(Almost) Free and Three Weeks To Go

It's finally finals week, and that means that I'm almost free from school for the summer! Unfortunately, this week has not gone as smoothly as I would have liked. I've been having tons of problems with my internet connection, and it was completely down for about 24 hours. None of that is too helpful when all of my classes are online, so I had to end up using my phone as a hotspot. I still lost some time though. It's a good thing that I work pretty well under pressure!

Once again, time really seems to be flying by. I'll be in New York for my gateway orientation in exactly three weeks. I can't believe that it's almost time for me to leave! I'm still really excited, but I'm realizing just how much I have to do before I leave. I still have to finish my history class, pack my bags, pack up my room (see below), and do a ton of other little stuff in the few weeks that I have left.

In other news, my family is hosting an exchange student from Thailand while I'm gone. (I don't know if he'll ever read this but...Hi, Boeing!) He's actually coming a few days before I leave for Indonesia, so I'll still get to meet him! Since he's going to have my room, I have to put a bunch of my stuff away before I leave. I'm actually just thinking of this as a head start for college preparation. I'm sure I don't need half of the stuff in my room anyway.

Also, I finally vlogged! It's definitely not one of the best videos that I have made. The camera quality isn't the best, and I didn't do too much to edit it because I really need to focus on finishing up my last few days of classes. I don't think it's too bad though!

Sorry for the TERRIBLE thumbnail...YouTube isn't exactly cooperating with me. 

(I filmed this in the morning, so my voice is weird too...)

I still can't believe that I only have three weeks left in the United States. I can't wait to get to Indonesia though! 

Selamat tinggal! 

Indonesian Word of the Day: Kamus - Dictionary 

Rudimental - Free feat. Emeli Sandé
A great song sung by one of my favorite artists! 

A Host Family, Less Than One Month, and I Still Haven't Vlogged!

Less than one month. That's how long I have left at home. In about one month I will be on a plane to New York for my gateway orientation. I get on another plane the very next day, but this time I'll be headed for Tokyo. After that, I finally get on my flight to Jakarta! Even though I still have a month to go, I'm beyond excited to get this next year started. Until then, I'll be finishing up my last few days of school, starting (and hopefully finishing) some college applications, and deciding what to pack for the next year.

Now for the first thing that the title says this post is about. I am so excited right now. AFS emailed me about my host family yesterday, and it looks like I'll be living in Bandung! My host family is made up of a mom, a dad, 2 brothers, and 2 sisters. My youngest host brother is actually the same age as my little brother, so that's pretty cool. Knowing who my host family is and where I will be living makes everything seem so much more real, but this whole thing still seems somewhat surreal. I sent an email to my host mom, so I'm pretty excited to hear back from her!

Here are a couple pictures of Bandung:

Mount Tangkuban Perahu (north of Bandung)

Pretty cool looking city, right?

(Shouout to Wikipedia for some pretty awesome Creative Commons pictures!)

Indonesian Word of the Day: Bahagia - Happy

I like to refer to this as the "CSI music video." With that said, if you're grossed out by the idea of (fake) blood and the deceased, then you may not want to watch the first video below. It's a great song though!

Bastille - Of the Night

I can't even tell you how much I love this mashup!



And because I'm indecisive, I'm going to post the live version too. It's sooooo good!

P.S. I just realized that the Indonesian word of the day and the video for this post's song don't really seem go together...

Dates!

Two posts in one day! Crazy, right? This will just be a quick (and very short) update because I actually have a bit more information. Just in case you're wondering, it's not a host family...yet. I did just get my flight information though, so now I know when I'm leaving! I have to be in NYC for my gateway orientation on August 20th. That's exactly six weeks from today! I leave for Jakarta on the 21st and get there on the 22nd. For the sake of routine, I almost want to still volunteer at the hospital on the my last Monday here, but I don't think that would do anyone any good. I'm sure that I'll be freaking out, so pushing people in wheelchairs and carrying specimens probably isn't the best idea...Who am I kidding. I'll probably still be packing anyway! As much as I like the idea of having everything packed early, I know that it never happens. For instance, I'm leaving in the morning to go visit some colleges for the weekend, but I haven't packed anything yet. I think that's my cue to go pack and to make a mental reminder that I should have my bags packed way ahead of time for Indonesia. 

Until next time,

Victoria

P.S. I hope you don't think this post is over yet. I still have to tell you the Indonesian word of the day and give you a song to listen to! Here they are:

Indonesian word of the day: Samudra - Ocean

5 Seconds of Summer - Voodoo Doll

This song has randomly been stuck in my head for the past 2 days...

(Just in case you can't tell, I really like acoustic and live music!)

No Worries

Warning: I jump around to different topics a lot in this blog post. I'm sorry if it's a little confusing, but that's just how my brain works sometimes. I'm also sorry for any grammatical errors in any of my posts. I don't usually look over writing before posting it (that would make me want to rewrite the whole thing...), so the mistakes are pretty much inevitable.

Even though I am leaving for Indonesia next month and have a ton of things to do before then, I honestly am not too worried about anything (yet). I finally have all of my SAT subject test, ACT, and AP scores back, so at least I don't have those hanging over my head. I somehow did better than, worse than, and the same as I was expecting. With that being said, I definitely wish that I would have been able to focus on each test a lot more. I guess there is nothing I can do now though. I'm just happy to be done! Once I finish up my classes at the end of this month, I'm going to try my best to get my college applications done. I've only started one so far, so it's probably going to be really hard to get all of them done before I leave. I'll just have to wait and see what happens! 

As for exchange, some of the exchange students from other countries have started to find out their host schools in Indonesia. Hopefully I'll find out about mine soon! I finally got all of my shots a few weeks ago, so that's one less thing to do! I also got malaria pills and pills for diarrhea (how lovely). On a far less disgusting note, I know I promised to do vlogs once school finished, so I should probably get on that. I actually filmed a video in April, but I never posted it because YouTube was being weird. I shouldn't be making excuses though. In the words of my little brother: Excuses, excuses, excuses...they all stink! Anyway, I'll try to have a video up within the next two weeks. 

Also, congratulations to the girls in the Philippines and India for making it to their homes for the year. I hope that you are all having an amazing time so far! Shout-out to the  Malaysia group as well because they are leaving next week. Safe travels! Before I know it, I'll be heading off to New York for my gateway orientation!

As I said before, I'm really looking forward to finding out about my host family. I think that will make this whole thing seem a little bit more real. PLUS, I'll actually be able to tell people where I'm going when they ask. Considering the fact that the only thing many people know about Indonesia is Bali (if they even realize that it's part of Indonesia...), telling them that I'll be living on Java doesn't really mean much. Maybe I'll know where I will be living by the time I post again! 

I should probably go do some calculus now...

Selamat tinggal! 

McFly - No Worries

How could you not love them?!

P.S. Indonesia's presidential election was today. The quick count says that Jokowi won, but nothing will be official until the KPU announces the official count later this month! I'll probably make an actual post once the winner is officially announced.