You know how it feels when everything just clicks? When you're in the right place at the right time and something wonderful comes along? And you marvel at how much you missed something so simple that you didn't know you missed until it's back. No matter how fleeting, for that moment, everything just works.

(And even if it doesn't last, you're thankful that you had a reminder that times like those do exist.)

bittersweet

We had our last GMM today. My last one. Ever.

I've only been in AIESEC for three semesters, but I'm years ahead of where I was. I care more deeply, feel more passion, talk slower, listen better, think harder, understand more, love more, work more efficiently, respect more fiercely, tolerate more freely.

AIESEC came at the right time to push me to who I wanted to be. But I'm not there yet. I've had this path set for what I wanted to do and how I wanted to evolve for the past year and a half. And all of a sudden it will be gone. I'll be on my own... in so many ways...

Life has been pushing me closer and closer to May 20. With three weeks left, I'm starting to experience things for the last time; my last paper, my last lecture, my last GMM, my last exams.

I know I'll have to leave before I get there, but I'm just wondering when I'll actually be ready to let go of this town, of this university, of these people.

I never thought I'd get to this point. And I never thought I'd be this scared when I did.

My dad just texted me...

"This just goes to prove that I can still text.

Love,

Dad"

tortugita!

I am a proud aunt of a new baby turtle! My little sister got it yesterday and named it Juanita. Juanita is kind of a tiger-eye color with two little red stripes on her forehead and she's about four inches long. Totally awesome.

That sucks. A lot.

"Mate, unfortunately things didn’t work out and they have selected a different applicant for the position. To bolster your spirits a little, the reason why the decision took the extra weekend was because they were so impressed by your interview that they were considering creating an extra position specifically for you in their parent company. Same role but higher up. The issue was that at the end they realized they didn’t need that position to start until October. They realise that you will most likely find a job in the meantime however I have been asked to tell you that were definitely considered and if you are still available in October then there is an option to restart discussions at a later date. But because they weren’t promising any deadlines, I am not wanting to build hope or leave you waiting."

How many times am I going to not get a job because I'm OVERqualified? This feels like the millionth time this has happened to me lately. How do I tell them "YES! I CAN START IN OCTOBER! PICK ME PICK ME PICK ME!"

I really, really wanted this one. Damn.

amused

My dad, who is in his mid-60s and just retired, text messaged me for the first time ever during my Salaam meeting today. It is probably the most unexpected and funniest thing to happen to me in a while...

In other news, I lost my bus pass. First, I never lose things, especially things that I use fairly frequently. Second, there are a limited number of places it could be, like my purse, my backpack or my coat pocket. And it is none of those places. So frustrating....

Also, cross your fingers for me and wish me luck if our paths happen to cross. I find out about Bahrain in the next two days. Aaah!

Baila Baila Conmigo

I can't stop listening to the AXLDS music over and over and over. You'd think it would be driving me crazy by now... but IT's NOT! Katy knows what I'm talking about...

WaPo: Pearls Before Breakfast

"It was 7:51 a.m. on Friday, January 12, the middle of the morning rush hour. In the next 43 minutes, as the violinist performed six classical pieces, 1,097 people passed by. Almost all of them were on the way to work, which meant, for almost all of them, a government job. L'Enfant Plaza is at the nucleus of federal Washington, and these were mostly mid-level bureaucrats with those indeterminate, oddly fungible titles: policy analyst, project manager, budget officer, specialist, facilitator, consultant.

Each passerby had a quick choice to make, one familiar to commuters in any urban area where the occasional street performer is part of the cityscape: Do you stop and listen? Do you hurry past with a blend of guilt and irritation, aware of your cupidity but annoyed by the unbidden demand on your time and your wallet? Do you throw in a buck, just to be polite? Does your decision change if he's really bad? What if he's really good? Do you have time for beauty? Shouldn't you? What's the moral mathematics of the moment?

On that Friday in January, those private questions would be answered in an unusually public way. No one knew it, but the fiddler standing against a bare wall outside the Metro in an indoor arcade at the top of the escalators was one of the finest classical musicians in the world, playing some of the most elegant music ever written on one of the most valuable violins ever made..."

Great experiment. Great article.

feel the love generation

It's been two days since I arrived back in Madison. I'm still having trouble articulating the impact that my new friends and experiences have had on me.

The big thing that I'm noticing in myself is that I'm refocused, refreshed and recommitted. But not to AIESEC necessarily. After each AIESEC conference I've been to (especially the last WSC), I have felt the "AIESEC high" that everyone knows about. But this time, it's more about myself than about AIESEC. Maybe that's a result of the focus of the conference (leadership development), maybe it's a result of being with people that reflect a part of me that I've never had a chance to get to know (that famous Argentinian side), or maybe it is because I know I'm graduating in a month and I'll be phasing myself out of AIESEC locally and nationally and I'm reevaluating my priorities.

I've unknowingly adopted a latin temperment while on vacation. I didn't make this connection until the last few days in Mexico. A Venezuelan friend told me that on the first night, before people knew what countries others were from or who people were, his friends saw us dancing and told him later that there was no way I was an American. Another time, on one of our last mornings over breakfast, I was trying to explain how I felt I had changed to a Mexican friend and a Venezuelan friend. I said that I was relaxed, not worried about planning and knew that as long as I was with good people, I would have a good time and things would work out, which sounds completely contrary to what many people in Madison think I'm like (intense, organized, obsessed with planning). They told me that I was thinking like a latina. :)

My 22nd birthday also happened during the last days of the vacation. At dusk on the 3rd, a few days before my actual birthday and our last night on the beach, a good Guatemalan friend rounded up the Badgers and they walked out of one of the huts, singing "Happy Birthday" and carrying a little cake. That night, they sang to me in three different languages. It is one of the sweetest birthday memories I have.

(Incidentally, I officially turned 22 sitting on the laps of four beautiful people in the back seat of an SUV, sticking my head out the window and staring up at the Angel of the Revolution in the middle of Mexico City while we were trying to become un-lost on our way to a club.)

I keep wondering what my friends are doing, how their relationships back home have changed because of the relationships that were formed on the trip, if the same roll call songs that are running through my head are running through theirs. It's like the aching you feel in any typical long-distance relationship, except there are about 50 people from 20 countries that I'm aching for and missing that much all at the same time.

back to reality... kinda

Got back from Mexico last night. I still do not completely understand how the last two weeks have really affected me. I know that I now have a different perspective, but I feel like it's more than that - I am a completely different person. I have been trying to explain it to people, but I feel like they don't get it....... At the risk of sounding dramatic, I can't get over how much my life has changed in the past fifteen days.

Update: I have an interview at 8 AM for the first traineeship ever in Bahrain. I should find out this week if I get the position.