Today I got the most amazing idea I've had in years - I'm going to apply for a scholarship in fall 2008. Yep. I'm applying for an exchange and if my application is accepted and I get an invitation to an interview and the interview goes super well, I'm going to USA to study for a year. I know my chances are very small because the organisation says that "the competition is merit-based", which means that it'd be sorta good if I had good grades and that sort of stuff. I have good grades, I just have so few courses that I've passed that they might think I'm some sort of an idiot. I wonder if I can mention that I had difficulties with the Serbian language during the 1st year (and still have a bit)? I really need to put a whole lot of effort in writing my essay! It has to be better than anything that I've written so far.

I'm nervous already now! There must be hundreds (I'm just guessing, who knows how many smart people will want the scholarship?) of people who apply for this scholarship and they accept only about 30 students every year - it's not much. That's why I'm trying not to get my hopes too high, but I have a bad habit of getting excited about something and then feeling like shit for days when things don't go as planned. But can you imagine me living overseas for a year? I can! And it's funny because I've never even been in an English-speaking country before. Ever. I've learned English by studying it for 13 years (starting from the 1st grade), writing this diary for almost 6,5 years in English and reading lots of books in English (mostly chick lit but it's still pretty educative, seriously). I need to start reading my books aloud again, you know, to practise my "accent" (which is sort of British, sometimes mixed with a nice (oh the sarcasm) Finnish lack of intonation when I'm not concentrated or when I try too hard)). All this in case I get an invitation to the interview - that'd be awesome. The organisation that arranges the whole thing would pay for everything, 25,000 dollars in total (includes plane tickets, school fees, books, some place to live in and some pocket money) so I wouldn't have to worry about.. well, almost anything. If I only got the scholarship.

My youngest brother is of course being very unsupportive and generally an ass, by asking me if I'm totally nuts and whether I've lost my mind. Naturally I thanked him for being an unsupportive ass and he shut up. The other one (the nice brother, the one who bought (or got, I'm not sure which word to use) me that beautiful watch for my 20th birthday) actually asked me if I'm any good at English! Believe me when I say that I don't usually boast with my school success but if I'm good at anything, it's English. I've always been average at everything else but English, that's what I excel at. That's what I like the most, using this language. I can speak better English than Serbian and - this is where my dad puts his head in his hands and sighs real deep - I'm half Serbian, for God's sake.

It really amazes my that my dad lets me go to USA if they accept my application, because he's really really, umm, patriotic. He despises everything that has anything to do with Americans or Bush or.. well, you know, American stuff. The American embassy here is protected by 1) police officers day and night and 2) some very military-looking and probably 0,5 meters thick steel doors.* And the 2nd floor windows (there are no windows on the 1st floor) have bars in them. Every time my dad drives past the embassy, he starts swearing. Seriously. I told you he's very patriotic. Me and my sister tried to figure out why is it that he's not telling me that I'll go to hell if I go to USA**, and I think Marina got it right - "keep you friends close, your enemies closer". That'd be just like my dad. Sigh. But if I get accepted, I'm going there to get educated and see some world, I want to get lots of different experiences as soon as possible because life's just too short to be wasted. And don't you think it'd look good in my CV if I studied in Serbia, USA and Finland? I think it'd look pretty good.

*It's the only embassy in Belgrade that has this much protection.

**After all, when I announced I'm going to dye my hair brown, he declared that it will lead to my destruction because eventually I will get a tattoo and a piercing and then eventually I'll do something that gets me in jail, and then my whole future is ruined. Before this I was going to tell him that I've been toying with the idea of getting a small tattoo and a tongue piercing but I decided I'd better keep my mouth shut because as they say, ignorance is bliss.