5 days and counting...

Hi guys

So this is my first go at this so go easy on me, but 5 days from today I will begin the journey of a lifetime starting with over 30 hours of traveling in the air and sitting in airports before I finally arrive in Phnom Penh, Cambodia...a place I look forward to calling home.

Currently I am putting all my efforts into packing and preparing to leave, saying goodbye to friends and family, selling my car (it's for sale, let me know if you're interested) and as sad as it is to stay trying to decide what clothes I should take.  This is continuously frustrating me because it shouldn't even be on my register, going to a new place, where it honestly doesn't matter what I am wearing but hopefully helping someone.   I'm working on it, don't you worry!

So background, I am volunteering or going on mission through a Catholic mission program called Salesian Lay Missioners.  There are a group of about 20 of us all over the world from Bolivia, Ethiopia and Asia!  Almost everyone from my program took off late summer, but the slacker that I am still had a semester of school left, so I am beginning mine while they are right in the middle of their experiences.  I am working in a school for 18-22 year old women, I know what you're thinking, "Kaitlin, they are your age and they are your students??"...I'll keep you posted on that, but I am teaching English, something I've been doing, learning and speaking for a bit longer than these girls!  I am told that I have classes waiting on me, so I'll be thrown right into these classes.  This scared quite a bit at our training this summer, actually being in a classroom teaching, but my last semester of school I was student teaching which gave me so much experience and to tell you the truth, I am pretty excited to get back into school even though I am transitioning from a kindergarten PE class to my English classes.  Please if you have ideas for me I am all ears, right now I am just seeing what my imagination can come up with.  I am living within the site where the school is with my fellow SLM (Salesian Lay Missioner)  Carmen, who I haven't seen since this summer, cannot wait and some of the other teachers at the school!

As of right now, that is about all I know, but give me about a week and I'm sure I could go on for days!

Happy 2012, pretty excited about my year of change!