This story took place on November 7th, 2018 (Side note: I went back into my emails after writing this to check that I had the right date. It was. I guess important dates just stick with you.)
It was the day of my first interview with the Rotary. I was so, so nervous. I had no reason to be – I had worked so, so hard on my application, and then spent the week preparing for the interview questions. I found a sample of about 20 “Rotary Youth Exchange Interview Questions” online, and I spent hours writing carefully thought-out answers to each one. Then I memorized each answer.
Of course, nerves always crop up in these situations. If I wasn’t nervous, I think I’d be more worried – nerves mean you care. However, now I know it’s better to control your nervousness rather than let it control you.
Looking back, I know that I definitely let my nerves take the reins. I just needed to be myself. If they didn’t think I was suited for exchange and didn’t select me, then it was better I knew then instead of realizing exchange wasn’t for me later in the game, when much more was at stake. Many people had already told me this, but I didn’t listen. I wanted to be selected so, so much, and I didn’t see how that authenticity would be able to get me there. So I wrote answers I thought they were looking for, and practiced presenting myself as the person I guessed that they wanted to see.
The day of the interview, I forgot all my answers. On our way to the interview, my dad reminded me to keep my shoulders back, and when I walked into the interview room, good posture was the only thing I could think about. At least I can thank my nervousness for a back as straight as a ruler when I entered that room.
I had debated too much about who would be conducting the interviews, and I was only slightly surprised when I surveyed the panel. Betty Jo had mentioned there would be more than one interviewer. She had also mentioned that they liked to have an exchange student on the panel as well. I knew that Heather, a Rotarian and a friend of my mother, who’s son went on exchange a couple years ago, had excused herself from the interviewing process (because she knew me personally). From this I deduced there would be three people interviewing me; Betty Jo, of course, a former exchange student and a parent of an rebound exchange student, a rebound exchange student from the previous year, and because Heather was a parent of an exchange student, it was a safe guess that another parent of an exchange student would be on the committee.
I was relatively close; Betty Jo, Swanel (who had returned from her exchange to Taiwan the previous year), and Raj (a Rotarian and a rebound exchange student) were there. But there was also someone I didn’t expect to see: Ina.
Ina is the Inbound from Taiwan to my home Rotary club; I had already met her a couple times before. It was reassuring to have someone my own age in the room, who I was beginning to know as a friend. Though Swanel was only a few years older than me, I had only met her once before and the difference was enough, she was just as intimidating as Betty Jo and Raj in that moment.
The interview was divided into three parts: the first, just me alone. The second, my parents and I, and the third, just my parents.
The first and second part passed rather quickly, and before I knew it, I was sent outside to wait for my parents. Ina came with me. It was nice to have someone to talk to – she told me that in Taiwan, it is important to keep your shoes clean. Later I decided that must be because in the past, the only people who could afford to keep their shoes clean would be those with class, who held jobs that kept them away from mud and dirt.
I looked down at my feet. My shoelaces were fraying and there were scuff marks all along the sides of my shoes. If I got accepted and was sent to Taiwan, I decided I’d have to buy a new pair of shoes.
Soon my parents joined me in the hallway. I said goodbye to Ina, and we were on our way out the door.
Waiting to hear if I was selected was more nerve-racking than anything. I tried not to get my hopes up, but I knew my parents were sure I would be chosen, and though I tried not to, I believed it too. As my uncle would say (and did say, later, when I called him to tell him the news), I had done everything I could to “set myself up to succeed”. Four months spent writing, rewriting, and revising my written application. Asking two teachers to read the finished draft and advise me on any revisions. A week spent adding pictures after I was ‘inspired’ by the brief glimpse I had of the other applicants work. My dad’s hard effort to get the fifteen-page document printed (three copies!!) on the expensive type of paper (three copies really add up!!) the saleswoman from Staples said her daughter used for her application to medical school. My sister reading, rereading, and advising me on edits I could make to every single email I sent to the Rotary (or, for that matter, every single email I ever sent; thanks Noelle!).
All this because I wanted to be a Rotary Youth Exchange student. I know everyone who helped me get there – especially my dad, even though in the beginning he didn’t want me to go – were there because they could see that.
When I told Claire, a rebound from Switzerland, how badly I wanted to go, she asked me if there was no other program I could use as a backup plan. I had done extensive research. I knew there were plenty. All more expensive, but if I worked hard for the next year, I could make enough money to partake in an exchange through one of those other programs during a gap year. The idea was quite plausible – I would have graduated high school and I wouldn’t have to leave my friends behind either.
But I didn’t just want to be an exchange student. I wanted to be a Rotary Youth Exchange student. After meeting Emjay, Vero, and Kuba, Rotary Youth Exchange students in France, and hearing about the trips they went on together, the presentations they did, seeing their flags and their blazers covered in pins, I knew I would do anything I could to be an RYE student. I knew that the Rotary would support me and take care of me not because I paid to be a part of their program, but simply because they cared. I knew that the opportunities I would have and people I would meet through the Rotary would change my life.
So when I finally received the call, shortly after nine pm on November 7th, 2018, in the living room of my house, next to the computer where I had spent so many hours working on my application, I wasn’t surprised when I answered the phone and Betty Jo said, “This will be a phone call you’ll never forget. I’m calling to tell you have been selected to be the 2019-2020 Outbound Rotary Youth Exchange Student for Mississauga West!”
I wasn’t surprised, but it was the moment when I finally knew for sure. All the emotions I had suppressed flowed freely, like water breaking through a dam. The only thing I can describe it as is pure elation. In that moment, I was walking on air.
“And right now, I bet your mother is saying ‘Yes!’, while your father is thinking, ‘Oh no,” Betty Jo predicted. She was right. I could see both happiness and sadness in my fathers’ eyes, happiness for me, because he knew I was happy, but sadness that he had to let me go. I could tell my mother was proud; she was already getting ready to call our relatives and tell them the news.
We said goodbye to Betty Jo, and after calling a couple friends and family to let them know, I went to bed. It was a school night, after all. A Wednesday.
~Serena
Serena Around the World 