I Got That Summertime Madness

Hehehe. I think my title is clever. ANYWAY....

It's been such a busy summer this year. I've been prepping for college, working at YWiC camps, and I just got back from volunteering for the Hispanic Scholarship Fund Youth Leadership Institute at UC Irvine. Whew, that was a mouthful! But it's an important event, focusing on giving Hispanic juniors in high school the knowledge and skills necessary to apply to college. My role wasn't as involved with the students as I would have liked, but it was still an important role.

I was a member of the Alumni Team, or A-Team. The A-Team was responsible for setting up and tearing down the rooms that the students were in. For instance, every morning we would have to set up an auditorium with banners and whatever would be needed that day, be it packets or business cards. It was a lot of work and even more walking. My days started promptly at 5:45 A.M. and ended at around 12:00 A.M. It was supposed to end at 11:30, but the A-Team was responsible for doing rounds in the dorms to make sure that the students were in bed and had their lights off.

A-Team!!!! (Minus one guy who was in the restroom...)

YLI was a lot of work, but for me it was very rewarding. I grew very close to the rest of the A-Team; I think I made some life-long friends. They became my familia for 5 days. I also gained experience in working with new people in a new environment. So all in all, it was fantastic and wonderful and a whole bunch of other positive adjectives, even if I missed most of the high school YWiC camps. Oh well. At least I'll be there for the entirety of the middle school camps.

I feel lost. I know, total subject change here. But it's true. I've just spent one of the best weeks of my life in California, and coming back has been hard. I never wanted my time there to end, but now it seems like it never happened. At the same time, being home feels foreign. They act like I've been here all along, but I have no clue what's going on. I don't know the campers as well as they do, and I don't feel like I belong in the room with the YWiC staff. I have no place - home is awkward and I don't have the option of going back to California any time soon. So I guess I can drift for a bit, just until things settle down. Who knows how long that will take though.

Ok, enough depressing thoughts. June is almost over, it went by so fast! I can't believe it. Has it really been a month since I graduated? It was funny - I came home thinking that I had to return to school. Then I realized that 1) school didn't start for another two months and 2) I wouldn't be going back to high school when it did start up. It thrilled me and terrified me in equal measures. But hey, this is what growing up is. You have to leave the familiar and tread into the unknown in order to learn and grow. I wish it wasn't as scary as it is, but I know that fear is a part of life. It's just a matter of how you react to that fear that determines what kind of person you will become.

So this post got a little derailed...oh well. I just needed to word vomit here, and I know hardly anyone actually reads this. For those who will read this, have a good weekend!