NSLI-Y

I  said I would make a post about both NSLI-Y and YES so I decided to start with my post about NSLI-Y. NSLI-Y stands for National Security Language Initiative for Youth and is sponsored by the US Department of State. It is a full scholarship to study critical languages including Chinese, Arabic, Korean, Hindi, Persian, Russian, and Turkish for either a summer or an academic year. The application for NSLI-Y was available sometime in October and was due November 5, 2013. It consisted of information about me and where I live, what kind of activities I do, pictures of my family and friends with me, several essays about why I wanted to do NSLI-Y and other things like that, a teacher recommendation (thank you Mr. Olson!), a parent recommendation (thank you to my mom!), a transcript, and a few other things. I also had to rank my top 3 languages and I chose Arabic (which would send me to Oman or Morocco), Hindi, and Turkish as my top 3 choices. I had lots of trouble with the application the night before it was due because so many people were on the website that it ran incredibly slow, so I woke up really early the morning of November 5, finished the application, and submitted it, which caused me to have a bit of a panic attack but also made me very happy.
Then the waiting game began and finally on December 11, I received the e-mail saying that I was a semi-finalist. I was incredibly excited and couldn't believe it, but after a few days, it finally sunk in and I got more and more excited as the days passed. I had a friend from my school who had also applied to NSLI-Y who sadly was not chosen as a semi-finalist, but it was incredibly fun to talk with her about our dreams for traveling and to freak out when semi-finalist notifications went out. I later received an invitation to my interview at an AFS volunteer's house here in Albuquerque and immediately began thinking about it and getting nervous for it. It ended up being the morning of a swim meet, so I swam the earliest event I could get into, got changed in the locker room, made the disturbing discovery that there was no outlet in the bathroom so I couldn't dry my hair so I accepted the fact that I was going to have a wet ponytail for my interview, and headed off with my mom. When I arrived at the interview, I filled out a short questionnaire and then had my actual interview. My interviewer was extremely nice and I really felt like she was trying to find the good things about me instead of the bad. It was a great first interview experience and I'm very glad that I had the experience.
After my interview, I waited for more than 3 months before I heard on April 16 that I had not been chosen as a recipient of a NSLI-Y scholarship. I was very upset at the time and cried for a little while, but I got over it and just continued to hope for the YES scholarship. I am very thankful to NSLI-Y for everything they taught me through this experience and congratulations to all the people who were selected as finalists! I'm excited that we will be experiencing other cultures together! Thank you for reading! And since posts with just words are boring, here is a picture from each of my top three NSLI-Y countries!

This is how I have always imagined Morocco and I can't wait for the day when I can go visit and see everything in this amazing country.

Although I know very little about Oman, the idea of any country that speaks Arabic has always intrigued me and I also think it's an absolutely gorgeous country.

I had to go the traditional route for India because the Taj Mahal is just so incredibly beautiful and this picture is so amazing. I hope to visit India sometime very soon.

And here is The Blue Mosque in Turkey which I am definitely going to have to make sure I visit while I am in Turkey.

I hope to visit all of these countries and more in my very near future because each of them has something different for me that I've dreamed of learning about!

Introductions

Hello everyone! On the off chance that someone who isn't related to me is or will be reading this, I think I will introduce myself. My name is Kathryn Fleddermann and I am from Albuquerque, New Mexico. I run cross country and track and swim for my high school and I love to ski during the winter. I also love learning languages and have always dreamed of traveling around the world. I've never left the USA, but to start my travels, I have decided to study abroad for my junior year of high school. I was interested in going to basically every country and I really had no idea how I would decide where I wanted to go or how my family would afford for me to have this adventure. So when I learned about the YES Abroad and NSLI-Y scholarships, I decided that that was how I would solve both of my problems. I am going to make a post later that talks in more detail about both of those scholarships, but for now I will just give a brief description of my experience with each of them. I went through the application process and was chosen as a semi-finalist for both programs. I attended an interview for each of them (the YES one being quite a bit more intense) and then I waited and waited and waited. On April 12, I heard from YES that I was an alternate for the program, which meant that if any finalists chose not to accept the scholarship, I could be moved up to being a finalist. I was a little bit disheartened to hear that, but I chose not to despair because I was still waiting on NSLI-Y and I could get moved up to Finalist for YES. I found out later that week that I was rejected by NSLI-Y which made me cry for several minutes, but I then decided that I would just continue to hope for YES and plan my next year just in case studying abroad didn't work out. On April 25, I received the e-mail I had been hoping for since March that said I had been moved up to being a Finalist to Turkey. My excitement could hardly be contained and I have been in awe of how lucky I am ever since. I want to use this blog as a sort of journal from my time abroad, as a way of sharing my experiences with people at home and future exchange students, and as a way to stay in touch with people back home. Thank you to everyone for coming along on all of my adventures! I hope that this isn't to boring to read! Since I think just words is too boring, I'm also going to put in a few pictures! Thanks for reading!

P.S. All of the photos below were taken during a trip to a small town in northern New Mexico that we took for a friend's birthday. We had a great time and it was an awesome experience all around.

This was me and my friends when we stopped for lunch on the way home from our trip. I was sore for several days after carrying my friend all the way across a giant field, but it was worth it just for this adorable picture.

I love this picture because it basically sums up me and my friends. This was right before we took a hike and I just think its hilarious because this is how we always are when we are together.

I just love this picture because I love my friends. I will miss them so much while I am in Turkey. Love you guys!