Mia abroad in the US 2018/19

Since Saturday I´m with my host family in Missouri City, Tx. Obviously I need to get used to this new conditions, but so far I´m really enjoying my time here and I really like my host family. On Sunday we went to church (my host parents are Mormon and later in the year I´ll upload an article about that). On Monday I went to my high school with my host mum for choosing my courses, but it didn´t worked, because I first needed to sign up online. Now we did it, but I still need to wait until 17th August before I´m allowed to attend to school, but school already starts at 15th August. 😑 The Monday afternoon I spend at the pool with my little host siblings. That was pretty cool and refreshing, 💦

After filling out my host family application AIFS send ist to AYA. In my case AIFS hat to wait until I get the cancelation of the PPP. The host families also need to fill out an application. Employers of AYA give, with help of both applications, a selection of exchange students to theri host families. It´s possible, that your application was already given to a few host familys before it reachs your final family. Sometimes it happens, that a family choose a student, but the high school can´t give a comitment wether you can attend to this high school or not. A late placement never ever means that no one wants you. often it takes a long time to check the criminal backgroung of the family or to get the commitment of the high school.💙

My host family lives in Missouri City, Tx, a suburb of Houston. (I won´t tell you that much about them, because I don´t know if they want that). In the US I´ll have three little host siblings. A situation, which is totally new for me, because I´m an only child. I get my host family extremely early (29.January.18). The most students get their families in May or June ( How do they select the host family? ). To keep the contact we decided to skype every two or three weeks. I know that other students don´t know what to say in Skype talks, especially at the first talk. I confess that I didn´t talk that much at our first talk, I smiled the whole time. Cause of this I decided to Skype with them without my parents and since that I talk really much when we´re skyping. I can recommend you to ask everything you want to know about your family at the first talks. Have a lot of fun with your family 💙

Two weeks after the interview AIFS sends me my contract and asked me to fill out the host family application at the website of AYA (Academic Year in America). In my opinion that is one of the most difficult and important parts during the whole preparation. This is the application which your future host family will read when they choose an exchange student. AIFS gave me a guidance for filling out the application. And again like at the first application take your time and fill it out calmly. The whole application is in English. At the first I had to fill out a personal description of myself and needed to give some information about my family. In the second step I answered some questions like: Describe your hometown? What are your hobbies? How do you deal with group pressure? After I answered all the questions I had to write a letter to my future host family. My parents too. There are two things, that you can´t fill out by yourself. Your doctor needs to fill out something to...