Hello Greetings & Semi-Finalist Notfication

Hi everyone (if anyone) reading this blog! A little about is my name is Hailey, I am 16 years old, and I live in Hampton, Virginia, USA! I am writing this blog to hopefully document my  junior year abroad to Germany through Congress-Bundestag Youth Exchange Program (CBYX). I turned in my application January 2^nd and waited almost a month for semi-finalist notification. Just yesterday at 3:56pm I learned that I 'm a semi-finalist! I was so excited because I had spent the whole day trying to kill time. I kept refreshing my email to see if it had came yet and then boom it was there! I started freaking out because what if I didn't make it? What if I did? So I clicked on my Facebook tab and messaged my friend Diana and told her my email was here and I was so excited and nervous my spelling was awful haha! I then went back to my email and opened the email from Julia Littlefield and my eyes wanted to wander to see if I was accepted while my brain didn't want to find out and just wanted to read the email. I read that I was accepted then told everyone on the CBYX CIEE Hopefuls Facebook page where everyone else was also posting their good news!

Here is what the email said

Dear Hailey,

Thank you for applying to the Congress-Bundestag Youth Exchange Program, which provides 50 scholarships for students from the Southeast United States. The outstanding merit of each and every applicant made our review extremely competitive.

We were impressed with your application and after careful review, we would like to offer you an in-person interview. We are interested in learning more about you and your desire to participate in the CBYX Program.

This year, our selection events will take place in Atlanta, GA and Richmond, VA:

Atlanta: March 1^st– March 2^nd, 2014

Richmond: March 15^th– March 16^th, 2014

This year’s interviews will be overnight selection events and CIEE will cover room and board at a hotel for all semi-finalists. Both Atlanta and Richmond events will begin mid-day Saturday and end mid-day Sunday. We strongly encourage you to attend the selection event closest to your home. If you need to book a flight, please do so as soon as possible and send us your flight details. Final details regarding these events will be sent to you by February 14^th.

Prior to making our final selection, we will hold a webinar for all semi-finalists’ parents to provide more information about CIEE and the CBYX Program.

Please respond to Julia Littlefield via email by Thursday, February 6^th with your interview location of choice. If you require travel assistance, please include this in your confirmation. If you do not wish to continue to the next round of selection, please respond by February 6^th as well.

Congratulations on your advancement to the next round, and we look forward to meeting you in person!

All the best,

CIEE CBYX Selection Committee

So after I updated Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook of my acceptance (I felt like I needed to spread the joy of my good news! Haha!) I went back to finish reading the email which stated the two interview locations but something new this year with CIEE is that the interviews are overnight, so all of us semi's are going to stay in the same hotel! I think this will be fun! So I will be attending the Richmond interview since that is the closest to my home! I really want to keep a blog to document my hopefully year in Germany and help any future CBYXer's or anyone wanting to go to Germany! I just hope making a blog doesn't jinx my chance of becoming a finalist because yes I do get superstitious about things like that!

My next update will come when my interview is approaching!

If anyone needs to contact me you can email me hakoger1998@gmail.com!