News!! (Old and New)

I left off my last post desperately wanting to tell all about the changes that the wonderful experience of the Confluence and Cultures class and Soliya influenced in my life. However, I'm going to hold off for now because I have very exciting news that I have to share (to get somewhat caught up with this blog), and I'm running out of time to share it! I've known about this for a while, of course, but as I had gotten behind on blogging, I hadn't shared it yet.

Mike, the professor for my Confluence of Cultures class, has led a trip to the Yucatan Peninsula during the past several summers. This involves exploring ancient Mayan sites, but also teaching a short summer camp in the village of Yunku. He would have liked to have recruited the entire Confluence of Cultures class, but out of all of us, I was the only one who took the bate. So yes, after much planning, I will be traveling to the Yucatan with about 9 other students for the last two weeks of the month of June. We leave one week from today!


I could not be any more excited about this opportunity. As I am hoping to teach English as a foreign language abroad after graduation, this is going to provide invaluable experience, for one. Add to that the interaction with another culture (which I've discovered I absolutely adore), and this is just an ideal way to spend two weeks of the summer.

Of course, this is also involving a fair amount of work. I'm taking three classes that go along with the Yucatan program, Global Systems, Conversational Spanish, and an anthropology course on Mayan civilizations. On top of that, I'm taking Literary Theory and Criticism (yes, that is as thrilling as it sounds!) for my English major. So currently, I'm working away on school work.

On top of that, I have some more news (annnd this news is newer than the other). I just signed with AmeriCorps last week. I heard about this opportunity through the Center for Honors, Scholars, and Leaders at UNC, and as there were opportunities to serve at either the Boys and Girls Clubs of Weld County or the Global Refugee Center, of course I looked into them and applied. I had an interview the week before last and then signed on my birthday, June 5! Now, for those of you readers who don't know what that is, it's a governmental program that engages people in in community service work with the goal of "helping others and meeting critical needs in the community."

I will be working as an AmeriCorps volunteer at the Global Refugee Center in Greeley for the next year, and my first service day is actually tomorrow. Exciting!!! I will be writing more about the GRC and what exactly it is, but that's all for now.