Wednesday, July 6, 2011

making the most of my time here

Hey everyone, just a few updates to let you know where I am at in my preparation to leave.

I emailed my resume and aspiration statement, which will be sent to the people who I will be working with in Rwanda. This is a little intimidating since this is the first impression they will have of me. My aspiration statement seemed a little lacking at one page, but going to business college has made me accustomed to being concise and to the point in my writing. I didn't feel that padding it with BS would make it any better. My resume turned out being longer than my aspiration statement. Hopefully both will give a good sense of who I am.

UPS still has not delivered my passport paperwork to Washington, DC. I understand it was a holiday weekend, but taking almost a week to deliver "2nd day air" is just ridiculous.

I have been purchasing all of the small things that are on my list of things to bring. Hopefully I won't have to trim my list down too much to meet size and weight requirements. I would bring everything I own if I could, but I know that once I am over there I won't miss the things that I have here.

While I wait for my departure date to come closer, I have been trying to make the most of my time spent with family and friends. I had a good time yesterday hanging with some of my best friends. We did a little shopping, ate two meals at the same restaurant (gotta love cheap Mexican food!), had a water fight, and even got in a little night hiking and geocaching.

The hike last night was amazing. It gave me a chance to try out my headlamp, which worked great. We made it to the top of a hill overlooking the entire valley. We have hiked to the top of Bell Mountain before, but the view was still not as good as this one. This was a hill off of Bowen Ranch, close to the Twin Waterfalls hike we did in Apple Valley. At the top of the hill I found a geocache hidden among the yuccas. Bad part is, I stepped in a yucca and messed up my calf. I have that sore muscle feeling that you get after a shot, but in three spot on my leg. But it was worth it!

Here's the cache!


The camera on my phone could not pick up all of the distant lights and does the view of the city no justice.


I will miss you, my friends!