I was "On Tour," I felt like a Celebrity!

Well, I am coming up on my last two weeks touring throughout West Virginia educating and molding the young impressionable minds of this beloved state. I have been going pretty solidly since the beginning of February and am scheduled to conclude on the 21st of my, although I might have one here and there over the summer. As I near the conclusion of my tour, I look back and feel so much. I have presented to countless schools, community events, CEOS groups, 4-H clubs, Boys & Girls after school programs, and even Girl Scout Troops. I am surprised by nothing these days, after even being the keynote speaker in Wood County at a 'Model United Nations Conference!' I have pretty much done and seen it all and learning the 'tricks of the trade' along the way...slowly building up my technology with added speakers, laser pointers and have become quite a prepared machine; I walk into a venue and can pretty much use anything available to my benefit. I have sometimes needed to improvise with 'screen materials,' I have used white walls, curtains, boards and at one CEOS luncheon I had to simply tape a few flip chart pages to the wall. The phrase,"Go with the flow" has never been so true as my experience as the 2008 WV 4-H IFYE!

Now as I come to the end of my year experience I think how wonderful it has been from start to finish. From my initial meeting of the IFYEs (USA & other countries) in Detroit, to getting to know different families and people from different parts of the world, to my first hostel stay in Berlin, my first horse burger in Vienna and now to all of the highways and byways I took through West Virginia to get to the county extension office locations. What a truly wonderful ride it has been. I consider myself extremely fortunate to have been chosen to represent my state and to have been one of the few ambassadors from the United States and show by actions to how wonderful a place I come from and have lived my life. I know that I stated, on my return from abroad, that all of this felt like a dream and now, a year later and after being back for a few months it still feels like I have just awakened from a long sleep and that it didn't happen. Life at home is pretty much how it was before I left, my little brother and sister are a year older, my mother is piled up to her ears with activities and things for work as usual, but one thing has definitely changed...I was an IFYE (International Four-H Youth Exchange). It has enriched and helped mold me into a pinnacle 4-H member, not only community and stately minded, but I have increased that to the global level that can be awarded to this unique and ultimate honor, the IFYE.

Even though I look at the conclusion of my tour in the next few weeks, I am not only exited for the next stage in my life, I also have some sadness and longing to be rewinded back to the beginning of my trip abroad. However, I find much satisfaction to know that even if my 'tour' is over, my experiences and opportunities as the IFYE will never be concluded. With the contacts, families and friends that I have made over the past year, I will be able to continue communications and provide the families I stayed with with their own American Host,if/whenever they wish to come and visit me. I also plan for many future trips throughout my life, back to where I had been during my year as the IFYE. So, I guess you could say that my IFYE Experience has just begun! ;) "To boldly go where no 'IFYE' has gone before!!!!"

IFYE TOUR 2009!

Hello Everyone,
I apologize for not writing more frequently since I have been back in the U.S.A. However, in future I hope to report as often as I can on the status of my tour and interesting events/adventures that I take or that find me. So, I began my tour through WV 3 weeks ago (Feb. 16th officially) and have been quite busy. I began with YAC (Youth Adult Conference) at the end of January for my opening presentation, which went really well and my audience seemed to be quite entertained and enlightened. At least I thought so ;)

Then, as I stated, I began my tour on the 16th and have visited Braxton, Webster and Barbour Counties as well as given presentations to 4-H University and Teen Leader Weekend at Jackson's Mill. All of which have been great and I have received good feedback. So, I guess you could say that I have become completely immersed in presentation giving encompassing all aspects; the set up of all my computer 'gadgets,' microphones, clickers, speakers and of course the infamous projector. Therefore, all has, up to this point, been running very smoothly without any major setbacks. I have become well adjusted to my current life of travel as well as a rental car, which has been fabulous with the dubious weather and 'winding roads' of West Virginia. I have had the opportunity to meet many, many new friends and contacts throughout WV as well as to live (for a night or two) with different host families; which, you might think, I am a master of from my experience abroad. Well that is partly true, however the drastic change in my favor is of course the fluent English speaking ability of those around me.

I am scheduled to go to Wood, Tyler and Kanawha (Girl Scout Troop) Counties this upcoming week and the following weeks will be concentrated toward Southern WV. Then, in April, I will be in Monongalia, Marion, Harrison as well as Ohio and Marshall and then when May approaches I will be nearing home with Preston, Grant, Hampshire, Mineral and Pendleton Counties. I hope to attach more specific dates in the near future. However, a news release has been created and should be in your local papers with my presentation schedule and details. I look forward to meeting, presenting and discussing my trip with those of you who have kept up with me and my blog as well as to initiate new interest through my tour. I would like to thank my readers, I have now had lots of feedback in relation to my blog from those that I have met during my presentation schedule and casual encounters and am very grateful to know that I have a larger fan base than my mother (even though she is an essential fan, it is nice to know that I have other supporters ;) More to come from your WV IFYE!

Vienna Boys Choir!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0purlSxoKGU

Reverse Culture Shock...Hmm....

Well my supportive readers,

I have been back in the blessed USA for almost a month and my exchange trip seems like a distant memory. I feel as if I have just awoken from a long sleep and never really went at all. Some may ask, 'Why do I feel this way?' I think a large part of it would have to do with the plain and simple fact that life here at home, although six months in the future, is still the same. I am not implying that people decided to stop what they were doing and wait for my return...nor that I expected a huge difference in Hampshire County life when I got back. I guess, I had heard stories of previous IFYES and other exchangees who had such an experience abroad that they changed their whole way of thinking and their life's plan. I know that I have changed and grown as an independent, free-spirited youth into a more conscientious and mindful global citizen. I feel much more connected to the world as a whole, instead of how I used to look at things as only on the county, state and at most national level.

This is quite an interior switch, which I am sure is just as important, if not more so than the picture I had in my mind of me stepping back onto West Virginia Soil. I keep replaying the last 6 months in my head and all those distinctly made memories have become one giant blur. I look through pictures of my travels and have to stop and think for several minutes on the name of that town I visited in Styria or what was the name of my 3rd host sister again? Those details that, at the time, were spoken from my lips daily and used so often in that 3 week span I could almost spell them in my sleep. I almost feel ashamed, as though I have not done them justice or have failed at my experience in some way. But, as time passes and I am home, I know that it is just the usual order of life. I applied, accepted, planned, participated, returned and filed it away. Like a categorized album in my life's scrapbook.

I am glad to be working on a my West Virginia Tour presentation because it is allowing me to refresh some of those closed memories I made in the beginning of my exchange. I want to remember, I don't want to file this trip away like Senior Year Soccer Season in high school or Prom 2003. I shall bring those photographs to the forefront, so that I know that it was no dream. After all, how many people in their lifetimes are given such an extraordinary opportunity as I have just returned from. Well, not many by my estimation. Therefore, I will look forward to sharing my time and expressing the importance of such an experience.

As I look back over my life and remember those key moments that stand out above all the others, I find that most, if not all, of those memories usually begin with one of these 3 phrases..."Through 4-H , During 4-H Camp or when I was an IFYE..." That's a lot of moments, all with one unifying theme 4-H!!! Now that's some powerful stuff right there!!!:)