Almost time!

From learning Khmer, teaching small children to ski, and trying to document my feelings in a blog, getting to this point has been a journey in itself. The parts of this experience that were hard, I thought would be easier, in the same way some things I thought would be more difficult seemed simple. I thought that raising $2,200 would be so challenging. Even after planning out how I would get the money, the amount still seemed overwhelming. Although after a couple months of working, I realized that this goal was easily attainable. I actually learned that fundraising can be fun. Last winter, two 5 year olds from Texas came to Vail to ski.  I helped them on the bunny hill for a weekend and really enjoyed it. They were so fun and eager to learn something new. Similarly, when we got our language sheets I was like "oh no!" I looked at the sheet and didn't even know where to begin; the combinations of letters seemed so unnatural. After a little practice I understood that the memorization of the spellings was not too hard. I still have trouble pronouncing everything, so I think learning the language turned out to be a bit easier than expected, but no walk in the park. Finally what you’re reading; my blogs. Before this experience, I didn't even know what a blog was. I learned that we were expected to keep one and even write a few before the trip. I thought this part would be easy. I just have to follow a guideline like I do every day at school right? Wrong, they want me to write down my feelings. I am not very good at documenting my thoughts and feelings because I don't always understand exactly what I'm feeling. I know I'm nervous but I don't really know why. I know I'm excited but how do I explain that? I found out that putting my feeling into words is so hard. So the blogs turned out to be more difficult than expected. 

I think everyone fears the unknown. I mean how can you not? So yes, I am nervous about going to Cambodia. I am hoping to create strong bonds with the children while I'm there and my biggest fear is that I won't. I feel like in order to make an impact I need to be close to the kids, and if I don't get close to them I won't be able to help. In order to get over that fear, I think I just need to go and put myself out there. Offer everything I have to the kids and maybe they will do the same for me. 

My personal goals for the trip are to grow and change. I want to grow as a person. I am hoping that working with people who have lives so much different from mine will help me understand who I am and how I live. I think this will help me grow. I also know that the kids in Cambodia will know things about the world that I do not, and I think learning these things will help me develop character. In order to grow, I feel like I need to keep my heart and mind open. If I have an open heart and mind I can accept any situation as it comes and learn from it.  Most importantly I want to change. I want to impact the children I work with. I want to make their life better in any way that I can. My main goal is to leave everyone I meet a little bit happier. To achieve this expectation I think I need to give them all the love I have. I need to share everything I can and not hold anything back. I think this will allow me to change them