Studying Abroad- AFS Turkey

Hello lovely people!  As I'm sure you know by now, I am hoping to study abroad for my Senior year of high school in the wonderful country called Turkey with AFS.  That is, if I don't get into YES Abroad.  The past few years I have looked around at my mile high and mountainous home, and tried to imagine myself in the land beyond it.  At first it was Japan, then it moved to France and Brazil.  Then I began to truly think about what I wanted to do.  For years I have heard snipes and genuine fury at the Islamic religion.  Being a fairly non-judgmental person, I tried to see past the acts that lead to this extreme anger.  I decided what better way to quell people's fears about the unknown, than to jump in headfirst and learn all I could.  So here I am today.  Applying for a year abroad to a predominantly Muslim country.  My excitement can't even be put down in words.

However, an obstacle stands in my way.  The AFS year program to Turkey cost $12,500.  Even if I were to receive the $3,000 Global Leaders scholarship, it's a considerable sum.  I plan to work all summer, hosting at a restaurant, doing hair, running fundraisers for my cause, and possibly making things and selling them.  Even through doing this, I will need a bit of help.  If I were to receive the YES scholarship, everything would be paid for.  I have to work a lot harder to make AFS Turkey happen.

If you would be kind enough to donate through my ChipIn button, I would be eternally grateful.  Also note that if I am accepted into YES, any donations would be refunded to you.  This also ONLY goes towards AFS, I cannot use it to go on some wild shopping spree :)

Thank you so much!

-Olivia


*To sponsor my AFS program now, please click the ChipIn button

It's February!!

*To the tune of Friday*

It's February, February, gonna get down in February. Lookin' forward to an email, email....


That's right my jolly good friends.  We all (as in the YES hopefuls) receive our semi-finalist emails at the end of February.  The results being good or bad.  Preferably wonderful.  The countdown has officially started for us.  I don't know the exact date of the notifications, but my rough date is February 24.  It's a Friday, and at the end of the month. 


Next week is our Winter Spirit Week in the land of HHS.  The theme is Harry Potter, which makes me indescribably joyful.  The Junior class is Slytherin, which makes me all kinds of happy.  However, I'm fine with this possibly being the last Winter Spirit Week I go through.  I don't mean that in a "Ugh, I'm so tired of this school," way, but more of a I'd-much-rather-be-studying-abroad-than-rubbing-up-on-each-other-at-the-dance attitude.  Not my thing...


Not much else is going on in the Land of Olivia, aside from the fact that I am tentatively applying for the AFS Turkey year program in case I don't get into YES...but there is a very small chance I will be able to scrounge up $12,500, even if I do win something from Global Leaders.  I shall try my hardest though!  If I can't do it...I suppose I will apply to YES again, NSLI-Y, and talk to Rotary about a gap year to Turkey.  I will study abroad.  I'm determined!  I need to see the world, and I want to know what else is out there.


For now, I leave you with this.

I'm not normally a fan of Taylor Swift, but something about this song really gets to me.... I suppose it's because of all that has happened recently with my Great-Grandma... I'm still struggling with that.


This is another side note, music can be more powerful than just about anything.  It lets me breath, and brings a mass amount of joy, motivation, and inspiration to my life.




Olivia 

A little bit of life...

For those of you who know me, you know that I have a rather large adoration for foreign countries.  I'd rather eat Indian food (despite the spice that makes me feel like I am going to spontaneously combust) than a large burger.  In fact, I'm not a huge fan of burgers in general.  As for prom, I am going to wear a sari instead of a poofy, cookie cutter dress that has been mass produced and worn to proms across the nation countless times.  Don't get me wrong, I don't have anything against them, they just aren't my thing.  Who knows, my sari could be mass produced as well.  

Onto the topic at hand.  My co-worker (and dear friend of mine) and I went and gorged ourselves on Indian food today.  We had multiple large cracker-like...crackers,  2 slices of garlic naan bread each, *enough rice to feed multiple large mice (I'm sure mice like rice...and if they do, they'd eat plenty), chicken curry, and tandoori chicken.  Needless to say, I had enough food to last me for the rest of the day.  Just kidding, I'll be hungry again in a few hours.  

