Trapped! Trapped like Rats!

So I missed my flight to Santiago because my flight to Atlanta was so delayed. Basically I flew into Atlanta from Greensboro and was told, "Oh, your flight left 30 minutes ago, sorry." I was pretty freaked out and went to go join the line of other fifty-some people who had to rebook their international flights (this is at midnight). A man riding on a big zamboni-looking machine told me not to cry... that never helps haha. A lovely Nigerian woman let me borrow her cell phone to call home and Dad was already on top of it, booking hotels and flights for the next day. Wow, what would I do without him? Thank you so so so so much Daddy. So now I just wait until 10pm tomorrow. While I was in line I met a girl who is in exactly my opposite situation. She's from Chile and has been studying in the US for a year and missed the same flight I was on. Maybe we'll meet up tomorrow in the airport and become more acquainted. Every adventure has a beginning. Chapter One! Boom!!

T- 4 days and counting.

Where are they going my camp days, camp days?Where are they going so swiftly by me? 

Turn around and we're strangers, 

Turn around and we're friends, 

Turn around and we're sisters for ever to be.

How strange it is to be just back from camp and to know that I'm about to just turn around and leave again. Honestly I don't know how to feel. It's like I'm grieving the loss of my camp friends, I'm stressed about the number of things that I still have to do, and yet I have this little spark of excitement that is just waiting to ignite. For some reason I still can't seem to fathom that I'll be leaving for a year in 4 days. I don't know how I'll ever be ready for it. But Mike said to me yesterday, this isn't the kind of thing you can ever really be ready for... you just do it. I feel like I'm about to encounter a big lesson in living in the moment (as if camp hasn't taught that enough). Wherever you go, there you are. So here I go.

From the heart of a wooded mountain

The countdown begins... I leave in 23 days. This feels so false to me because I'm cooped up here at camp with no regard for how the real world works or even that it does. My internet hardly works and for me to find out any news (i.e. Michael Jackson's/Farrah's/various other people's deaths) I hear it screeched out of my campers' mouths. We're on session two at camp and I have a whole new set of girls who have essentially taken all of their stored energy from the school year and have dumped it in my lap. But it's a good challenge, managing nine fourteen-year-olds. They're wonderful. 

Well, that's all for me now. I feel like I just have so much to say but at the same time, nothing at all, considering that it all concerns the petty happenings at camp. For example a few weeks ago a snake dropped from the ceiling of the Middler lodge while there was an activity going on (I wasn't there.) Oh, also, I tried to throw pottery on the pottery wheel and had a pretty difficult time. My original idea was to make a mug, but it turned into a bowl, and then a vase, and then a plate, and then a paperweight. I'm working on it :)

I started making friendship bracelets. I'm a machine. 

July is flying by, and the next thing I know I'll be on that plane. Gah! 'Til then....

Hello from the States.

Obviously I'm still here and will be until July 31st... But I'll be working at Rockbrook Camp for Girls all summer so I wanted to get this blog up and running before I go off and play with kids for two months. I always told myself that I would never get a blog... I also told myself that I would never be a Spanish major and would never EVER become a teacher. So here I am, knocking out all three in one fell swoop. 

Here's my basic itinerary (so far) for my travels:

July 31st, arrive in Santiago, Chile. Travel to meet host family in Viña del Mar. 

Estudy at la Universidad de Viña del Mar until December 13th

Climb Machu Picchu in Peru

Take a plane, take a train (ah who cares you always end up in the city?) to Mar del Plata, Argentina to spend the Christmas holiday (it'll be Summer!) with the Navesi family (my beloved host family from when I studied at Northern Hills in 2005).

Do SOMETHING (WWOOFing at an organic farm is looking especially promising) from January to March

Teach English as a Second Language in interior Argentina from March to July (this plan is tentative as I'm still in the process of applying.)

So that's the rough plan. I'm sure it'll change exponentially while I'm there. Stay tuned!