Get It Done and Move It Out!

This last week has been a crazy one. Of course it's been finals week, but I've also been busy filling out documents and packing up my entire life. Isn't that sad? Everything I own and place material value in can be stuffed into a few boxes and stored at a minimal cost. All of my things needed to be moved out by Friday and my RA made it seem as though it would be okay to leave my things in the apartment over the break until my aunt could come back from Hawaii and pick everything up. Unfortunately, Thursday night we found out that that wouldn't be possible. In a frenzy I called a student storage place to see if they could pick up my stuff last minute and store it over the break. Luckily, they could and all I had left to do was worry about my final and my ride back home.

On Monday, the person I thought I was riding home with bailed on me and left me to find someone else to ride with back to California. This was not an ideal situation because most people tend to try and finish their finals early so they can go  home early. I had a final scheduled for Friday morning at 7 a.m. so finding someone staying that late was not easy. I eventually found someone, but that left me racing around trying to get everything ready Friday morning. I woke up disgustingly early and trudged through the freezing cold to take a French final, which I got an A on! It only took me an hour and then it was back up to my apartment to finish packing and cleaning, check out of my apartment, meet the storage lady, and catch my ride! But now I'm back in my Californian bed soaking in the warm sun, so everything is back to where it should be.




My beautiful Before




 

The sad After

Maybe it's a good thing that I don't have very much stuff, but it was disheartening packing away everything that I had painstakingly put together just four months ago. That's strange to me. Four months ago, even four weeks ago, I had no idea that I would be doing anything like flying out to Ukraine, but here I am! In just a few weeks I will be living somewhere completely different, and I don't think it's really hit me yet. In the words of my mother, "These four months have really flown by." You are quite correct, mother dearest; my freshman year is essentially over. That was my freshman experience. So I would like to reflect on these four short months because even though they have been short, they have also been amazing.

All ready to move out!

I learned a lot about myself this semester. I learned that I like hiking and ballroom dancing. I learned that I enjoy attending symphonies and operas, and that I want to become an expert rock climber. I learned that I can be extremely spontaneous, but that I also crave the quiet moments sitting on my bed when I'm alone. Most of all, even though I didn't exactly learn what I want to do with my life, I did learn that I want to become good at living life. I don't know if that really makes sense, but it does in my head.

Overall, I really feel blessed to end up where I did. The classes I took and the people I met could not have been any better. BYU is a great place to receive an education and I feel grateful everyday that I chose to go to school there. I went to football games, art exhibits, and international movie screenings, all on campus! I lived in beautiful on-campus apartments and had great roommates. Obviously not everything was picture perfect and there were times when I felt sad and lonely like any other new college student. Of course I've experienced the awkward unrequited crushes and the freezing cold weather (who would've thought I would ever have to walk through snow on a daily basis??), but I really have loved my college experience and I can't wait to do it again!

I am especially grateful for the people I have met this year. I was so lucky to receive a wonderful on-campus job working in the research department of the library. Not only did the job come with good pay and flexible hours, but it also introduced me to a group of great new people. I will really miss these people and I hope I see them again in the near future! I have also made some great friends from my writing class. They're all going on missions very soon, so I wish them luck and I hope to see them in a couple of years! But for now, it's time to put my college experience on hold and look forward to Ukraine!

Adventure is Out There!

So after much prodding from various family members (actually just my mom and sometimes my grandma) I will actually be starting and maintaining a blog. The main reason for my sudden change of heart is that I will be heading off to Ukraine in January to teach English to children for five months! I don't know what kind of communication I will have on a regular basis besides with my immediate family, and I figured some people might want to follow along with my adventures in Eastern Europe! It was a big decision to make and might sound a little crazy, but hear me out. One of my roommates Kate and I have been looking into this program, International Language Programs, for a little while. I was planning on taking time off to go next fall, maybe to Thailand or Lithuania. However, a couple of Thursdays ago, Kate got an email offering her $1,000 off the program fee if she changed her semester to Winter/Spring, and any of her friends were offered that same price. That meant that we would only have to spend $1,520 to fly, live and eat in Ukraine for five months! It was something that was too good to pass up.

We flew into a whirlwind of getting things ready to go. We both got our housing contracts canceled, we looked into how to take a leave of absence from school, and we dropped our classes. (That was a sad moment since we had fought long and hard for some of those classes.) We've started packing up and moving out. On Friday and Saturday we attended 8 hour training meetings that were crash courses on how to teach English using the ILP method. These were very overwhelming and exciting days. So much information was thrown at us and we began to realize that this adventure is not going to be a walk in the park.



Learning how to teach Elementary Level



 

After the session of Friday, Kate and I walked out to her car only to realize that she had left the lights on all day and that the battery was dead. We frantically called all the people in our contacts and finally I found someone from my French class whose roommate happened to have a jumper cable. The car next to Kate's car pulled out so we decided to stand in the spot so the kids coming to help us would have a spot to pull into. Little did we know that there was traffic and that it would take them 25 minutes to come help us. Our toes were so cold and frozen by the time they came that we thought we would lose them to frostbite. But we were saved and were able to make it back to our apartment, frozen toes and all.

Saturday went by more quickly, but a large portion of the afternoon was spent on how to be safe and the various cultural aspects of the places we would be living. It just hit me really hard that there is a lot I need to do to be prepared to go. I have to bring tons of supplies to use for my lessons and I need to make sure my passport doesn't get stolen. I probably have to pay for an extra suitcase. I have to think about things like if I need to bring shampoo and conditioner. I have to worry about figuring out a bus system written in Russian. I have to live in this place and that's not something you just pick up and do. It was a crazy two days and I'm sure the craziness is just starting, but I'm still really excited to be experiencing something like this and taking advantage of it when I'm still really young. Who knows, maybe I'll come back speaking Russian.