I thought I saw the last of me too, but low and behold, here I am making yet another post about NSLIY in October.
With the application season well underway, and the deadline for the 2018-2019 application fast approaching, I've been reminiscing more and more about a trip that feels so distant, yet was only three months ago. In those three months, I've had time to reflect and adapt to my new living situation. #college
So a few things since August:
I came back to the US with a raging ear infection. Yep. It turns out that immense pain I was feeling on the airplane was actually an ear infection in the making. Since I had a sinus infection, the pressure in my head never equalized when I landed, which resulted in un-popped ears for almost two weeks. My constant attempts to pop them probably didn't help either, so for the first week and a half of college, I couldn't hear a thing my professors we saying. In fact, the ear infection got so bad that I had to go to Urgent Care twice. I got two different ear drops and a dose of pills to take. But the best part was getting a shot in my butt. Basically my ear was so swollen that the doctor couldn't stick the thing in my ear so they told me I needed a shot. When the nurse came in and I rolled up my sleeve she looked at me awkwardly and goes: you know this doesn't go in your arm right. FML. Also, my ear infection was in my right ear and she put the shot in my left butt cheek, so there was no good sleeping position for me for a while. Yay ear infections!
My host family is the best. Once or twice a month we text each other. Sometimes it's me updating my host family on what's the haps at college, and other times it's my host mom sending me funny internet videos. They're the best. Also, the photos from the photo shoot came in late September, and the look amazing. Here are some of my favorites.
I've volunteered to read and give feedback on NSLIY essays. It's been fun and I've read some really strong essays so far. It's really fun to read why everyone's passionate about language learning, and it makes me miss my time in high school.
But yes. Good luck to future applications, and if anyone is looking for some NSLIY advice, feel free to contact me, or check out this blog post I wrote a while back on application advice.
