wrapping up loose ends

SOOO this is starting to feel too real!! For months all I have been thinking is that this is so far away and that I don't have to worry about it yet. Well, I have less than two weeks before I leave for San Diego and exactly two weeks from today I will be embarking on the greatest adventure ever. This arouses sooo many different emotions that I didn't know were possible to feel at the same time. I feel anxious and excited and scared and nervous and sad and a ton of other unexplainable feelings. I am excited about my adventure and all that I will experience, but I am sad about all that I will be leaving behind. I will miss my family and friends and my youth.

I have been a youth leader this summer at Glenns Bay Baptist Church (woo woo!!! ) and it has been awesome!!! We had our youth Sunday yesterday and I am so proud of my youth - they did great and I love them. I have helped build a youth program from almost nothing and now I feel like I am leaving them and it really makes me very sad. They are all so great and have taught me so much this summer. I really think that this has been the best summer ever!! I remember thinking at the beginning of the summer that I had no idea what I would be getting myself into and so nervous about it all. As the summer comes to a close, I have no doubt that Iwas exactly where I was supposed to be this summer. God had me here for a reason this summer and it has been sooo incredible!! Thanks to all my youth that are reading now - I love yall and I will miss you soooo much!! I wish I didnt have to leave yall ...

Tyson (my boyfriend) left almost a week ago to go to Ohio, which really sucks. I miss him a lot and I am very sad that I will not get to spend my last few weeks here with him. He will be meeting me in San Diego to see me off, though. I am very excited about our time in San Diego.

So I have been getting a lot of my things together for my trip. This includes large quantities of tooth paste, deodorant, shampoo, etc... that I will need and won't be able to easily buy while abroad. I can only take two large duffel bags of stuff for the whole semester. I hope all of my stuff fits - I will post about the specifics of that later.

I still have to buy malaria pills, which will cost 200$$$. I couldn't believe that the medicine would cost this much. I guess treating malaria after the fact would cost a lot more, though. I hope I don't have bad side effects from the medicine, but I won't know until a few days before I arrive in China, which is when I will start taking it.

I bought a new camera the other day and I am very excited about it. My brother, Steven, helped me pick it out. For those of you that don't know - he isn't really my brother, but we have grown up together and we might as well be related. Anyway, he helped me pick out this awesome camera that I will take super pictures with to show all of you when I get home. I will also try to load pictures on my blog along the way.

I wanted to post to update some of my information and reveal the strange mass of emotions that I am currently dealing with.