Made it!

One of my favorite traditions at the end of each semester (I am horrified of the thought of life refusing to split neatly into semesters) is to listen to "I made it" by Cash Money Heros. While normally this comes after the crush of finals and papers, this time it came after the drama of applying for a Chinese visa and a return visa to India, as well as planning my trip with my mom. Clearly I have programmed myself to operate only with high stress levels each December and May. But it makes listening to the song that much better! Which I did today.

We completed our retreat this morning, which was three days of hiking and watching Glee and chilling out. I was reminded why I came and why I liked all the people on my program, especially after we all spent our last night sleeping on the roof of the hotel. Everyone agreed that the roof made a better bed than the actual bed. That should tell you something about the state of some hotels here.

I cannot believe my study abroad time is over, although thankfully I have two and a half months left in Asia as long as Indian immigration lets me back in the country. It seems so recently that we arrived in Delhi and I marveled at buckets in the YMCA and the traffic on the roads. So many things I thought unthinkable four months ago are normal and expected now. Being away from my friends and family has pushed me to make decisions in a way I didn't before, because there are fewer people here I can ask for help.

Not everything has changed-I'm still loud, I still laugh a lot, I still do ridiculous things like hike in a do-rag and make uncouth jokes. But existing somewhere else brought out other qualities that I wouldn't have necessarily realized elsewhere.

Enough with that stuff: Mom shows up today! Our trip is mostly planned. I am sure we will run into many snafus along the way, but that's what adventure is all about. I'm so excited!

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