Je vais aller en France ! I'm going to France!

Hi all


It has been a fair while since my last blog - life just felt insanely busy with exams and overloading and two jobs arrrggh

I guess first news first: I RECEIVED MY ACCEPTANCE LETTER TO LILLE!! This was about a month and a half ago now - but - YES! I'm in!! It's all official!

Also in that time, I received an e-mail from the Student Mobility Office (aka Study Abroad) office stating that I also received the $3000 scholarship!! Whoop whoop! Flights and some accommodation have been booked and visas and insurance have been organised. I have also received confirmation that I will be staying at Residence Triolo in Lille!! Waah so happy :') I'll talk about each each part individually.

Acceptance
About two months ago I received an e-mail to my uni acct stating that I had been accepted to Lille! Included was a PDF of my acceptance letter (Lettre d'invitation) and they stated they'd also send me the original copy 'par courrier postal'. In this e-mail they provided me with a link with:

-the formalities of coming to a French university: http://www.univ-lille3.fr/fr/international/venir-etudier/programme-echange/
-a link to the courses available: http://www.univ-lille3.fr/fr/ (aka there university home page :/ )
-a link to Lille's own social network site: http://lille3-mobilite.ning.com/

I have joined the social network site but I haven't done much with it yet... I will write more about this next time if I use it!

There's not much I can expand on with regards to my $3k scholarship - the lady at the student mobility office said pretty much 99.9999% of people going on exchange will receive one. She just didn't want to guarantee it in case someone didn't qualify. I'd like to take the opportunity here to say I am not exactly uh... an excessively high achiever in my degrees. ... ...... When it suits me I can adapt very quickly to a "C's get degrees" mentality! Obviously I have at least a 65% average b/c I qualified for the exchange program but DON'T STRESS about scholarships if your grades aren't that high - you should still receive the scholarship. (ps I failed STAT1520 (statistics for business) but they overlooked that because most people fail it and it has nothing to do with my Arts degree teehee)

Now I am awaiting news about my OS loan application. $5611 interest-free loan that's simply added to my HECs debt? Yes please!! I need that money. Dear government please give it to me. Thank you!! I recently received an e-mail from UWA stating that they had received a general lump sum of money from the government so I infer they are now deciding how to distribute the cash to us poor students.

My flights. Hmm. A bit expensive. $2300... but ... it's with Emirates so it should be nice and comfy! And reliable. Dad's just like... "yeah I don't want you stranded flying with Air Asia" so yes.. all done and organised. I am stopping over in Dubai for one night in a 5star hotel! wewp! I'll arrive into Dubai in the early morning (I think 7ish am), then I'll head over to the Dubai mall to at least go to the aquarium (so keen) and to visit the Steve Madden shoe store!! This is very important peoples! ... ..... Then desert safari tour on quadbikes! (vrmmmmmmm). I'll hopefully squeeze in some lounging by the pool at the hotel with a cocktail :D then airport the next day and onwards to PA-REEEE !

My plan when I get into Paris is take a shuttle to my hotel (it was about $100 aud but worth it I think b/c it's a private shuttle and I won't get out of the airport until 10pm... late night... strange city... yeah... I don't want to try to find a taxi alone), sleeeep, then the next morning take a regional train to Annecy! Where I should be picked up by my host family at the train station and I can begin my two week intensive language course.

The visa process is not actually THAT hard, here is the link with all the straightfoward info: http://www.ambafrance-au.org/spip.php?article3546

It cost me just under $140. It's really annoying because they don't actually state what is the minimum amount of savings is proof of sufficient financial means. I sent along a bank statement with my visa application stating I had about $5k and my visa got processed fine. All up after sending it (I sent it in a next-day delivery envelope because I bought too many by accident...) I received my passport (with visa document inside) within 2 weeks. It's valid for 8 months from the date I fly into Paris. Weeeo

There is top quality insurance provided for free for the whole duration of my exchange plus 7 days before and after. This is actually amazing. Kudos to UWA for providing this. Seriously that is a wheelbarrow of cash I do not have to spend on a good policy. Those who are reading this and are considering exchange yourself, you can buy extensions of the same policy for a discounted price online! I won't go into details, when you attend your predeparture session you'll get lots of detailed info.

Which leads me to my next topic of rambling - the pre-departure info session! All in all really good, really organised, about 2.5-3 hours long during the study break. You get a folder with some extra documentation you need to fill out, e.g., the exchange code you use to enrol in so you can get cross-credits and other travel stuff. It's a compulsory session that should answer most questions!

And finally, yes, I received an e-mail yesterday stating that I have been successful in my application for Residence Triolo! Apparently this is one of the better residences at Lille 3. This is the website with information about the residences: http://www.crous-lille.fr/ but the actual APPLICATION for residence is very simple. What happens is UWA is first alerted that you are essentially chosen to go to Lille because Lille sends you, via UWA, an application form to fill out that asks name, address, course desired, etc as well as "would you like Lille to reserve a room for you in our residences? Which residence out of these three would you prefer"? That's it. That's how you actually apply for college residence. You fill in the form online, print it out and hand it back to the Study Abroad office and they send it off for you. It was a question that was bugging me for ages... slightly stressing me out. But never fear it all worked out in due time.

On that note I will conclude for now. Sadly it has taken me ageees before I got time to write this blog - but I feel it's quite an important one as a lot of big planning-things have fallen into place. (e.g., I got my visa, booked flights, received confirmation letter, got my scholarship etcetc)

I can breathe a sigh of relief in that most of the large bureaucratic/official matters are taken care of. Now it's down to the little niggly things like buying a case for my sunnies and organising my documents, booking regional trains and hostels and TRYING TO STUDY FRENCH. haha it's terrible, I'm leaving the country in just over a month and I haven't done any hardcore French study. It's like... trying to study for an exam, I just can't stop procrastinating!  I tell myself it's because I just finished uni and I NEED A BREAK! Oh the luxuries of being able to think and do stuff in your native language. Oh well never mind, I'm fairly sure, like during exams, a pang of fear will shoot through me and I will start cramming like CRAZY in the two weeks before I leave! I reason that after even just a few days of intense French study during the semester I begin to think in French so I should be fine. ...should be.

Will update before I leave Perth!
Au revoir!