It is Friday. I am leaving on Monday. My birthday came and went, just like this whole week. I expected it to fly by, and it definitely did. I didn't expect to have the panicky feeling I have - like "ohmygod I am going to be in Africa [that place you always use when you're a kid because you know it's so far] in three days." I just finished all my packing - will be paying $150 for an extra bag (so excited!) and have no idea how I will be managing over 200 pounds of luggage myself. Add Jen and Dano's 24 bags and two little girls - it's going to be a hell of a trip. I think the plane ride will be the easy part. I vacuum bagged all of my linens and clothes - it definitely saved some room, but I kept redoing the vacuum part and insisting there was more air that could be sucked out. Apparently, there wasn't.



21 September 2009
A week from today I'm outta here. I don't technically have much to do, but I feel like there are so many people I want to see and things I want to do.

10 September 2009
18 days to go ... tonight I have my second to last shift at work, just one next week. I am so, so over standing behind a bar. I'm hoping this is the last time I will ever work in the food industry (or service industry for that matter) (not a big server) but everyone says that and then finds themselves doing it five years later... I can't imagine being in Rwanda for a couple of years and coming back to bartend in the city. Then again, writing as a profession is not completely lucrative, so I think it's safe to say that next week won't be the last bartending shift in my life.

Dexter is outside barking at the world. We're home alone and he had gotten himself stuck (his rope intertwined through a variety of trees and chairs) so after he gives his "I'm stuck" bark for a few seconds, I put on Chris' shoes and go outside to relieve him. Of course, the second I've dropped what I'm doing, come outside, and make eye contact with him, he looks at me and turns around, walking through the various obstacles and unstucks himself. He then proceeded to run down the yard and into the house. What a dog.

I'm feeling so split - can't wait to go, to be there and see something new, change of life, of everything, but as it gets closer everything here is seeming sweeter. Dad is constantly saying how your perception is everything, and so easily malleable. My perception definitely seems to be on the fence lately. I can hardly make up my mind about anything. Fortunately, I have an eighteen hundred dollar plane ticket that's making it for me.

8 September 2009
Chris has started college and asked me to go get his books with him - it was so weird being on a campus - this is the first full year that I won't be going to school (or holding up the pretense of going to school). There were SO many kids, and I felt concerned for Christy - he's never sat in a classroom before, and here he is, navigating the halls and checking the kids out. I know he'll rise to the challenge. There's nothing like your little brother starting college to make you feel old and irrelevant.

I am going to be 22 next Friday. I am definitely feeling like I don't need to be older right now. I am not even remotely close to where I thought I'd be at 22, but that's not wholly negative. While there are a lot of issues that bring a good amount of pain and though I look nothing like I thought I would look, I've become someone I didn't know I could be, and that's relatively inspiring. Yes, I used my most hated word. But it's the truth.

7 September 2009
I love my family. Last night mom made some broccoli soup and we sat outside around dad's ever-burning fire pit. The soup was so good and the fire was so warm. Dad kept running off into the dark and coming back with more logs he'd split, insisting we needed a bigger fire. Eventually mom went in and then dad and I just sat and drank wine. So peaceful.

Our best friends came over today and we had a tremendous feast and drank about 7 bottles of wine. Everyone's buzzed. Happy holiday.

26 August 2009
It's nearly September and I'm realizing how time is flying. It's not just the time I have before I leave, but everything - we've already nearly completed a decade of the twenty first century! That is a pretty crazy thought. Mom just said, "So much for the big scary millennium, huh?" (She also said I should write about how great she is. It's true - she is.)

My arm is killing me - I've reacted no so well to some of my shots, I suppose. There's a bunch of bumps and the whole thing is black and blue - I can't lay on it, which isn't a big deal except that I kept rolling over onto it in my sleep and then waking up in pain. Here's a picture of it today.

I went to the beach at Brighton yesterday - it was so nice and the water was amazing - it made me realize how much I am going to miss the ocean. I've never not lived by water. I feel like that absence is going to affect me a lot more than other things.

20 August 2009
Enric Sifa is a Rwandan musician and singer whom I met in Seattle. He just sent me this photo of the Kigali Arts Festival that was held in the Rememera soccer stadium in July. There were nearly 70,000 people that attended the few-day event. I love this picture of Kigali. He was asked by the Minister of Sports and Culture to perform, with whom he has become good friends. He's hoping to get me a meeting with MSC when I arrive, so that Ballet Rwanda may have an opportunity to perform next year. That would be insane!!