Rene with her food (and my chicken)

We have decided that once a week, we will go out and try a new type of food.  Not necessarily new, but foreign.  Ethiopian, Sushi, Middle-Eastern, Southern (Deep south.  Still in America, but we don't have much of that food in Colorado), Thai, and whatever else we may find.  Denver has a fair amount of delicious restaurants, you just have to look.  Some of the best ones are tucked away, and are stumbled across only by accident.  Personally, I'm for a big bowl of Pho next week.  

Now for the latest YES news!  Not too much is going on, aside from the fact that I received my doctors/dentist form that has to be filled out before March 14 if I become a semi-finalist, along with an academic credit form.  I'm really hoping that I am going to have to fill those out.  I want to win this scholarship so badly.  It is everything I have been searching for and hoping to do for years.  I suppose I just have to keep hoping!  Just keep hoping, just keep hoping, just keep hoping, hoping, hoping.  *to the tune of  Just keep swimming from Finding Nemo*

*Pardon the mice reference.  Mice rhymed with rice, so I decided it worked as a metaphor.

"We are young and we are strong"

We are young and we are strong

Through strength in self we become

Something more than they can be

This is our Sweet Blasphemy

-Sweet Blasphemy, Black Veil Brides

This has been my theme song or anthem that I blast whenever I am sad or angry.  It cheers me up every time I hear it.  It has been played on my iPod over 100 times, not counting the times that I didn't wait for the song to end.  I probably have a bit of an obsession with Black Veil Brides.  My school bag has their logo printed across the top in shiny silver ink, above my bed numerous posters and photos of the band are carefully thumbtacked to my wall, and all of their songs are the ones that are most played on my iPod.  Sadly, I have not been able to see them in concert.  During Warped Tour, their bus broke down.  When they were set to play in Denver in November (I even had VIP tickets to meet them I may add) Andy whacked his head on an amp (or some sort of stage equipment) and severely broke his nose down the middle.  Watch me be in another country when they come around again :P 

Music makes me happy in so many ways.  I'm supposed to start drum lessons soon (my Dad is a drummer in the band Boldtype).  I would ultimately like to sing, as I feel I can put the most emotion into it, but we'll see what happens.

I will leave you with this, so you can enjoy them as well :)

Look at how pretty and wonderful they are!

 

And this:

 

-Olivia

P.S. Nothing new from YES yet, I still have about a month or so of waiting left.

My life.

This is pretty much my friends and I in a nutshell.  My neck hurts.  Whipping my head around like that might have made my brain shift in my skull.

APPLICATION SUBMITTED!

That's right!  My Kennedy-Lugar YES Abroad application has officially been packed up and shipped off to be evaluated.  Figuratively speaking.  It's an online application.

I have been working on it for hours on end, trying to make it as wonderful as possible, and I can only hope that it is enough!  My heart is pounding at the moment, since I just pressed the submit button less than four minutes ago.  It's a scary experience clicking that little box.

Now I wait.  The end of February seems so far now, but I know with everything going on with school and the musical (Xanadu!) it should go fairly quickly.

That's all for tonight, I just had to share my exciting news.

Night all!

Olivia

Hum de dum my hair is periwinkle...wait what?

You read that right.  Before it was a lovely mix of pinks and purples and blues.  Well, I tried bleaching it all (didn't work as well as I so hoped) and dying it gray.  The gray turned an awkward shade of periwinkle.  See here...or over there.  I added some hot pink, blue, purple, and green streaks to the bottom layer.  It looks lovely in a braid...but I miss the pink on top.  I MUST NOT BLEACH ANYMORE.  Otherwise I would become an incredibly sad Olivia with zero hair.  You can't dye bald.


To prove that I actually have hair skills, I cut and dyed my friend's hair.  I feel rather proud.

Anyways, on to things that are actually exchange related.  I was able to grab my transcript from my counselor a few days ago, and I'm going to go make sure my recommendations haven't been forgotten about.  I plan to turn my application in by Monday hopefully!  Maybe even earlier.  Then I just have over a month of waiting.  Oh goodness.  The suspense!