Introductions

I'm Super excited to start this blog! If you reading this you probably know me and I probably told you to read my blog posts. :) What I wanted to do was have this blog go from start to finish about the rotary exchange program. Just so you guys have some basic information about me, my name is Noah Estabrooks  I am from Shakopee Minnesota. I'm in the North Star Rotary District. I wanted to start a blog because when I was preparing for my district interviews where they determine what your country will be. Our Interviews were on December 7th, and the deadline to when we would find out our countries was December 21. I was contacted with a letter, telling me I got accepted to Brazil. How our interviews went, was there was a Country fair going on all day, so inbound students had a display of their country and you could walk around and find out more about the countries. I thought before I went to the interviews, I knew exactly what countries I wanted but the Country Fair changed everything! I never considered any country outside of Europe, so when I got Brazil I didn't know what to think. I had studied German in high school for over five years, hosted two(not rotary) German exchange students, and gone to German camp for four years. So my heart was pretty dead set on me going to Germany. Which is the complete wrong mindset to be in. I was expecting to get Germany without a doubt. Until literally during my interview when they told me I have zero chance of going to Germany because I exceeded the age requirements, which I didn't even know their were age requirements until my interview day. So while I was preparing for my Interview, I was watching different you tube videos and reading different blogs about exchange interviews so I could be ready. I never found really what I was looking for. I wanted a blog or a series of YouTube videos explaining how their experience was, what they would suggest they would do differently. So that's why I wanted to start this blog was so I can blog about each step of the Rotary exchange, everything from the interviews, to the orientation days, to being on the plane going to the country. So this one was kind of just explaining who I am and my background, a little more. In my next entry Ill talk about how I found out about rotary and why I applied, and about the interview process, because it was nothing like I expected. Once I leave for my trip(this upcoming summer) Ill start to talk more about what Im doing, how things are, and what I would suggest for future Rotarians.

Thanks guys :)

Noah Estabrooks(Me and my friend Claire, in the picture below) :)