Life in a Castle

I know I haven't posted in a while-since the road trip- but that's only due to the fact I have been so incredibly busy with such amazing people that the internet has not been super important to me. However, here is what has been going on in my life the last week.

Last Monday, I finally arrived to UWC USA. Not a second had past by when I stepped out of my car before I was trampled by second years who were screaming and shouting in joy. One in particular came up, hugged me, and proclaimed that she was my room mate from Japan. Now two things were running through my mind: one was why were there so many teenagers surrounding me all wanting to greet me while the second was "OH MY GOSH MY ROOM MATE IS FROM JAPAN." (I have obsessed with Japan for a couple of months now- to the point I have taught myself some Japanese- and plan to live there one day so it was an absolutely perfect match.) We then drove up to the castle- that's right, a castle!- where we were greeted by more cheering teenagers all wanting to greet me and I just went along with it trying very hard to say "Hi I'm Caroline from California" and not "Hi I'm California from Caroline." It was incredibly overwhelming but it was such a fantastic experience and an amazing first impression.

The rest of Monday was pretty relaxed. My room mate gave us a tour of the campus, I unpacked, I met more people, and then I said my good-byes. Now as cold-hearted as it may seem, I did not cry when saying my farewells. Actually, all I remember is saying "okay. I love you. I'll be fine. I love you. Good-bye" or something along those lines. No it's not that I don't love my family or anything, in fact, it's the complete opposite. I do love my family very much and my friends back home. However, I know that they will always be there for me and I for them. That's what family is for. It is time for me to go out and live the adventure I have been waiting for and for them to find their own paths in life. We may be separated by miles and whatnot but we will always be together because we are family. I don't believe in good-byes.

After my family left I was then constantly asked whether I was okay-which I was because I didn't feel any sadness or longing to be home, just excitement. I even got told that I was strong which I don't know if it was a compliment or not. Oh welp.

I later met my dorm mates and definitely wanted to become a family with them which I do feel as though I have become incredibly close to some of my dorm mates. My problem is that I, being incredibly shy of people I admire, am to scared to approach my dorm mates and get to know them. Hopefully it gets better with time and I socialize more with my second years.

The rest of the week was orientation time! We registered for classes, learned about the rules, visited town, and all that fun stuff. My favorite part of orientation by far was wilderness. We were separated into groups of first years with a couple second year Wilderness Leaders and sent off into the wilderness to backpack for three days and two nights at Ghost Ranch in New Mexico. Not something the average school does right?

Those three short days I spent in the wilderness with my ten person group (including myself) were the best days of orientation and such an amazing experience. My love for the wilderness grew there (As a Cali girl, I find myself to be quite the camping/hiking person. My dad's love for camping has also had an incredible influence on me-thanks dad!) and I grew incredibly close to the people in my group. They are the people I trust and can approach for anything. I know so much about them and I feel as though I can trust them with anything. I do hope we stay close and continue to hang out with each other even if it's not in wilderness.

My time in the wilderness has led me to want to hike more and more so I have taken advantage of our lovely campus and walked around a few of the trails around. I also plan to be adventurous and hike the Grand Canyon for five days with my school. I definitely love the wilderness and this is such a perfect place for me!

The rest or orientation was workshops to learn more about the school and each other. Although orientation has yet to end (three more days!), I can clearly see the sense of community the school strives to establish and the close relationships that will form as time passes.

That's been my life currently-insane, busy, and absolutely amazing. I would not change this experience for anything. This is were I belong. This is who I am. I'm home.

Road Trip: The Final Day

After a long night of struggling to sleep- I probably only had 4 hours of sleep- we all got up and prepared to eat breakfast at 6 in the morning. Once we ate, we packed up all our belongings and headed on the road. Our destination? Las Vegas, New Mexico.

Our trip towards New Mexico was quite dull as I was exhausted and my sister was sleeping. After a couple hours on the road, and a short ten minute nap, we all woke up shouting as we took out our cell phones to take a photo of the New Mexico sign. I barely made it and it was loads of fun.

We soon went to a rest area where we were quite amazed at how clean the bathrooms are! Seriously, these bathrooms were spotless and actually had music playing!

I texted and snapchatted some friends during our drive and commented on how different New Mexico is from California. The roads are smooth, the landscape is brown, and the land is quite barren! And there are absolutely no Starbucks!

