Hey Friendies,

Last day at home, then I start the LOOOOOONG plane ride and land two days later in Bali. For a little while I'll be a rolling stone, a week of orientation in the country (hello rice paddies), some temple hopping in and a week homestay in Java, and then finally I'll settle down in Bedulu, Bali for 2 1/2 months. I'm finally starting to feel those pro-move jitters I always feel, hoping I'll find people I like in my program (I mean really, what kind of white people choose to go to 3rd world countries :/). Mostly I'm just nervous because I have no idea what my life will look like, how much internet access I'll have, what I'll see when I look outside my window, what kind of house I'll live in. But I'm strangely freeing to have no expectations.

I'm more sure than ever this was the right choice. I feel like after two straight years at Williams, without even a break in summer, I've been constantly running and never taking time to stop and think about myself and who I'm becoming. Not that I don't like who I am now, but so much has changed in the last two years, as Hil was saying, and I feel like I haven't even processed it. I want to get to know myself again, be friends with myself, before I can fully give myself to others.

Its also the first move I've had where I'm going to actively miss people's presence in my life. You guys have become my family, and even though I have faith that we'll be okay even if we don't stay in touch, I'm going to challenge myself to connect with each of you, through letters of this blog or an SMS or skype, at least once every few weeks. My internet access might be sketchy and snail mail is a bitch, but you guys are too important to me not to try.

NEXT POST FROM BALI BALI HAAAI!!!

lovelovelovelove,

Exhibit A

Intermission

In the two weeks I have left before I leave this place for something new and unfamiliar I've reflected on the growth within the intermission. I recently finished a few good books and have moved on to some others. In thinking about our time together I've realized we have become and are nothing short of extraordinary. Often you think of how hard others in the world have it and allow it to be the measure of your success and failure, but it is also has the ability to cancel out the achievement one has made. Three years ago we would have never thought this would be our lives, hell we didn't even think we would be and remain friends. Approaching Junior year one of us is leaving for something different, something more of the college expedience we might of all expected and it will add to the stories we will share and the bond that we've created. Two of us are leaving the country for something so unfamiliar that there are no expectations for the future so we are approaching the next step in our lives with eyes wide open. Others are returning the place in which we call home that every year no matter how familiar we think it to be, finds a way to turn us on our heads and re-think it all and not to complicate our lives but to make us realize things can be simple if we let them.

So I sit here and think about the past, present, and future and for some reason it all seems more vivid now then before. Once again I'm realizing that college, more specifically Williams is all about life lessons, how much can you gain about the world in four years in a place that offers it all. After spending so much time away from what I had grown accustomed to I was able to look at things in a clearer form. Its funny how things work themselves out, how in lue of everything you would consider to be the end all be all the light at the end of the tunnel burns brighter as you walk towards it that it is almost blinding. Maybe for everyone this is a major point of reflection, who knows, but I do know I've been healthy and happy both in body and mind. I can only hope that my semester abroad will be just as enlightening. For during this intermission I know what I want out of life, and that is to live it to the fullest and be successful by my own terms. And what exactly that means I don't have to know right now, but I know I'm looking forward to finding out. :)

I guess what I'm saying is take time to reflect, its very humbling. When I run I live for those seconds of a blank mind, the moment of true clarity. No matter how ordinary you think the things you've done in your life so far are, take a second to remember ever mile you have traveled, each meal you've eaten, each person you have known, every conversation you've shared, every room in which you've slept. As ordinary as it all appears, there are times when it is beyond the imagination, who would have thought? I know I didn't...and to think its only just begun.

<3 Dolce