Step Two

Since you've sent in your two references and application you've been obsessively stalking your email waiting, waiting, waiting. Did you get in? Eventually you start to just avoid your email, telling yourself it's unhealthy to be this attached to your computer. Although really you're just trying to let ILP have a little more time to email you, and you figure if you avoid your email maybe the next time you check it, you will finally have the long awaited email waiting for you in your inbox. And then before you know it, it's there and suddenly you don't know if you really want to open it.

And then when you do it says:

Dear Ashley,

 

We are happy to inform you that you have been accepted to participate in the ILP program during the Fall 2013 Semester. We congratulate you on being qualified to volunteer during a semester abroad!

 

Please call or email the office as soon as you can to tell us that you have seen this email.

 

Now if you're anything like me this email is followed by much screaming, squealing, and happy dancing! When I first got my email I was home alone and in a happy productive mood which  roughly translates to I was blasting my iTunes at a deafening volume off my laptop while washing the dishes. So sopping suds everywhere I was skipping a song and refreshing my email occasionally- checking my email when unexpectedly there it was. Trying not to drip water all over my laptop but being too excited to grab the dry hand towel that was on the other side of the kitchen I managed to open the email. Then screaming over the music I full on danced (like no one was watching) around my kitchen to my blasting music.

 

Feeling a wee bit disappointed that there was no one in my house to experience the moment with me, I took to all available forms of communication and told everyone! Needless to say I was very excited. Well, for a view brief glorious moments I thought that all I would have to do now was go to some sort of training and show up at the airport on the right day. Never have I ever been so wrong.

 

The next email I received the following day carried a link to an e-document that I would need to call the office and schedule a time to go through it with my ILP representative. This e-document is essentially an overview of what's about to come and a legal document where you agree to follow and abide by the rules, was ten or twelve pages long. You also say if you have medical issues (sigh). So once again I filled out additional information. Then the darndest thing happened. I went to submit my e-document and it refused it and whipped it clean. Three times. It got to a point where I had memorized all of the boxes I had to check and all of the places I had to put my electronic signatures. Eventually I got so frustrated I called my representative and she was puzzled too, until finally we figured it out together. A week later.

 

While all this happening, I was also trying to figure out how to get a passport. So the first thing I did was Google how to get an American Passport. This is the link for the webpage that takes you through getting a passport for the first time, renewing your passport, or even replacing a stolen one. http://travel.state.gov/passport/ So, for any one who is wanting to get a passport for the first time, and if you qualify as an adult I have some information for you!

 

Okay well, first off you will have to fill out a passport application, this application you can turn in online or at a government building in the passport department. When you turn it in you will need to bring a Birth Certificate, a valid Drivers License, a passport photo that meets the requirements and $135. first time passport and what you'll need & Passport Fees Now when I went in to turn in my application I had to turn in my application I had to use a check to pay my $135. And when they take your application and check, they will also take your birth certificate and staple it to the application to send in with the passport. The government will mail your passport and birth certificate in separate letters back to you in about a month or so. Passport Processing Times When it comes to the passport photos you can get them at multiple places for different prices. I would suggest Costco- you get 4 for about $6. Oh, and when you get the passport you do, indeed, sign you signature in pen along the line.

 

Step Two breakdown: 

1. Get accepted
2. Fill out and submit e-doc. packet- fill out additional steps if you need to.
3. Start getting your passport for step three (if you don't already have one) 

So, after all this I thought I was done. I wasn't. There was another packet coming. But that's Step Three.