everyone again, you know it has been about 3 MONTHS since I've seen everyone, time is flying man. I actually wasn't that nervous for the speach for some reason. I had no butterflies, I wasn't shaking or anything. Once a few of us went up and said our speech's they split us up into groups to speed up the process. So of course Jody picked me first. I started my VERY short speech in french and I was fine until the first time I looked up and I just started shaking and I couldn't find a way to get the words out of my mouth. The rest of the speech went very well. THEN the critizism. I got made fun of for the way that I moved while I was doing my speech, but its all good. I loved hearing everyone's speech they all made me so happy for everyone. Oh man I was so happy I got to see Bridgette from Tallahasse! She inspires me more than anyone. She wants this experience to go to France more than anyone I know & her french BLEW ME AWAY! She made my stomach drop and tears come out. Rotary Youth Exchange is such a beautiful program. Every aspect of it is. It is so inspiring. I can't even wait until I leave, just around four months from now I will be sitting on an airplane all by myself departing for the jounrny of my life. I will have said goodbye to my family and friends for a whole year. I will be meeting a new family and living with them. I really don't know how to describe my feelings at this point. At times I think that this whole exchange has hit me, but I know that it hasn't. I don't think it will actually hit me until the day I have to hug my mommy goodbye for a whole year. There is so much to do in these next four months. My french really needs to improve big time, but I am sure it will all come together. I also recently discovered the city I will be living at in Belgium. It is called Virton. It is in the very southern part of the country. It is very small, but I think I will like it and it will grow on me. Well I need to cut this short because I am going to wake up bright and early and go to Orlando to go to Universal Studios for the weekend. Bisousssss!<3

Just a thought

So I was driving home from school today & I just started crying. A lot of this whole exchange thing is REALLY starting to hit me right in the face. I am starting to relize what this whole thing is about & how real it all is. Time is flying by. I can remember applying for the Rotary program just like it was yesterday, but it was really 5 months ago. I relized how much I really am going to miss my life back in America and how much I am going to miss out on, but in the end I know this whole experience will be more than worth it. I was looking on flickr today at pictures of the Brussel's airport & it just made me 10000000 times more excited knowing that in 5 months I will actually be there. I have a lot going on with rotary right now, that 12 page essay on Belgium & we have a confrence here in 2 weeks, then we have a district 6970 spring confrence in daytona beach. I will keep you updated when anything new is happening. All I know as of now is that I will be in the district of 1630 which is the french speaking part. For now, bon au revoir! :)

January Orientation Anyone?

It has been a little over a week since the first outbound orientation and all I can say is WOW! I mean it is absolutly insane how there are 76 other teenager just like me! So I am basically going to start from the VERY begining and see where that goes.

So the car ride up there was long and boring, and yes we did get some what lost but, we eventually found our way. So we get there and the first person I see is Steven. I then walk in and see all these bright faces and they shout "Hey, come sign in here." I find my name, sign, get my books & such. Then I head back to my bunk. All I can say is wow! Im not sure how old those bed's were but, I sure am glad I was the first one to arrive, so I snatched the single bed! Then I went back up to the check in and met my three new best friends, Nikki, Mariah, and Morgan. We talked and talked and talked about just random things. Then was dinner, man the food was blah! Me and Mariah tried to Asian Spinach Salad?!?! It was decent. So after that we all met up in a huge room and talked and talked and talked. Then we had some free time to do basically whatever we wanted to. That is where I met SOOO many people. I'm not really sure how to describe the fun I had. I mean how could you not have fun swinging, see sawing, and spinning on a huge twirly thing with about 12 of the greatest people on the planet. So then it was almost cerfew(12 am) so we all headed back to our horrid bunks. Of course my group was sooo dumb and we left the air conditioner on in JANUARY! So the first night of sleep was non exstint. The next morning we all got ready and headed to breakfast, no need to describe that. Then was the whole day of language sessions and RULES RULES RULES! That took up most of the day. I might add that my French is HORRIBLE and when I say HORRIBLE i mean it. I kind of embarressed myself on those 10 phrases, oops. But, after that we had a huge rotex session which was great. You know I always love stories about drunk exchange students, almost getting killed in a bus bomb, you know all that fun stuff. But, after that we had a bond fire and such. The next morning our parents came. I saw mommy yay! Then we listened to a bunch of travel stuff and all that fun stuff. But, it was the power point Al showed us that made everything actually come together. The qoutes he took out of the journals REALLY touched me. When he he showed the clip of Mike Williams blogs that qouted "I get it...I understand what this program is all about...understanding...An exchange never ends, it continues forever because the only thing guaranteed in life is change.... the only thing to satisfy change is understanding, and the only way to truly achieve understanding is adaptation. Rotary gives you an opportunity to WITNESS change in understanding through adaptation, first hand. And that is truly a miracle, that is how and why world peace can be achieved...It begins with an outgoing person, a shy person, a misunderstood person, to link the world together.. We are all soo different but yet soo alike, that it is actually possible to change the world, one person at a time, one year at a time.. So...who's turn is it next?? Don't let change happen without you...Keep that as a promise to yourself, and you will have the time of your life..."
and when all 76 of our pictures apared on that screen all that was there were tears. Tears I really can't even explain. More and more everyday I realize Wow, this is actually happening, I Sarah May am actually part of this absoulty WONDERFUL program of Rotary Youth Exchange. I can't thank Al enough, or Jody, or Daphne, actually EVERYONE involved in this program. That weekend showed me so much and opened so many doors. 8 months guys :)

An exciting day!

Hey everybody! Right now I am just sitting here at my mom's work so there is no better time to write this than now. Today is out first rotary orientaion YAY! But, I will keep this short and sweet, then I will update in the next week to tell you how it went. But, for now, I am getting more and more excited everyday. Everyday that passes is another day closer to going to Belgium! I can't get over it that I am actually going. It is just mind boogling. Well like I said short and sweet but, until next timee bye. :)