A Letter a Month

I get really excited when a new month passes because it means I get to open another letter from my friend Rowena! Rowena wrote me a letter for every month that I am in Uruguay. Awww. I was given strict directions not to open the letters until the month designated on the front of enevelope. I haven't cheated once (yet), but it makes me happy the first of every month because that means I can open a new one. Yay.

Love from Home

I got something in the mail today. A box. A big box of goodies!

I was so excited when I saw it sitting on the table, I could hardly wait to open it. There were about 10 various stickers pasted all over the box. It likely had an interesting journey getting here, only taking 8 days to get from the Northeastern United States to Uruguay. Definitely sent Priority Mail.

Inside was lots of American junk food, including peanut butter! Mmmmmm. It all looks so tasty (although very bad for my diet). Looks like I'll have snacks to last me quite a long while.


Unfortunately, I do believe the package was a bit expensive (we're talking about 49 US dollars here!!!). Goodness. This might be the most expensive bunch of sweets I'll ever have in my entire life, so I shall have to snack treasuring each bite.

The package made my day. And my week. I certainly didn't expect it. Thank you parents and grandparents!!!!

A Good Place for Hiking

Ironic. On Thursday, I starting writing this post about how much I love the South Central Pennsylvania area because there are so many nice hiking trails around, then, that very night, a trail took revenge. I started on a hike, it began to rain, the finale of So You Think You Can Dance was about to be on in a half an hour, so I brilliantly decided to run down the the mountain. Well, I was wearing old sneakers, and the rocks were really slippery wet, so I took a tumble and sliced open my knee. Smart, I know. At least I didn't break anything. I told my mom that I was close enough to the road that I could have at least crawled down the side of the mountain and laid on the road until somebody stopped. A great relief, it didn't come to that. It probably would've been a sketchy white unlabeled van that would be the first to drive by too...

However, as I started writing earlier, I do love living in a place where there is easy access to nature. I love the beauty and freedom of a solitary trail. I love the climb up into the middle-of-nowhere, where birds sing, turtles scuttle, mountain laurels flower, and vistas overlook the valley.

When my brother-in-law who lives in Texas was here, we hit up almost all the trails within driving distance to Shippensburg. When I make my move to the city at the end of this week, I am going to miss the nature I have grown to love this summer.


Maybe the DC area has lots of nature too? I know downtown DC is at least landscaped well. How about the suburbs? I guess I'll find out.

Hallllooooooo

Hello, all lovely blog readers!
I have been gone for so long, but no fear, I am back, and therefore I can update my blog again.

Oh my, where do I begin? So I've been in Europe. I had an AMAZING experience with Mirable Inventu, the 2007 SSHE Summer Honors Study Abroad Program. I suppose I'll do an entry for each of the cities we visited. That should take a few weeks.

Today I went for a bike ride with my dad. The weather here is freakishly hot and humid. The past week I've been going through a mini-depression. Let's just say I am sick of making friends, becoming attached to places and then having to leave them all behind. I'm not complaining at all, I've been extremely blessed in my life, but I guess that I fear normalcy. I hate that life has to trudge on, and yet I hate the thought of life staying the same. As the days and years go by, do we ever really get closer to where "we are supposed to be" or who "we are supposed to be?" If everyone and everything is always in motion, than how does anyone ever find their rightful place? A question I ask myself all the time is, "when does life really begin?" I think the answer is that it never really does. We are eternally living in a sub-reality that coexists with everyone else's reality. From my perspective, life consists of a million fragments somehow waiting to be jammed into a pretty, comprehensive mosaic.

Yeah, so I've had a lot of time to myself and my whirling mind in the past week. I haven't been writing for a long while either; hence my overflow of my pent-up anxiety, creativity, and philosophy. ha.