Surprise!

It's 11.19pm and I am in shock.

I skyped with the interested family from 8pm till 8.45pm.
At first, all of them were there (parents and two children) and I was SO excited, I was shaking. I thought I'll get a heart attack when they call. Well, I almost did. But they were so nice! The baby had to go to bed soon and the girl got bored at some point, so most of the time I spoke with the parents.
They asked me some questions, for example what I would do in a certain situation, why I want to become an Au pair, but also what food I can't eat. We talked about a loooot of things. I was afraid that they don't understand me, but they said that my English is very good. Yay!
I had a very positive feeling during the whole call.
At the end, they said that I am the last Au pair that they wanted to speak to and that they will probably decide quickly who they want to hire and that they will write me.

I thought they mean tomorrow. Or the day after tomorrow.

They wrote half an hour later.

Now it's 11.33pm and I still can't believe it. Holy Guacamole.

The family is perfect! I am so so so excited!

Suddenly everything becomes real. Before, becoming an Au pair was a dream and an option and now I am an Au pair with a wonderful family!

And I will go to the US in eight weeks. We didn't fix a certain date yet, but they said they need me from the beginning of August on. Oh my God. Eight weeks is not much. And there's so much to do!

I can't believe it. But I can't sleep either! So so so excited.

To be honest I didn't even answer them yet because I was so surprised and excited! Oh wow. Does this really happen right now?

(a completely agitated)
Christin xo

All good things are worth waiting for

Many, many things happened in the last few weeks.

The most important one is that I wrote my final exams (and I have no idea how I survived that). During that time, I didn't forget about my Au pair application, but school was more important. Let's hope all the studying was worth it :p

However, I was a bit worried because no American family seemed to have interest in me as their Au pair. Other Au pairs said that there's no reason to worry because the families only start searching for Au pairs who want to begin during summer. But, you know, that's easier said than done.
So I worked on my application again. I uploaded a new profile photo (the old struggle) and I also uploaded another reference, so now I am infant qualified which means that I am allowed to take care of children who are younger than two years old.

My counselor from the organization once said that there are many families with young children, so that probably more families will be interested in you when you are infant qualified.

Well, apparently that's true.

A few days ago, I almost got a heart attack because finally an American host family wrote me! Yaayyy

Proof

I still can't quite believe it.
Especially because they are perfect! They live in Ithaca, New York. We have the same hobbies and interests and I really think I would fit in that family perfectly.

Of course there's a "but", ha! Because one day before they wrote me, my Internet stopped working and I could not skype with them yet. But tomorrow's the big day! I am so excited :D

I will look through other Au pair blogs and search good questions that I can ask and tips for the conversation. Aaaaah, I really am excited. The mom told me that they also speak with other Au pairs, so I'll have to try my very best.

*fingers crossed*

Christin xo

*drum roll*

I am officially unlocked since yesterday ! :D

Host families can choose me as their Au pair now. I'm so excited, I'm checking my page almost every 5 minutes :p

I hope so so much that I will find a good family.

Interview

Yesterday I had my interview with a woman from the organization, my counselor. I was quite nervous although people told me that the interview is very easy and that there's nothing to worry about. But, oh well, that's me. Always worrying about everything :p

So I drove to my counselor's house and I was half an hour early. You know, better too early than too late. But I stayed in the car till 5 to 9 which I thought seemed punctual, but not too early. I met my counselor before and my first impression of her was confirmed yesterday: she's a very kind person.
She even gave me slippers and a glass of water.

The interview started with some kind of psychological test. It consisted of 171 questions that I had to answer with A: Right B: ? or C: Not right. Oh, and it was in German, so no potential vocabulary problems. The questions were very easy and my counselor told me that I shouldn't think too long about the answer and just tick what came to my mind first. One of the questions was: "I am interested in cars and planes". Yeah. Right.

