i'm ready

After spending the last five days in the AIESEC United States office in New York City, meeting the girls on my team, meeting part of the current team and understanding my role for the next year, I am completely comfortable about leaving Madison for Qatar. In fact, it now seems to me that I am going to Qatar instead of leaving Madison. And I'm so thrilled!

All I need to do is move out of my apartment, go to a few doctors appointments, turn in a few articles, say a few more goodbyes and go!

It's still so shocking to me that hanging out with certain people even for a few days can completely refocus my priorities and center me mentally and emotionally. Every conference, every late night, every trip with AIESECers, this seems to happen.

One thing that was said to me stands out more than anything else in its contribution to this feeling. One late night, a friend helped me realize that I will have the incredible power, more than ever before, to change people and help them find their own ways to connect to AIESEC. I think about my journey in AIESEC so far and I know that I never, ever thought I'd be doing anything like this, but I also know that I would not be attempting it if I didn't have the support and encouragement of so many others - typical of almost everything I've done in the organization. Despite the language and culture differences, I am confident that I'll be able to live up to the potential the situation holds.