Monday, June 25

Tonite is my final farewell as I leave early tommorrow morning. So many emotions bombard me from super excited to crazy sad. The goodbyes, although difficult and filled with many tears, are simply a depiction of the many important relationships I have in my life. Family: You are amazing, my strength and continual support, at this point I cannot imagine my life without our corky moments of laughter and love, Mom you make life special for each and everyone of us with continual, unconditional love and for that I cannot begin to express my gratitude. Friends from all facets of my life..so many goodtimes yet as we part ways I know you will all go on to do great things. Sorry to make this corny but I want all of you to know how blessed I feel to have you in my life and I will miss you dearly. Thanks for your support and keep in touch!

On the Peace Corps side of life, I have completed what is called staging, a two and a half day session in Philadelphia that focuses on general Peace Corps policies and philosphies, safety and security, anxities and aspirations, my own personal deifinition of success, and providing an arena to meet the group of trainees I will be serving with in Azerbaijan. There are 54 of us total working in youth developement, economic developement, and teaching english as a foreign language (TEFL). There is a great deal of volunteers freshly out of college but the age and gender ranges. I will only spend a short amount of time with the entire group, traveling and three days upon arrival, to be exact. My physical journey to Azerbaijan begins tommorrow with a bus ride to NY, a flight to Turkey, then to Baku and then another busride to our conference center. Me and four others have taken on leadership roles which will hopefully take my mind off leaving everyone and everything I have known as comfort behind. On that note, I am excited to explore a new place. I have no expectations except that I will find myself in a whole a whole new world with a different language, unique dress, customs, food, and an entirely differing culture I will be privy to eventually understanding. I will be able to leave materailism behind and serve others. For this I am excited. On the logistics side, internet will be sporadic, I amexpecting say every other week or so. They say that no news is goods news. Lets hope for good news. Farewell for now.

Love, Jen