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Life begins at the end of your comfort zone

-Hannah

My First tattoo

Wanderlust

I got my first tattoo on Friday the 27th of may. I went to "Tattoo Bertje" in Oostende, West-Flanders.

I went there because I had no clue where to go and I knew that my mom's boss's children have tattoos so I asked her where they had them done.

We had a appointment on the 21th to look over the design and on the 27th it was placed.

To be honest, I wasn't nervous or scared at all, until I had to go lay down. GOD !!! Then I got really nervous, because I'm really scared of needles and I didn't know if it'll hurt. And guys it's permanent, it's for the rest of your life so in that moment I was nervous .

But it all turned out well. It didn't take very long, it didn't hurt a lot (not that I remember, but I was so nervous that I can't remember anything now) and the tattoo artist worked very clean. So I'm really happy with how it went. And I'm even more happy with how it turned out.

                    

And it looks pretty goddamn awesome in pictures !!



Life begins at the end of your comfort zone
- Hannah

Rotary Youth Exchange district

My Rotary Youth Exchange district

Not so long ago I learned my host district, host city and host school.

Next school year I'll be living in New Jersey, USA. I'll go to a town called Morristown just a bit more then an hour away from New York City. The school I'll be attending is Morristown High school.

I'm really happy with my placement. It's a gorgeous town and it's close to everything.

I can't wait for my adventure to begin.


Life begins at the end of your comfort zone
- Hannah

Change of country

Why my Rotary Youth Exchange host counrty changed.

I just got the sad news that I won't be going to District 9520 , I won't even be going to Australia.

Due to the recent terrorist attacks in Brussels the student linked to me that was going to come to Belgium changed her/his mind and didn't want to come anymore. 

So that means I can't go to Australia either.

But my district ( D1620) found a solution that I'm really grateful for.
They will send me to the USA , which normally was full , but somehow they found me a spot.
I will be going to multidistrict ESSEX at the east cost of the US.

Again I'm the rotary of my district really really really grateful.

Rotary Youth Exchange district

My Rotary Youth Exchange district 

When we see what our district is on the Rotary website it means that our application has been accepted by a foreign district.However they cannot fully guarantee a destination until the signed guarantee form has returned from the destination district. 

I just wanted to point that out. 

Anyways I learnt what my district was on April first and I was deeply hoping that it wasn't an April fools joke . But it turned out not to be a joke.

So I'm so happy to announce that I'll be going to district 9520 in Australia !!!!!

Again remember what I said at the beginning of this post. But we're all super exited !!!

In 13 days I'll probably know more. 

Life Begins at the end of your comfort zone

-Hannah

Rotary Youth Exchange interviews

What kind of interviews did I get to become an exchange student ? 

I got three different kinds of interviews on my Rotary meeting in January.

But you can't really call them interviews. First of all because we didn't know that there were going to be interviews.  And second of all because it didn't feel like an interview. 

So don't panic. It's going to be just fine.

We had to wait in a hall with all the other exchange students and their family. Then they called your name and you and your family has to go inside.

• The first interview : This one is with both you and your family. The person in front of you will tell you what country you'll most likely end up in. In my case he said this " The USA is full , so you can't go there, Canada is full as well so we'll be sending you to Mexico" and apparently he saw something on my face and asked me what was wrong and I carefully asked "what about Australia ?". And then he started yelling at the head of my district "I found my Australian !". He forgot who he had asked to change from USA to Australia. So then he told me that it's 95% sure that I'll end up in Australia.                                                                                                               
• The second interview : This one is for only you. They'll ask you questions like "why are you the perfect person to  represent our country in Australia ?" and "why do you want to go to Australia ?" . I was  so nervous that I don't even remember what I said, all I remember is that I ended with "... and  they have koalas , my best friend is obsessed with them." or something like that. And then we had an entire conversation about the fact that koala's bite.                                                                     
• The third interview : This one is for your parents. I don't really know what they ask your parents. But they ask  questions like this "why is your child perfect to go on exchange" and then they asked a couple  of questions about your house and family and what kind of inbound they want to be host parents of. 

So that's basically what the interviews looked like.

Life begins at the end of your comfort zone

-Hannah 

The process of applying for an exchange year

The process of my RYE application from November till March

So it's been a while since I posted an update on my application for the Rotary Youth Exchange Program.  Last time that I wrote a post about it was in November and I didn't even submit my application yet , so now that it's March , I think it's about time I gave you an update.

The deadline for my applications was on the 10th of December and it was a lot of unexpected last minute running around. There was no place at any dentist near me to fill in the papers , I still had to go to the hospital for my tests ( but that's my fault with my gigantic fear for needles), They had to have copies of my ID cart and they needed a birth certificate ( is it not clear that I'm alive ? lol) . So all hell broke lose and worst of all , I was in the middle of my exams. But everything was submitted in time.

So as I said in my previous post , you have to give a list with three countries with each a different language. So I choose to fill my application in with The United States of America for English, Canada for French and Mexico for Spanish. 

At some point the head of my district called me to tell me that I had the perfect profile for Australia because I'm of the right age. And he asked if I wouldn't consider to change my English speeking country to Australia. I told him that I wasn't sure yet and had to think about it. I soon came to the relisation that it was an amazing oppertunity , because what where the odds that I would ever end up in Australia again? Well let me tell you , they are definitly smaller then my odds for the USA. So I said yes.

In the beginning of January we had to go to a meeting with all the other exchange students and their family's from my district. Let me tell you this , it was horrible. They talked about insureces and everything , which is not that bad, but it was all in French. Yes I am from a country that speeks French but the other half of the population speeks Dutch. I speek Dutch. I could save my ass in France with some broken French but I can't speek about insurences . Dear God. So turns out from all the 72 students my district wil send out, only 6 of them speek Dutch as an original language. 

Anyway we had some interviews there that no one knew about. But 

I'll write about them in my next post. Because this post is getting way to long.

But since then all I know is that I have to go on a Rotary weekend in April.

And normally there they should tell me where I'm going.

Life begins at the end of your comfort zone

-Hannah