District Assembly, Rotary Blazer, and Waiting

So far, no word from Taiwan. Past Rotary exchange students have told me the waiting is the hard part. I can with out a doubt confirm, this is true. Today was the District Assembly for my Rotary district. It took place at a high school and basically what we did was hold flags up in a hallway, listen to a presentation about some youth oriented Rotary groups, and had an opportunity to talk with the president of our sponsoring district. It was a lot of fun, and great seeing everyone. We also received our Rotary Blazers!!! I am so excited to start collecting pins. Many of the inbound already have tons of pins and key chains on their Blazers. We started our collections with to Rotary pins presented to us by the Westerville Rotary Club. It was an excellent day! ..... Now to keep waiting.

Arizona ~ Phoenix and Sedona

For spring break, my family went to Arizona to visit our cousins, aunt, and uncle. We had such an amazing time. First we went to Phoenix to spend three days hanging out with our cousins. It was boiling hot there, I felt fried after sitting in the sun for just one minute. While we were there we saw my cousin, Christine, run in a track meet, and my little cousin, Maggie, play in a soccer game. I was impressed, I have no idea how they run for more than ten seconds in that heat! They both did wonderful, and it was so great spending to with them on our trip. One of the days we were visiting them we had a pool day in their backyard. It was so much fun and we were all sad to leave the next day. The second portion of our trip we spent in Sedona, Arizona north of Phoenix. The beauty of Sedona is hard to describe. There were ginormous red rocks every where, we decided within five minutes of driving through the town that we wanted to live there! We spent a large portion of the week hiking and climbing up the rocks. There were some fairly steep parts, which were a lot of fun to try to scramble up. The views from the tops of the red rocks were spectacular! Another day we were there we drove up to the Grand Canyon, which was about 2 and a half hours away from Sedona. We had been to the Grand Canyon before than, but all I remember of that visit was freezing to death. I appreciated it's beauty much more now and I am glad we made the second trip. We walked along the rim for about two miles before taking the bus back. Following the Grand Canyon we went to Flagstaff a town about forty five minutes from Sedona. There we met up with Candice, Trenton, Ethan, and Austin, some of our friends from Granville who recently moved to Arizona. We met them at the Lowell Observatory where we went on a tour into the dome that houses the telescope that discovered Pluto. It was very neat. I was truly amazed that a device that appeared so out of date compared to modern telescopes, could discover a celestial object so far away. After eating dinner in Flagstaff, we returned to the observatory to look through some of the telescopes. We must have waited about and hour so look through the telescope at Mars. All of us were expecting to see a detailed image until we got to the telescope and saw........ a red tinted blob. It was a bit of a disappointment, but I still found it interesting that that blob was a neighboring planet. It was a wonderful visit to the observatory and it was good to see our friends again. The last day we did another hike, which was a lot of fun than Isabel, Gabe, my dad, and I had to head home. My mom stayed for another two days to visit with Candice some more. I had an amazing time in Arizona and will never forget it!

Spring term, Mandarin, and Rotary

Since my last post, I have come a long way. I had a great time in Composition one and absolutely loved my teacher. Now it is spring term at COTC and I have started Composition two. So far it has been good, except for having to learn APA format. I was getting very familiar with MLA but now I have to learn a brand new format. On top of my class I am also learning Mandarin Chinese in preparation for my year abroad in Taiwan. Taking lessons from a native speaker is lets just say, HARD. My tutor is a student at Denison and is very particular when it comes to Chinese. It is difficult but I am glad it is, I know I will be grateful when I get to Taiwan. Time has gone by so fast! It seems like my first Rotary weekend was just last month. Well, I leave in about four to five months. Many people in my district are already beginning to find out what city they will be in. That's the hard part, the waiting and waiting to hear where you will be living for a year. It truly is nerve racking. I am so excited, yet so nervous. Five more months, let the terrifyingly wonderful countdown begin!

Arizona ~ Sedona

Arizona ~ Family