Goodbye to the exchange students here this year

The AFS students who were hosted here this year left yesterday for the final time.  Saying goodbye was infinitely hard.  Everyone but Pong wasn't too bad, sad but not too bad, but Pong was torture.  Knowing that she wont be in the room across the hall anymore is torture, knowing that she won't randomly come into my room when she is having trouble concentrating on her homework, or she wont steal my computer because she already broke the one we gave her for her room, or go on long afternoon walks around the bosque because she wants to lose weight, or hold Bubba in her arms so much that he almost forgot how to walk.

She truly became my sister, and I think the hardest part is not knowing when i will see her again and knowing it will at least be several years, after she has been in my life like every second for the past year, its just so weird.  And I'm just not really sure what I'm going to do without my sister.  We never fought, yeah, there were times we were mad at each other and were frustrated, but we were sisters in the end.

Yesterday was the second worst day of my life, and even though i know my year was worth it, it still sucked.  And though saying good bye to Pong (and the other students) was the worst, I also got some bad news.

Maddie told me right before she left that her parents got some news about hosting me; they won't be.  They were given some different American girl.  This news affected all of us.  And we are not so sure of wether or not I still want to go.  I mean I do, it will be an amazing year, but some of the security I had before is gone.  Like knowing I that I would have a house for one, knowing I would get my own room, knowing i would be in Venice, near where my mom was born, and that i would have Maddie there too.  Thats all gone and I'm kinda scared now.  What do I do?  And my dad sent in the final check last week.  I really wanna go, but I'm also scared now.

Getting Closer!

Well several months have passed and I'm getting closer to my departure.  I have been accepted to AFS-Italy and Maddie's Family is working super hard at hosting me but AFS-Italy is being difficult.  I really hope that they do because that would mean that I would get to stay in her Italian VILLA right outside of Venice, near where my mommy was born, and have someone who speaks so English to help me out but I would be going to a different high school so I wouldn't be totally dependent on her.  Thats prolly good.

This weekend was my AFS-NM orientation for going abroad.  I basically knew all of the rules and stuff so it was pretty boring.  But we got to hang out with all the students who are here this year and i love them all to death so that was fun and i got to meet all the kids also going abroad next year. They are super cool.  I really got along with them really well and felt really at ease with them.  During free time i even hung out with them instead of going off on my own or hanging out with Pongey or Maddie like i normally would have.  I really felt like I was part of the group.  ;)

I'm not going to lie, this weekend got me really excited....and a little scared.  I'm worried about learning the language, will i even be able to communicate at all?  But I'm also SO excited for MY year, as Maddie put it.  The students who are hosted here this year gave us some advice and the biggest thing was to try everything even if it doesn't sound fun cause the experience might be and if we don't we WILL miss out and that would be terrible.  One student said, "Say YES to EVERYTHING." lol, but i know what he meant.

I'll prolly be writing more that summer is here so I have more time and also because I'm getting to closer to leaving.  Here I go!