9 days prior

hello everyone! 

I'm sure that many of you reading this would be aware of my plans to go on an exchange to France this year. This post is for those who do not, or for those who still want to know a bit more.

So...last year on the first day of June, I received an email from Education Perfect. They notified me that I was eligible to apply for an NZIIU Travel Scholarship. So, here's a wee bit of a back story about how that actually happened:

Education Perfect is a website where you can practise studying languages. BASICALLY, every year Education Perfect has a competition where you have 10 days to get as many points as you can in your selected language. Mainly you get a certificate (unless you're like super super pro), but they also put you in the draw for some prizes too, to reward your gruelling efforts as a keyboard warrior on their website every day. If you got 3000+ points in the competition last year, they sent out an email explaining how to apply for the scholarship. Now, I got exactly 3000 points and I'm glad I did, because 1 point less and I would've completely missed this opportunity and been on a different path in life entirely. 

So this email explained that there were two scholarships up for grabs, a $5000 one and a $4000 one for the first and second placed winners respectively. Also, they only took the first 50 applications, so I knew I had to be quick sis.

Basically, I filled in some paperwork and sent it off asap rocky, then waited. Obviously, I asked my parents if I could apply and they were pretty keen for me to give it a go (as always, bless up Tom and Alex). I didn't really expect much from it at the time and my parents told me lots and lots "don't be disappointed if it doesn't end up happening".

Anyway so a couple months (I think) had passed when I got an email from Mari, one of the exchange coordinators at NZIIU, stating that I was shortlisted for an interview. Only 10 applicants out of the 50 were shortlisted for an interview, which meant I was pretty stoked. The interviews happened in the last week of my holidays, and each interview went for around 3 hours. So yes, from there I waited another couple of weeks before I got an email on a Friday evening at literally 5pm, stating I had won the first prize scholarship of $5000!!!! Obviously, I was incredibly stoked about this, as you could imagine.

My host family is located close by a town called Melun, which is 50km from the centre of Paris. I leave Christchurch on the 29th of March and fly first to Sydney (3 hours 40 mins), then to Abu Dhabi (14 hours, 50 mins), then finally to Paris (7 hours, 25 mins) before I catch the train to Melun and meet my host family there. So just over 26 hours of travel time (hellooooo jetlag). Just to be clear, I took French as a subject in high school from year 9 until year 13, although I am by no means fluent or anywhere near it.

I am really excited, and also extremely nervous to leave, but I just keep telling myself that theres no point staying in my comfort zone forever. I am trying to do my best to prep myself before I depart e.g. screening Damon and Jo's weekly French videos and a bit of Coffee Break French (thanks Sophie for this recommendation!!!), as well as emailing my host family on a regular basis (in French of course), and a couple of Facetimes with them as well, which was scary af, not even gonna lie, but they were super sweet. Obviously, I know that the language will be extremely difficult at the beginning and that I will most likely look extremely stupid for a few weeks at least. But that's the whole fun of it all, isn't it?

I still have my bags to pack and goodbyes to say, but without a doubt this experience will be unlike any other.

Get ready for regular updates while I am in France, lots of pictures, as well as me pretending I'm French 😆

me and my French teacher Mr Kimber with my scholarship certificate!!

Au rev for now,
Michelle