(hahah, because I'm journaling at 3:32am my time)
I’m sitting here looking at quite the magnificent view of forest, grass, and sky. The sun is just about to peak over the eastern horizon, the clouds already reflecting a part of their view of the sun back down, hinting at the luminescence that will come in only a few minutes. Part of me is a little surprised at just how awake I am for it being 3:35am my time, and only 6:35am Eastern time, one would think that I would be content to just sleep until I feel ready for the day to start. Not today. Today is the first full day of my JVC experience and I don’t want to miss a beat, my unconscious already knows this. Its hard to describe just how beautiful this moment is that I’m experiencing, the air feels fresh like a clean t-shirt, with one breath I am given hints of what aromatic plants are in the surrounding forest, as well as a hint of the humidity that will soon stick to every part of my body and make me wish that it was 6:39Am again. I hear the constant drone of summer (as they call it here, locus as one person said) mixed in with the sparse calls of birds. It seems just so peaceful right now, even in the distance I can hear the quiet roar of a highway, maybe a mile away.
Yesterday was a day of movement, new faces, new awkward moments, and the foundation of new relationships that I will have over the next year. I can’t begin to start with just how many people I met, and how many people I have yet to meet. All the people in my house are super cool, all of my impressions of them are positive and I can’t wait to move into a house with them and start the next part of our journey. I’ll start off my journaling with a brief overview of how yesterday went, which actually starts the day before because I left on a red-eye flight from Seattle at 12am. I was in the car, with my mom brother and sister, and I’ll never forget the moment when we had to say good-bye. I hugged my brother and sister, then my mother (twice) after they helped me figure out that my bag was 4 pounds overweight. Just next to the car there was an unused scale and my brother had the bright idea to end this guessing game of mine and just set the bag on top of it. Sure enough, the scale read “54.5” pounds. Shit. I moved a few things around, transferred even more baggage onto my backpack and then said my last good-byes and stepped inside the terminal. The AirTran check-in was for the most part, empty. I stood in line with the e-check-in sign and waited patiently for my turn to come. I ended up waiting probably over 50 minutes to an hour even though I had been the second in line. Shannigans. There was a flight to Atlanta which was about to board and they had to see those passengers first, then their computer systems were down, then it was the assistant in front of me left, then finally it was my turn. I handed over my boarding pass which I had already printed. Over the counter went my 49.5 pound bag, my horn went to the odd-size baggage check in. I then headed over to the dehumanizing line of TSA. I passed through without a hitch, and made it to my gate. At this point I was pretty tired, I responded to a few messages, called my sister to tell her everything was ok, that I was just about to get on my flight and leave my home state of Washington. It was starting to hit me that this was it, I was leaving for a year. I had done what I never thought I would actually do, I had graduated college and the dream (which had been quite real) was over and I was on to a New Chapter in my life.
The flight departed, my arm hurt the entire flight due to the tetanus shot I had gotten the day before, and I began the miserable flight. I got little sleep and felt extremely uncomfortable, despite the fact that I was sitting next to the nicest mom ever, who made a point of introducing herself and making me feel right at home. After what seemed like days, our flight arrived and I groggly got off the plane, feeling every part of my skin which was lightly coated in sweat. I lugged my life along with me to the southwest terminal (no one told me that it would be in the next state…) and sat down with the hopes of falling asleep on a wooden bench. Soon enough I was awaken to the voice of someone asking me “you’re a JV right….”and that was how it started with Bethy, a legacy JV from WA who had just been working for a year in Alaska. We talked quite a bit about ourselves and finally we joined up with the group who had been standing a ways away, easily identifyable as the JV group (a group of 20 somthings with an optimistic look about them with a significant amount of baggage). I immediately met a few people who were in my house in DC, Kristina, Emily, Lucas.
We finally boarded our bus, without Matthew Williams (who I would later discover was late due his flight being delayed and had to go through hell to make it to the orientation.) I sat down next to this guy named Matt, a recent graduate of Wisconsin- Madison, majored in recovery psychology and would be attending Harvard university for medical school the following year. Needless to say I was impressed, what a BALLER. I could only dream of being where he was, accepted into one of the most prestigious medical schools and on his way to an amazing experience where he could just take it all in and not have to worry about plans for the upcoming year. What foresight! We talked about the usual, about health care reform, about many things and 2.5 hours later we arrived at the orientation site. As I have already described, it is beautiful and a great place to spend this next few days. We did a few ice-breakers, we met up with our houses, made some great connections, had dinner, liturgy (awkward btw, I feel like I’m one of the only non-catholics here, so more on that later), and broke more ice with a lively game of catch phrase.
After a full day I still felt rather awake but resigned myself to sleep, ready for the next day. We’ll see what today brings, its been so long since I’ve been consistently journaling so this will be good to look back on later in life and see what the heck I was doing on August 14, 2009 at 7:12AM…BALLIN.
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