Incredible People Stalking Event (aka the IPSE)

Oh what to say about the beloved IPSE? It doesn't actually mean Incredible People Stalking Event, in fact it means the In Person Selection Event, but all-in-all, it means the same.

IPSE was incredible, to say the least. After a two-hour flight sitting by a middle-aged mom and her really weird teenage son and NOT knowing who Carson was who was supposed to be my flying buddy, I landed in Denver, Colorado. As soon as I found the group, Carly (a girl from Facebook!) jumped up and hugged me before I could even remember who it was. What I love about our YES Abroad Facebook group? We know people before we even personally meet them. Win. After waiting in the hot sun for our shuttle and meeting plenty of new people, we eventually boarded our shuttle to the hotel. As soon as I got my name tag (which is now covered in dinosaur and Disney stickers), got my Semi-Finalist notebook, and my group number, I entered the room and saw Olivia's bright pink hair (another Facebook-er!). Everyone was confused on how Carly, Olivia, and I all knew each other because so many people knew nothing of our facebook group.

Our beloved facebook group :) (from left to right: Carly, me, Hannah, Sarah, Olivia)

To spare you from minute-by-minute details, IPSE was awesome. It included of a workshop, two group evaluations (my group's tower was the best tower in the world. Not the tallest, but the best), and our individual interviews. The room was terrifying. Not the small, enclosed space for your interview, but the room where all five interviews were going at once. It looked like such:

I was in the room farthest to the right. Like I said: Terrifying.

The weekend continued with making lots of new friends, ridiculous photos, and hopefully the beginning to an amazing exchange to either Morocco, Bosnia, or Turkey. Bosnia and Morocco are definitely tied at this point. There was no talent show this year, which was really sad, seeing as how we wanted to do our Baby It's Friday drime :) There was plenty of down time to hang out in our room (Sara was my roommate, so our Facebook group hung out there often. Hence the weird photo above) or go on Facebook and add in all the members that we met. We talked and met fabulous new people and I dearly hope I will meet most of them in DC for Orientation. One can hope.

More pictures will be added as I go along. I just haven't finished editing my photos and I need to get that done.

On NSLI-Y news! The date of notifications has been moved back. Originally it was end of March. Now it is the end of April. Hopefully I'll hear back from both YES and NSLI-Y on the same day? Perhaps? But waiting will be the death of me, I swear. I just want to know my status, is that too much to ask for?

Anyway, off to much needed sleep!
Until I feel like freaking out again,
Katie