NSLI-Y Scholarship

My first blog post! I'm not much of a blogger, so please excuse my poor blogging skills. This blog will be used for documenting my trip to China this summer with American Councils (for the sake of family, friends, and memories). I intend to update it in China as frequently as I can, so join me on my journey and *fingers-crossed* for good wireless connection!

First, let me explain a little bit about the program that I am participating in. NSLI-Y stands for National Security Language Initiative for Youth. It is a government-funded program that aims to provide scholarships to high school students to study critical languages abroad. Such languages include Chinese, Korean, Russian, Arabic, Persian, Turkish and Hindi. There are two options of duration: summer and year. The summer program is roughly 6-7 weeks long. If you want more information on NSLI-Y, visit  http://www.nsliforyouth.org/.

After 7 months of waiting, I finally received my finalist email on April 4th at 9:07 am HST. I didn't see it until 2:00 pm in my last period though. When I opened up my acceptance letter (pictured above), I couldn't stop spazzing...My friends literally thought I was crying. I probably looked like an idiot, but who cares! I'm going to China! 

Honestly, this still doesn't seem real to me. I seriously can't believe that I had made it, especially since my interview didn't go too well (or at least that's how I felt about it). Thank you to everyone who believed in me and encouraged me to apply for this scholarship! This will be my first time traveling outside of the United States, so it will be quite the experience(: I'm hoping American Councils start notifying us about our locations soon. I just want to know where I am placed already! In the mean time, I should probably finish filling out all of my forms.

Until next time,
Christine