The First Orientation

   Finding out your country is one of the most wonderful, brutal, and time consuming process ever. First off, remember that each district is different so if you are a STEP student and are not in district 5100 this may be different for you.

     After being accepted in November and filling out the huge final application,  you have to wait until January before you even get to chose a country! This personally left me extremely confused on where I wanted to go and doing a lot of research and losing a lot of sleep. Like seriously, it would take me forever 2-3 hours to fall asleep! I thought I wanted to go to Europe for sure but I wanted a slightly longer exchange... basically I was really confused. Then January came and it was time for orientation.  I went in to orientation without any clue of where I really wanted to go.
      
   My exchange officer drove the five of us to the 4h camp in Salem, where we were then split up into our cabins, everyone from my club had one of each other in their cabin except for me. I thought this was a good thing because it would force me to socialize with other people outside of my club and help me practice for future situations which I will need to do this. (Like on exchange or running for different offices in FFA or other clubs). We then all headed back to the gym where we got our binders, name tags, sized for the blazers (well long term did, short term gets white polo shirts) and our pictures taken for our business cards. After that we headed to dinner where we ate. After dinner we went back to the gym and were split off into groups then given five minutes to figure out a plan to build the tallest tower out of marshmallows and dry spaghetti noodles. I had a girl in my group who went to an engineering thing over the summer so we believed we were going to win. Then they announced that we weren't allowed to talk. We did pretty good but didn't win. After this we went back for a snack and to take a test. Then we headed back to the gym to talk to the district exchange officers about the countries we were interested in. After that we were sent to bed for a early morning the next morning. 

    The second day we had to be at breakfast by 7, one of the exchange officers made that very clear the night before. After that we split into groups for classes. We had like 6 or 8 classes with breaks in between, it was long and brutal but filled with a lot of information.  After the last class we had dinner and headed back up to the gym for the country fair. A lot of us exchange students believed that the country fair would help us decide exactly where we wanted to go. Reality it really just confused us on where we wanted to go. I was considering countries I didn't even think I would even consider.  After the country fair, we listened to past exchange students answering a series of questions of their experience.  After that we were sent to bed,  but just before my district short term country officer informed us that we needed a decision in the morning. I had some clue of where I wanted to go, it was between Finland,  which was where I wanted to go all along and Argentina as my first choices as well as three more options.

      The next morning,  we had breakfast and then it was time to decide. Sitting there trying to decide was really hard, my brain was going crazy! Should I go with Finland, the country that had been on my list since the time I applied or Argentina? In the end I put down Argentina as my first choice followed by Finland, Brazil, New Zealand, and India. I knew where ever I ended up would be perfect,  exchange is how you make it. If you want it to suck, it will suck, but if you make the best out of it everything will be just fine and wonderful. I kept this in mind as I waited and waited forever for a placement.

Finding Out My Country

As I said in a earlier post, you wait a really long time for your country placement. We made our choices and then were informed  that we will find out when the other countries contact our exchange officer, meaning that we could be informed as soon as the end of the month to April or May! This really tests your patience,  trust me. It drove me crazy not knowing where I would be living during the summer let alone even my exchange student's name! Finally it came.

      I received an email on March 2nd, late at night, right after I got home from a long weekend at a cavy show. It said a possible match to Argentina! My first choice!  I freaked out and pretty much informed my whole family (which kind of freaked out my mom as I ran extremely quickly down the stairs and slightly made it sound like something was wrong). Her name was Florencia and she was only a few months older than me, I quickly read over her application and realized how awesome she was and how we were practically perfect exchange matches! The next morning she contacted me and we have been talking ever since.  I'm so excited to go and for her to come!

   I will be living in Necochea in the Buenos Aires province of Argentina,  which is about 6 hours from the capital! Another girl from my club is also going to Argentina and in the same district so I will also most likely be able to see her as well as a past exchange student who came to our club last winter!

      I will be leaving on June 18th and have over 7000 miles to travel! So yes, a 3ish hour flight to Texas,  a 5 hour layover,  then about a 12 hour flight to Buenos Aires! I think the flying is the number one thing that making nervous because I have never traveled alone or even out of the country! But I'm sure all will be fine and it will be amazing because exchange is how you make it and I plan to make it more than amazing! But for now, I will have to worry about packing,  finishing my sophomore year, FFA elections, packing,  auction and banquet, my last dance competition, packing, national application for my agriscience experiment,  and did I mention packing? The count has started and each day that passes by brings a wave of excitement and anxiety but it's all good! Only 40 more days until departure!

Overview of Exchange

I've decided to have a blog over the course of my exchange. The point of it is so that my family and friends can stay updated about my adventures and hopefully help future exchange students!

    First a few things about me. My name is Karissa and I'm from Oregon and will be going on exchange with rotary youth exchange to Argentina! I'm a part of the STEP program so I will only be in Argentina for a few months but I am still very excited. I'm also making this blog for future STEP kids as there isn't that much information on the STEP process for the curious minded so here you go! Unlike long term, who normally have to pick from a list of countries, short term can go anywhere with a certified Rotary district. It is a direct family to family exchange so I will spend 4-10 weeks with my family then my host sister will come and spend 4-10 weeks with me. Short term is pretty much a "make your own exchange" as you chose the dates and everything; it can be for as long as you want or as short as you want (ideal for protective parents who are nervous about sending you to another country). If you go to the northern hemisphere your exchange will be completely in the summer so you'll be there for July and they'll be here for August; with the Southern Hemisphere the exchange is normally longer as it'll be their winter, so you'd go all summer and then they will come during their summer or your winter! (That's what I am doing) It can get crazy confusing other countries such as India also does staggered exchanges, and I've heard that Taiwan and Japan do that too but I'm not quite sure.
 
     I'll be living in Necochea Argentina which is about 6 hours away from Buenos Aires,  the Capitol of Argentina. It is on the coast and is a port city, one the most important because it connects trade to the south. I will be there for about 2.5 months from June 18th to August 30th. I'm so excited and can't wait to share my story with the world!