Well, that soon change once we reached Albuquerque and found Starbucks! Yay!

We then drove towards the mountains and reached Las Vegas a few hours later.

Las Vegas is definitely...interesting... It's small compared to where I come from and just different. However, the landscape -mainly the mountains- are spectacular.

We drove around Las Vegas and I was given the option to drive past the castle and see my new home but I decided that let tomorrow be a surprise! Tomorrow I will see Hogwarts!

Soon after, I met up with some of my co-years at Dairy Queen which was loads of fun! We talked about our travels, about our interviews, and about our thoughts about UWC. It definitely made me feel less nervous abut tomorrow as they all were incredibly nice and I'm excited to meet everyone else! (They also packed more than me which made me feel better about the amount of stuff I brought :p)

So now, I am sitting in our hotel room. My fingers clumsily typing this terribly, boring blog post as I fight the urge to sleep until this is up. One thing I would like to add is a Happy Anniversary to my parents! To another 21 years! What an experience it must be spending your anniversary in a new state the day before your eldest daughter leaves to go and start a new adventure!

I'm excited for tomorrow to finally see my new home in person and meet my classmates but right now, I need some sleep.

Good-night! Until next time!

Road Trip: Day 2

Our second day in Arizona was definitely an adventure!

My day began by waking up to my dad getting up and leaving the hotel room to go exploring for a bit as he was awoken by my mom. That's the bummer about traveling and spending the night in a hotel room with your family. Everything is incredibly loud! Especially at night when your parents are snoring and all you want to do is sleep after the long day...I ended up listening to Pandora for an hour before I actually feel asleep. Oh wells.

We soon all prepared for the day and went to the lobby for breakfast. There, we were surrounded by people from all over the world speaking many different languages-especially French. That was pretty amazing.

We then waited in the lobby for our Pink Jeep Tour. That's right. A Pink Jeep. A PINK JEEP!

Another family- from New York- joined us for the tour which was absolutely spectacular! We made many different stops and took many different photos. My favorite was one where I had "fallen off" a cliff. ;)

The sun shined for the first our of the tour before the weather completely changed. It began to rain! Not sprinkle or a light rain, but pouring large droplets of water! The tour became a safari and a race against the weather to take as many photos as possible without getting drenched in the rain. It also became a game of trying to point out all the lightening strikes-oh yeah, not just rain but a lightening storm, a huge one at that!

Our adventure slowly came to an end as we all shivered from the cold, but everyone in the jeep wore large smiles at the wonderful experience. As we exited the Grand Canyon, I pointed out a deer and we later saw a group of female elk. We then bid the other family farewell and wished them a nice trip as we reached our hotel.

Once inside, we dried off a bit before entering the car once more to travel. However, the lightening storm continued and we were all incredibly exhausted from the day. Instead of heading to Albuquerque as we had planned, we decided it would be safer for us to stay at Flagstaff for the night. We drove over and marveled over the incredible landscape of Arizona-it really is amazing. We soon checked in a hotel and then went to Outback for our dinner where we stuffed our faces in food.

Now, I am typing on my computer this blog post (yay for good wi-fi!) as my sister sits beside me working on an AP Biology summer assignment and my parents watch TV. Tomorrow, we will wake up early and head off to Las Vegas, New Mexico (yes, there is a Las Vegas in New Mexico) where I will meet up with some of my new classmates and explore the town next to my new home.

Excited? Yes. Nervous? Yes. But I am having a remarkable time so far and can't wait to see what tomorrow brings!

Until tomorrow!

Road Trip: Day 1

At 4 AM today, I left my small town-my home-to head off to New Mexico. I stared around at my room, wanting to remember how I left it and cherishing the life I have. However, my main thoughts were centered around my dog, Terry. Terry, a black Labrador retriever, has been a part of my family since I was in fourth grade- so about eight years. She has always been there for me, waiting every by the door for me while I was at school, sleeping next to me when we go camping, and listening to me as she watched with those large puppy dog eyes.

For the past few days, she hasn't left my side as she knew something was up when I packed up my room and today, she had a sad look in her eyes as she layed on my bed and I left.

At that moment, I realized that this was actually happening. I AM moving away. I am leaving people I love behind until I come back for vacations. This reality check led me to lay in the car, staring at the night sky as we drove away from the town I call home, and just ponder over everything.

