It'll be weird...

**CURRENTLY LISTENING TO: Dear John Soundtrack by Deborah Luire**

...to throw toilet paper in the toilet.
...to be able to talk to the general public in english.
...to not be able to talk about people standing right next to me and not have to worry about them overhearing.
...to not dread having to take a shower cause the water will give me hypothermia.
...to be able to drive.
...to not have to take the bus to school.
...to be able to text anyone I want, when I want.
...to not get whistled at by random men.
...to not get honked at when walking down the road.
...to not get lunch money/security money every month from Daniel and Martha.
...to get a paycheck. (!!!)
...to be home.

=]
Another rainy day in Quito. Ecuador was nice enough to make the last few days of my stay nice and dreary. =\ But I've been too excited to be bummed about the weather. Like my host mom said tonight at dinner, in reference to the past couple days being so cold, ''pero, en su pais, hay nieve'' --> ''But, in your country, there's snow''. Exactly. I'm ready to take on the snow, though. =] I've got my sweater that I haven't worn yet and brought specifically for this day and I have my hat, gloves and scarf ready for me to take home.

My bags have been packed, minus the essencials, for the past couple days. I had nothing else to do, so I packed. =] My room seems so empty now, and it'll be weird to leave and not see this family every evening, but I'm ready. The time has come and I'm ready. =]

One of my friends, Haley, had to go home early due to family troubles. She left a few weeks ago, but this afternoon when I was talking to her, she told me, ''you'll pee your pants when you get to cleveland and you'll cry when you see your family.'' Now, I was prepared to cry, but I dunno about peeing my pants. =\ I keep thinking about getting to the Cleveland airport and not being able to contain my excitement. I'll just be giddy, walking to the baggage claim.

So, let this be my last post while in Ecuador. =]
I think I might change the name of the blog and keep it going. I like blogging about things and, who knows, maybe it'll be good place to vent after a long day, or something. ;) I can't wait to see everyone and give my family all of their presents! =]
Chao until SUNDAY!


World Traveler

You can count the days on your hands...

**CURRENTLY LISTENING TO: Family Tree by Dave Barnes**

10 days. That's it. But it seems like I wont make it through this week...even though there are only two more days left in it. I have a whole lot of stuff to do before I can call this semester complete.

First of all, tomorrow is the oral exam for my Quichua class. Nikki and I are doing a ''spontaneous'' dialogue. We broke the rules, cause we pre-wrote it, but what Jaime doesn't know wont hurt him. I'm not too worried about it because I've done really well on every thing else in that class and I understand the language pretty well so the dialogue should go pretty well. Also, tomorrow night is our final dinner with all the BCA people. We are leaving from the University at 4, so Nikki and I will have a few hours of nothing inbetween our exam and leaving for the dinner. This is going to be the time where I attempt to study for the two exams I have on Friday.

I have my Art History ''final'' (more just like a regular test but still equally as difficult) at 10 am and I wont have much time time to study for it after the dinner, unless I study on the bus, because we'll be getting back to Quito pretty late. Also, on Friday, I have my Advanced Spanish Grammer final. I'm nervous about this one. I'm horrible at grammer and I fear that I haven't learned near enough to do well on the final not to mention that I will be focusing on studying for Art History tomorrow, so I wont have studied much for it, either. =\

Then it's the weekend, which would normally bring joy to a college student, but not during finals week. I, unfortunatetly, get to write a 5 page paper about Latin American history. Joy. Saturday, my host mom and a few other host moms have put together a little lunch for us (complete with turkey, because we missed out on it for Thanksgiving), so I'll have a break then, but I want to pump out this paper as soon as possible, even though it's not due until Wednesday, but also, on Wednesday, we have our final for Latin American History. =\ So I get to study for that one too. Wonderful.

Another thing I get to worry about, is retaking the Spanish exam that we took even before we came to Ecuador to measure our level of spanish. We have to take it again to see how much our spanish has improved while here. Unfortunately, I don't think I have improved as much as I would have liked. So, even though I doubt the exam has anything to do with grades or anything, I'm stressing about doing well on that as well. =\

Once I reach Wednesday afternoon, I'll be happy. I can relax and pack and get ready to go home. =] I'm ready to see everyone, but I for sure am not ready for all the snow. The weather here has been so nice and I've become acustomed to having nice weather in December. =]

The other day, I was reading through all my previous blog entries, and it makes me realized how much of a wonderful experience I have had here, in Eucador. I have experienced so many new things and have crossed so many things off the proverbial ''Bucket List'' in the back of my mind. Just looking at the length of my ''Firsts'' list makes me smile.

One of my first posts was about being stressed about what clothes to bring. I remember how I felt then and thinking back on it now makes me realize how rediculous I was being. I was stressing about what clothes to bring and not having the right sized luggage, and losing my razor...all things that could be fixed fairly easily. It makes me smile.

I know I have changed while I've been here, and I think it's for the better. I've grown in so many ways and I know that I will never forget the things I've experienced or the friends that I've made here.


World Traveler