You Know That Feeling When...

When you finally decide to check the tracking number on your Student Visa application a week and a half before your trip, and it turns out that three weeks ago, it was actually lost in the mail?

Well, imagine all of your internal organs transforming to lead, except your heart of course, which has instead turned into a backfiring jackhammer. Imagine wondering, seriously, if you could have a heart attack from the amount of times you hear "Sorry, we can't help you," or "It's not guaranteed" in the next four days, and good lord, the feeling of all that lead falling away just days before you leave as you listen to the voicemail saying that yes, the hundreds of miles driven and hundreds of dollars paid and hundreds of years aged in one week have in fact paid off, and your passport and visa have been rushed through all the right hoops in time for take off. Now that I know I'll be making it on that plane on Monday, I'm becoming more capable of feeling, you know, excited. For that whole, I'm-leaving-the-country-for-four-months-to-go-on-a-beautiful-incredible-adventure thing. Though honestly, it still feels pretty surreal. I don't think it will actually hit me until I'm walking off of the plane in Auckland. For the weekend, I'm staying at my lovely Aunt Mary's house in LA, soaking up her wisdom and positive energy and doing productive things like making a blog and doing the readings I'm supposed to complete before I get to Auckland (hey, better late than never, right?) So this isn't quite yet the Thrilling Account of My Semester in New Zealand. But it will be fun for me to look back and read my pre-departure ramblings after I've returned a transformed and worldly woman, etc. So here, world, I hope this sneak peek into the blogging of Rachael Lacey will help you gauge whether or not you want to actually continue reading the blogging of Rachael Lacey over the next four months. (Oh, FYI, out of the 26 people on my program, 20 of them are girls, and out of those 20, 5 are named Rach(a)el. SO, I have decided that my name for the next 4 months is officially Lacey. Handy having a first name as a last name).

For now, have a lovely weekend, remember to never use the US Postal Service for important documents, and for goodness sake, if you are in a place that's over 60 degrees right now, be grateful, because this LA sunshine is making me question why anyone ever chooses to live in Michigan (just kidding, it's because of the wonderful people, of course). 

I'm not sure how you end a blog post so I'll just connect with my inner hippie and say 

--Peace--