The Freak Out

This has been, without a doubt the longest summer of my life. I don't necessarily mean this in a bad way, or in a good way; I am merely stating a fact. One of the side effects of such an absurdly long summer is that I have an entirely messed up sleep schedule. Therefore, naturally, I happened to still be awake at 5:35 A.M. on Friday. This was very convenient, because that is when I received my official Letter of Invitation from the Chinese government. For the past two weeks this one piece of paper has been the only thing standing in between me and China. 

In addition to sending my Letter of Invitation  via e-mail, Amity Foundation (the organization that placed me in Gansu, China) informed me that they would like for me to be in China by Saturday the 8th of October. At this point, my sleep deprived brain imploded. One week? Amity wanted me to leave the country in one week! In retrospect, I realize that this was not that big of a deal, but at the time I was really worried. I needed very badly to vent to someone. However, as I mentioned, it was 5:35 in the morning, so naturally most of my friends and family were asleep. Luckily, within twenty minutes two of my friends were online. I am eternally grateful that they listened to me rant, and helped me see logically at that absurd hour of the morning. 

There were two reasons that I found Saturday the 8th of October to be a stressful arrival date. The more obvious of the two was that I had a lot of things to before I would be able to leave the country. Among other things I had to apply for and receive my visa, buy my plane  ticket, finish packing, clean my room, and do some last minute shopping. Honestly, I was not sure that I would be able to get it all squared away in one week. The other reason, which probably played more of a factor in my brief panic attack was that actually setting a date for arrival made my future journey feel real in a way that it had not before. Previously my journey to Asia had been an abstract trip that would be happening at some non-specific time in my future. Now it was both concrete, and approaching very very quickly.

Eventually I calmed down and started making arrangements. I will be leaving on Tuesday the 11th, and despite my momentary freak out, I could not be more excited.

Also I figure I should also include some details about what i will actually be doing. I will be teaching English to middle school students in Yumen, Gansu, China. There are eleven other volunteers that have already been teaching in Gansu for a little over a month. I will be living and working with them, which I am very excited about. Nine of the other volunteers are from Germany, one is from Holland, and one is from Switzerland. I am also excited about that because I took German throughout high school.