Around 7, we stopped at Bakersfield to have breakfast. I had fallen asleep for a bit in the car but was wide awake when we drove,filled with two different emotions: excitement and nervousness. For the first time, I was actually nervous about the change.

However, as we waited for our meal to come I had recieved a text message from my manager-and friend- wishing me good luck on the trip and telling me that she would always be there for me.

My eyes teared up as I read the message (though I didn't cry since my family was there and I am not a fan of crying) and I wore the largest smile all throughout breakfast-and the majority of the day.

That message definitely took away the nerves I had (and the fear) and I filled up with excitement once more.

After breakfast, we hit the road once more as we needed to reach the Grand Canyon. Both my sister and I slept during the ride as the desert grew quite boring to look at and we were both exhausted. We woke up when we arrived at Needles, California and had some ice cream before we headed off to Arizona.

Now at this point in time, we were all quite awake and we had just eaten ice cream! So as we drove out of California and into Arizona, we kept yelling as we tried to take photos of the Arizona sign and made many different jokes -which was loads of fun. My favorite part of entering Arizona was seeing an In N Out and yelling as to why there was one in Arizina as I had thought it was a Cali thing.

The rest of the trip to the Grand Canyon was mild other than our amazing voices as we sang the entire high school musical soundtrack.

We did stop by the Grand Canyon today and let me say, it is absolutely spectacular! It's picture perfect and incredible to see in real life! Of course, I took some selfies in the Grand Canyon with my phone and I am excited for tomorrow as my family will be taking a three hour tour of it! #feelingstoked

Our last event of the day was eating at a saloon (a real saloon!) where the food wasn't all that great but the entertainment was awesome and checking into our hotel for the night.

So now, I am laying in bed with my backpack sprawled open, typing this and hoping that it will be posted even with the incredibly slow wi-if here (Even my cell phone doesn't have service!)

Day 1 of traveling away was pretty great-especially the text message early in the morning, texting my best friend in Utah (who also happens to be moving away for the first time and preparing for college), seeing Arizona land (full of trees), experiencing Arizina weather (incredibly hot, then random lightening strikes and finally hard, hard rain!), and finally, visiting the Grand Canyon!

I'm totes excited for tomorrow! We will be leaving for New Mexico in the evening-where I hopefully will have service!

Until tomorrow!

Oh, and I worked in some youtube videos but there is not enough service for me to post any up so I will just blog away!

See you later

In approximately six hours I will be leaving my small, farming city that's located in the middle of California (the middle of nowhere!) to move to New Mexico to study at UWC USA.

Wow.

It's incredibly unrealistic but I keep looking at my now empty room (besides the million posters that still hang all around as they were too large to pack) and am reminded of the big change. I'm moving two states away from my family and friends, from everything I've ever known, to study with students my age from all over the world. The world lives in my school-a castle might I add.

Crazy right?

To most kids my age ( a seventeen year old! Woo! ), this is either something they've always wanted or something they would never do. Miss out on your senior year, on prom, on all the silly things you do before college. But I'm one of the weird ones who fell in love at first sight with the program and have always want to leave my town to go explore the world. It was my Hogwarts dream come true. It still is.

Yet as excited as I am (and trust me, I'm pretty pumped ) there is the childish part of me who is nervous for this. I mean, I can be a pretty picky eater so who knows what I will eat! ;)

But I am slightly nervous for this new chapter in my life. However, I am an optimist. All I see is an adventure-the adventure I've always wanted.

Sure, I may never attend a high school prom, but I get to go to a Yule Ball-every Harry Potter's fan dream!

And more than anything, I know in my heart that this is where I belong. So yeah, I am nervous but I am excited more than anything. I'm ready for this adventure.

So to all of you who wish me luck and bid farewell, I'd like to say something back.

I don't want to say good-bye. Good-byes aren't fun. Good-bye means you may never see someone again. Instead, I want to say see you later because I do want to remain friends with everyone I've met, my classmates, my coworkers, my fellow musicians, anyone who has impacted my life, made me smile, and considers me a friend. Let's not say good-bye because, dear reader, life has a way of keeping friendships strong if you only try and stay in contact.

Plus, technology and social media helps! ;)