Why?

When I was in the fifth grade, my greatest wish was to go to school in the United States of America. I have no idea where this wish originated, or when exactly. I had never been to America before and most definitely was not aware of the world rankings of its higher learning institutions. All I knew was that I was going there for college.

I had a great plan: go to a middle school/high school that offered its pupils Soros scholarships for a 6 or 9-month exchange program at a school in the US. Once there, I would find out what people needed to do to apply to college, and upon my glorious return home, I would easily do what I had learned I needed to do.

Needless to say, my actual journey was not as glamorous as that: I did get into the school that I wanted, but by the time I reached 10th grade, when the Soros foundation would offer me a scholarship, they had discontinued the program. A year later, I found a wonderful SAT tutor who, nevertheless, told me that it was too late for me, that I needed to wait another year. I didn’t want to listen, and that proved to be a good decision, because in December of 2004 I was staring and a computer page saying “Congratulations Diana.” I was not on a plane yet, and I didn’t even have my bags packed, but I was already on my way to the US!!!

Now, 4 years later, I decided to write a fictionalized account of my adventure in the “land of all possibilities.” I will write as much as I remember of the past, along with my thoughts and feelings about it, and then continue with the present. This will be a new journey altogether, one that I won’t need to go on an airplane for.