Hello world!
First of all to those who don't know me, my name is Sarah Jones and I will tell you a bit about myself and then explain why I am blogging. So Monday, March 25th, 2013 was the best day ever because that was the day that I found out I will be studying abroad in Bursa, Turkey for six weeks!
The story:
It was about a year ago when, for some reason, I started researching gap year opportunities, to travel abroad for a year before I went to college. After a lot of research and reading travel blogs, I decided that studying abroad was the right option for me. So I found a program and country I wanted to go with and I wrote a big, long letter to my dad explaining/proving why he should let me take a gap year. Unfortunately, due to financial reasons, I couldn't take a gap year. Despite me not being able to study abroad, I still obsessively read travel blogs.
It was sometime in September when I was reading a blog about free exchange programs, one of the organizations (National Security Language Initiative for youth, or NSLI-Y), I found out had summer programs that I was eligible for! Not only that, but it was a fully paid for scholarship (I could also only go abroad over the summer, if it was fully paid for). I asked my parents if I could apply and they said yes.
I sent in my application in November, waited and found out I was a semi-finalist for the scholarship in December! I then had an interview and waited, again. Then on Monday, it was the beginning of lunch, I had my phone out to check e-mails, then I noticed my dad was calling. I answered and he told me that I had got the scholarship to study abroad in Bursa, Turkey for six weeks! I then preceded to hang up on him, run around the school and trip over people. Needless to say I was happy!
The program:
I've already mentioned the organization, NSLI-Y. NSLI-Y is a government sponsored scholarship that provides high school students with the opportunity to study less commonly taught languages abroad. The languages they offer, in no particular order, are: Chinese, Korean, Hindi, Russian, Arabic, Persian (Tajik) and Turkish. If you're interested in learning more about the program you can visit the website here: www.nsliforyouth.org.
Me:
So as I've already mentioned my name is Sarah Jones, I am seventeen and a senior in high school. I've lived in Anchorage, Alaska my whole life and have a love/hate relationship with this place. I also have a twin sister, Haley, whom I might or might not mention in this blog.
My whole life I've had this desire to travel and explore other places, which is why I want to study abroad, also why I want to double major in Spanish and International Relations, in college. I've been taking Spanish for all four years in high school and am currently in AP Spanish right now. I fell in love with Spanish my sophomore year of high school and from that my love of languages and travel has grown.
I also swim, ski, play viola and volunteer, except considering I only swim and ski on my high school team and am about to graduate, I am finished with most of my after school activities. I graduate on May 15th.
Blogging:
I am blogging to not only share my Turkish experience with my friends and family back here in the U.S, but to also encourage others to study abroad as well, regardless of what country, organization/program it is with.
Why is this so important you might ask? Because without reading travel blogs myself, I would never have wanted to study abroad as badly as I did and I definitely wouldn't have found out about NSLI-Y and therefore wouldn't be going abroad this summer.
It's important for me to share this experience with everyone! So if you have questions/comments leave them here. I'll probably update next Saturday or Sunday with pictures because next Saturday is prom!
All right, bye everyone!
