Spring reflections

its spring now. not that you can really tell much of a difference here, but on my home planet things are starting to change. its bringing back all sorts of memories from my spring break last year, when i found out i was going to come to indonesia. i can't believe how much has changed since then, how my life has just taken off full speed leaving me somewhat bewildered but loving every minute.here's a bit of a tangent of how it all happened.

i was in the car with my family on our way to arizona for spring break. we were in small town farm utah, and it was cloudy outside.my friend amber, who applied for YES with me, called me, screaming that she got turkey. so that got me all hopeful that i'd have an email or something from afs so when we got to the hotel we were going to stay at i waited and got mad at all the french and german tourists who were hogging the computers. couldn't they see that i was desperate? my whole vacation i was a little bit of a basket case. there was no news from afs every time i checked. one day i cracked and started crying and my mom just held me and said it was all gonna be ok. she said she knew i wanted it and she knew how disappointed i'd be if i didn't get it. but she said that i could always try again. who wants to try again though? not getting it is not getting it. i was an alternate at first, praying that someone would be fool enough to drop out so that i could take their place. waiting killed me. there were a series of conference calls, really for the people who got the scholarship but alternates had to participate too just in case. so there was one during the trip and it was kind of like salt on the wound, all the kids on the call knew their country placement and i was hanging on to a thread of a hope. in the car on our way home, i spent a good deal of time thinking about my life. things i want to accomplish, who i want to become, deep stuff like that you know. and then i started thinking about if i'd rather go to thailand or indonesia. indonesia was winning mostly just because the language is way easier, but in the end i decided thailand because it was my first place. where i wanted to go even before the yes program.
right when we got home that night, out of habit, i went and checked my email. for the first time in weeks, there was a new message, the subject line saying Scholarship to Indonesia. i squeaked out my mom's name and my sister raced down the stairs to see what happened. my mom started crying. so did i. the first thing i did was call amber to share my news with her.
all i had to do was say her name and she knew.she asked where i was going and it was all i could do to whisper indonesia. i don't know how to describe the feeling. i was not in my body. there was so much happiness and shock and excitement and emotion i felt numb. i was shaking. i couldn't believe it. it was nothing short of a dream come true. and that we both got it! that made it even better, because we'd gone through it all together. what are the odds really? and  i thought i wouldn't even get chosen to go to texas for the selection camp because i turned my application in a day late. and then after texas, amber did so good and me, well i could have done way better than i did. so i wasn't expecting much. that was without a doubt the best day of my life. and from there, its been a wild ride.

i only have 2 months left here and i'm dumbstruck. when i think about it, i realize how long it has been but i don't do that often, and it feels like hardly any time has passed. its flying by at an amazing rate. i'm starting to come to think that time doesn't even really exist, its all in our heads.

things are going great still. getting very excited for bali. i think we're leaving on the 26, and i will be sure to take loads of pictures that will make for a nice juicy post.

until then, cheers