Home for now or home for good?

In my last post I gave a short recap of my semester, but it was sadly incomplete because a whole semester is difficult to recap in one blog post.  I want to share the more exciting events!  I has the privilege of leaving early for spring break (hallelujah!) to go to the National Conference of Undergraduate Research in Ithaca, NY also affectionately known as N-cur.  This was fantastic for many reasons: 1) travel! aventure!  2) a break from teaching!  3) learning!  I think this was the first semester I realized that I am a nerd!  I love learning and was interested in so many of the presentations!  4)  I got to feel like a college student again (which is very hard to do while student teaching)  5) making new friends!  6) seeing my friend Jill who was spending the semester in Chicago!  7) it was free (paid for by Hope College!)  8) i got to share my research!  9) I was in NY and therefore close enough to travel to Boston. 

Which is exactly what I did.  At the end of the three day conference I hopped a bus to NYC and then another bus to Boston, where my friend Lauren from study abroad picked me up!  It had been over a year since I had seen her, the last time being when I visited her in Feb. 2010 while waiting to return to Peru for my second semester.  I stayed with Lauren for a night and then went to visit my friend Abby who I met during my second semester in Peru.  While staying with her, I got to see my director from Peru, Melvin!!!  I also had the best ice cream and the best thai salad and the best apple pie.  More importantly it was AWESOME to see Abby.  And I had coffee with my friend Kallee!  So great!  After visiting Abby, I stayed with Lauren a couple more days and had the opportunity to visit my friend Claire from home who attends Northeastern University in Boston.  What an incredible spring break, but it did not end there!  I flew back to Chicago on Friday and drove down to U of I with my mom on Saturday to hang out with my brother.  He was in a performance with his fraternity for mom's weekend, which was awesome. 

Lauren & me in Rockport - super windy, but we found a sunny patch sheltered by some rocks and sunbathed :-)

 Abby & me :-)

The next day my daddy drove me back up to Hope and it was back to the teaching.  I admit I was a bit depressed for a couple days after spring break because I felt like I had so much to do for student teaching and yet so little time left as a college student.  But I plowed through and tried to enjoy the end of college.  It really came to an end too fast!!!  The last week was crazy as I began packing all my stuff and we had to clean our whole house and I made four batches of puppy chow for my students and over a hundred cookies that I gave out to various professors and my cooperating teachers.  Madness, I tell you! 

I graduated on Sunday, May 8, a beautiful, warm, sunny day and then returned to Glen Ellyn the following day (Monday).  Tuesday I worked at the library, and then Wednesday I drove up to Minneapolis, MN. 

Why did I got to MN, you ask?  Well, "mis papis" aka my host parents were visiting their son Andres for his graduation from Hennepin Tech.  I had never met Andres before, although I had talked to him on the phone and instant messenger.  My host parents bought a house for Andres while I was in Peru.  I may have mentioned at some point that we had a big cookout in Peru when they finally gave him permission to live in the house 6 months after they bought it (it had to have a lot of repairs to meet codes).  Anyhow, it was a beautiful reunion with my Rosa and Abraham after not seeing them for nearly a year!

Rosa & me celebrating after Andres's graduation!

Abraham and me festejando ("partying")

Andres, me, Rosa at the graduation

We also may have gotten slightly lost on the way to the graduation following my GPS, but no worries, we made it almost on time.  Peruvian time, I suppose.  I stayed there Wednesday through Saturday and had the privilege of visiting Brooke, my small group co-leader from Hope, at her home.   It was delightful!  I left Saturday afternoon and drove a couple hours to LaCrosse, WI, where I was able to meet up with my friend Sydney from study abroad!  It had been a year and half since I had since her and it was fantastic catching up with her.  We ate cajun food and she bundled me up in her WI gear (this was the week that went from 90 to 50 overnight and I made some serious packing blunders) and we laughed a lot and made the best smoothies ever for breakfast. 

Me and Syd walking along the Mississippi River.

I never knew the river went that far north, oops.

Yay for the camera timer and getting the cool bridge in the background!

Wow!  Ok, so that was not a short recap.  We are now at the point where I initially intended to start when I sat down to write.

This is my fourth summer moving home from school.  You'd think I would be used to it by now, but it always seems to take me at least a month to adjust to my new/old living situation.  And this year is very different because, although I feel like I am just home for the summer, I very well could be home a lot longer.  I don't really know.  That's what happens when you graduate, unless you have a job or you're going straight to grad school.  You just sort of float around a bit and try to sort out what's coming next.  I keep wanting to try to plan out the next five years, but I don't even know what I'm going to be doing come September!  I have applied for some jobs - Wheaton North, Naperville North, Hudsonville High (where I student taught), and Newton Public Schools near Boston.  Tomorrow I am leaving for Michigan because I have an interview with Hudsonville on Monday.  I am excited!  Not only for the interview but also because I get to visit my friend Sarah who is still living in Holland because she will be teaching at Zeeland Christian in the fall (I applied there in March and interviewed and everything, but alas I was not chosen, which was ok because I still really enjoyed the whole process).  But, I am rather sick of talking about job apps.  It has been a frequent topic of conversation lately.  

Really, I would rather tell you about the exciting things happening this summer!  Next weekend I am reuniting with my housemates at the Taste of Chicago, for which I am inexplicably excited!  In early July I will be traveling to Michigan to hang out with a bunch of my college girls and I cannot wait.  In between those to things, my friends and I will be having a cupcake competition a la TV show "Cupcake Wars," which I had previously never seen before.  I've tried out a couple recipes in preparation and I'm pretty psyched!  What else?  I have already played golf twice this summer and actually enjoyed it!  Previously I scorned golf and could not believe how much my whole family loved it, but I decided that I would give it another go and I'm not great but I have also learned how to not take it so seriously.  It's a great way to be outside on a beautiful day!  The past two Monday I went to play ultimate Frisbee with a group of young people, which was both great fun and great exercise.  The group hangs out afterward at one guy's hose each week and I really enjoyed getting to know some of them this past Monday.  Quality people!  I also got connected with a small group at Harvest Bible Chapel in Naperville, which seems rather promising.  During the school year a young adult group meets every Thursday and I was able to go to two of those meetings to get plugged into a small group.  The girls in the small group were so friendly and welcoming and they are planning to meet several times over the course of the summer.  So, I am keeping busy and just trying to enjoy life.  Occasionally, I just want to know what's coming next, but I guess having an undetermined future really teaches you to live into the present. 

And now I must go to bed, for it is late and I have much to do in the next few days.  If anyone is still reading this, thanks for sticking around! :-)

Me and my cooperating teacher, Lauren.

What an awesome lady - I learned so much from her!

Chau for now!  Count your blessings!  Writing this post certainly reminded me of how blessed I am! <3