28 November 2012

Less than a month away

I decided I wanted to post and I knew what I wanted to say but now that I'm sitting here, it is hard to put it into words. It has really start to hit me in the past week or so that we will be gone for a year. That I won't be seeing a lot of people for an entire year. I know in my last post I said that I didn't think it would hit me until we arrived but I was wrong. I am just starting to realize how much can change in a year, how different "home" will be when we return.

It is getting scarier to think about leaving and how little time I have left to hang out with friends. But it is still very exciting to think about.  The exact same things that scare me also work to make me more excited about coming back. How different everything will be when I return, not just because things have changed but I expect that I will be a different person after my experience.

Since my realization that this is actually happening, I have been trying to spend as much time with friends and family as possible. It is hard since everyone is so busy with school but I am trying. 26 days till we leave. Wish me luck.

- Melissa

1 November 2012

Getting closer..

In 51 days, 21 hours, 54 minutes and give or take a few seconds, we will be on our way to Taiwan. 

We've booked our flight. We leave December 23rd at 6AM and we won't arrive in Taiwan until December 24 at 9PM. Even though we have booked the flight, it still doesn't feel real to me. You'd think it would since there has already been a few occasions where I have broken out into tears over realizing something I will be missing back home. But it still doesn't feel real. I'm the kind of person where I don't start getting scared until the roller coaster starts to slowly ascend, and I wasn't scared when I went skydiving until he said, "Okay now put your feet outside of the plane." Maybe it will feel real when we get on the plane for takeoff and I start to freak out over the pain that my ears endure. Maybe.

- Melissa