ASB Charlottesville Post 1

It is just before 11pm on Friday, March 11, 2011 as I start to write this. In 11 hours, it will be exactly 168 hours since I started one of the most amazing, inspiring and decision-confirming weeks I have had in my 20 years and 9 months of life outside of my Mom's womb. This week was spring break for UVa. Last year, I heeded the advice of older friends who said that first years should take the week at home to relax while I watched several of my first year CSM friends go on a mission trip to Iowa. This year, I saw a lot of chalking and advertising for Alternative Spring Break before I heard about CSM's Spring Break Mission Trips. I talked to my Dad and he encouraged me to just go for it and apply for Alternative Spring Break in order to get a different perspective on UVa that isn't colored through the Catholic Church and Catholic Student Ministry.

I applied for the Charlottesville trip because it was the cheapest ($170) even though it did mean I wouldn't actually go far for spring break (even going home involves a trip of 100 miles). I answered the usual application questions and then the crazy questions, including one about where the child of Waldo and Carmen Sandiego would end up. My answer: Fairbanks, Alaska- based off some weird nighttime logic that the location needed to be random (for Waldo) and a city (for Carmen Sandiego). I turned mine in online sometime between 9pm and 11:59pm just before the midnight deadline. A few weeks later, I found out that I was accepted. The initial meet-your-group meeting was odd, as I think most are. The two subsequent meetings were a little less awkward, but still weird, so I was apprehensive but excited last week for the trip to start. Within a day, the awkwardness was gone. A strong bond of friendship easily and quickly sprung up between all 8 kids on the trip- the 2 Site Leaders (Phil and Nate) and the 6 Participants (me, Elisabeth, Kim, Devin, Ayesha, Jon)- and took away all awkwardness. It took it away to the extent that I feel lost without them tonight all alone in my room (which is just a little smaller than the room that 6-8 of us have taken to sleeping in the past two nights- the 3 boys slept in it the whole week, the girls joined the last two nights). I am, however, completely exhausted and am going to bed now. I will write a more detailed post in the morning after I get back from 9:15am Confession. I will have plenty of time to do so before my Dad gets here to visit me for the day at lunchtime since the family that I usually babysit on the morning of the second Saturday of the month sadly cancelled because one of the twins (Joshua, not his twin sister Lizzy) is too sick to move. Until then, good night :)