The next part of the interview was a conversation between the two of us in English. My counselor's job was to take notes about my answers because she has to write some kind of report about me that the host families will see later. Her first question was: "Who are you?" Quite easy. I thought that the more I say, the more she can write so I just told her everything that came to my mind.
Things she also asked me about:

• My family
• My school
• What I'm doing in my free time
• If I'm doing sport and if yes, what
• What I do to help my parents in the household
• What I want to do after school (apart from becoming an Au pair)
• Why I want to become an Au pair
• Why I want to go to the USA
• Qualities that I think an Au pair should have
• Why I will be a good Au pair

I think that's it. We talked quite a lot, but I didn't even notice that. Like I said, she was very nice and we also made jokes and I explained the movie "Divergent" to her. The English was no problem, because I'm quite used to speaking or writing in English. When I didn't know a specific word, she helped me, so that was no problem at all.

Then we changed to German again and checked my application. I had to change some things, including my profile pic. HA! So much worry about it and now I'm taking a different one. It has to be one where my face is bigger because the photo will be very small for the families.

Now I'm waiting for my profile to be unlocked. 

Then, the host families can see me.

It's getting interesting.

Step by Step

~ I've been dreaming of things yet to come ~

I finally have everything that I need for my application.

Although I am quite sick at the moment, I visited an Au pair meeting yesterday where people from the organization explained a lot of things concerning the application and the family finding process. It was totally worth it! I got to know other Au pairs and so called "returnees" who already spent a year in the US and told us about their experiences.

To cut a long story short, everything is quite complicated (concerning the visa and insurances etc), but the meeting yesterday made me really excited for the whole journey. I realized that I really am going to the USA (given that I find a family) to live there for one year what is very very exciting. And also frightening. But our dreams aren't big enough if they don't scare us, huh?

Some of the things I got yesterday

So my application is done and ready to be examined by the organization. 

Tomorrow I have my interview with a woman from the organization who will go with me through my application and maybe improve some things. She will also test my English skills. Then the organization will also look at my application and it will be sent to the USA and then my profile will be unlocked and families can contact me. Yaayy!

I am quite nervous and excited and looking forward to everything that's coming now.

I will keep you updated! xo

It's a wrap!

I just finished the application video.

The most difficult task is done! Go me! It was not easy, but it was a lot of fun.

At the beginning I had no idea what to put in the video, because there's so much to say and it has to fit in only 2 minutes. So I watched what felt like one hundred application videos of other Au pairs and I kinda took their best ideas and made them mine. Thanks for the inspiration, guys!

I wanted to film outside, which was impossible because it was too windy. Then I wanted to film myself, but my hair just didn't want to look good. For some parts of the video, my dad was my camera man, but he forgot to push the "record" button. Yesterday I was at a friend's house and we needed an hour to shoot 10 seconds. It was hysterical, my face hurt cause we laughed so much.

The cutting was rather easy and eventually, the video was finished. Actually that's almost a miracle, considering all the difficulties :p

However, here we are.

Are you ready?

(I hope this works)

I'd really appreciate a comment if you like it. Also if you don't like it. Just write "like" or "ugh my eyes hurt".

Thank you for reading & watching & hopefully commenting ;)

Christin xo

P.S.: Thanks also to my friends for their help (in case you are reading this). I love you!

And The Story Goes On

It's time to do or die!

Since my last blog post, I worked on my application and now I have most of the things that I need. I still have to do some creative work, like writing a letter to my future host family and shooting a video in which I introduce myself. Oh well, actually these are the most difficult things, but I have vaccation at the moment so I have some time to do that.

At least I have proper equipment now, because I do have a camera, but not a high quality one. So I begged my friends for their help and now I'm the proud owner of a reflex camera and a camcorder. I seriously love these things, I might never give them back :p

Profile pic!

Speaking of cameras and friends, the other day I went for a walk with a friend and we did a little photo shoot to resolve my profile pic problem (see last post). And surprisingly we were quite successful! What do you think?

During the next days, I'm gonna write my letter and shoot the video and I think I'll upload the video on YouTube for you to see! If anybody's interested.

Thanks for reading, I'd appreciate a comment if you have tips or if my profile pic looks terrible or if you want to tell me anything else.

I'm gonna end this post with my motto for the next days:

"The bridge between dreams and reality is hard work." - Jared Leto

Christin xo