I know my future!

I received the best email ever today... subject line: YES! from University of Minnesota School of Social Work Admissions! I sent my mom an email which included "I know my future." I am so excited... everyone here in the volunteer house has heard me scream and seen my huge smile. I will start my search for my internship right when I get back and I am already excited about the possibilities.

It's weird though- to know my future. I have been living my last months one month at a time, if that. So much time has been spent planning the next day's travels or searching for the next volunteer gig, wondering what I would like to do or what I would like to see. Since that moment I clicked "okay" to confirm my plane ticket back, I've had mixed feelings. I will be so happy to see my family and friends, and to start grad school, but it's strange to know that this adventure is coming to an end. It will be interesting to be back in the states... I'm not sure what to expect of it.

The great thing is that I still have well over a month left here and I know that every moment is going to be packed with greatness- between talking to the students, teaching English, dinners with the volunteers, reading more books, and going for great walks surrounded by this beauty (people saying hello, sunshine, and gorgeous greenness).

We started our English classes with the tourism students this week. They are in their 5th semester and are supposed to be fluent by the end of their 6th. I will be leaving in just a few minutes to go to our third class. We have also been attending their weekly English class that they have with a "real" teacher and I am learning a lot about my own language, like why and when you use a form of "do" in a question. It's all so automatic. The students are awesome. I leave each class with a lot of energy. Last night I stayed an extra hour to work with four girls on pronunciation, and we had a lot of fun with "th." Next week we start English classes with the "pre"- students who didn't pass the entrance exams but got the best grades and are attending classes to get a head start. I love teaching.

We are also getting to know the kids in the area more. Yesterday was my first shift in the kids library and we had five kids there to read books to and play games with. Most of them I recognized from short conversations on the side of the road. I have yet to seen the ones that attacked us with buckets and bottles full of water on the last day of Carnaval. We were on a peaceful little walk and all of a sudden they came out of nowhere. No trick in the book could get them to stop and it was made worse by the fact that there was running water by the side of the road that they could refill at as we were walking away. I could have gotten angry... but the shear joy on their face made me survive. And if I wasn't in my only pair of clean, dry clothes, maybe I would have joined in. I didn't escape with a dry inch on my body.