Journal #28: getting closer

     This past week  month has been out of control busy. Most days I don't even know how I manage to take a shower and I have only been to the gym once this whole week which is proof because I love exercising and usually will put off studies to get my endorphins rollin, but lately I have not had that luxury. This happens every semester. You move happily along day after day, you have a set routine and deviating from the plan is usually not an option unless some spontaneous activity presents itself. Any time someone asks you whats new there is usually nothing much to report. Literally college days go like this: wake up too early because you didn't get enough sleep the night before, get ready for school too quickly because you forget to put on a bra...woops...scarf down breakfast as you speed walk to class, try to focus at work and get as much done as possible, go back to class and try to stay awake, go back to work, go home eat a quick meal, then its back to the library or home for some down time with your roommates and a random friend or two. Weekends are the wild card thankfully, anything can happen then but the end of the semester just feels like that. All day, every day you are thinking about your school work, your looming finals, the fact that you are leaving for Ghana in just a month. (i dont know why i switched to third person there) Every time I look at my schedule I think to myself, 'there is no way I can finish all this on time'. But somehow I do. Somehow I make it through each day with a cheery disposition and the knowledge that God loves me, that I can do this, and that this time in my life is to be cherished, not endured.
     With Ghana looming closer with each passing moment, I cannot help but daydream about what my days are going to be like whenever my brain has a moment to think. I think about waking up in a place so foreign to me and praying for strength to get through that day, to be successful in my research, to take every moment and every experience for what it is worth, to never quit, to just keep trying even on those days where I feel like nothing is going right and I forget why I am even there doing research. I think about the challenges that I am going to face. I think about the joys that I am going to feel when I really understand my purpose in that village. I think about the people that I am going to meet and come to love. I think about the hardships that I am going to see. I think about the sorrow and devastation that some people live with every day. I think about how blessed I am to have this opportunity to learn about another culture; to live their lives, to laugh their laughs, and cry their tears. I think about how different this experience will be from anything I have ever encountered...