On Sunday I attended a day-long orientation session for both outgoing and incoming Rotary scholars. It was a long day, but all of us got a lot out of it.
It was fantastic to meet so many people from around the world and to talk about the particular strangeness and wonderfulness of this exercise in acculturation and adaptation. I’m even more excited to be on my way so soon.
On the Monday I spoke at the Glen Waverley Rotary Club for the first time. I’ll post the text of my presentation soon. I was really nervous — much more so than I thought I’d be — but as is always the case with Rotarians everyone was absolutely lovely and about two minutes into my talk I’d thrown the index cards to one side and relaxed into it. Some very kind words from Rotarian Jill, who was chairing the meeting, helped a lot.
The good news is that after the meeting I met with some members of the 9810 scholarships committee and was endorsed as the Peace Fellowship nominee. I hope to be accepted into the Duke/UNC or U del Salvador program for the 2008-10 scholarship period. Applying to a US uni means taking the dreaded and dreadful GRE exam, though: four hours af algebraic and vocabulary fun!
