This past week has been perhaps the most stressful one I've experienced in a while. It was as if everything just kept accumulating and things were piling on top of each other and there was just no room for me to breathe. Not only was school giving me a hard time with multiple tests/quizzes on top of homework, but there was also some personal things that got a little rocky for a while. I like to think things will just work themselves out over time so for now, I'm just taking things as they come. Regardless of my hard week, my weekend was largely better by comparison!

On Friday, after buckling down and knocking three tests out of the way, my day wasn't even close to being over. Right after school, we had a massive Beta event which sent all 200+ members out in the community for some service. I ended up in one of my favorite places in Lexington (and where I volunteer every week) The International Book Project. There, our group was in charge of packing a pallet to Panama so we taped together boxes and then filled them with books before stacking them up. Here's all of us looking chipper and eager to volunteer! I also managed to snag a couple books (as I always do after I volunteer) making for a very happy Lusi;)

After volunteering, I headed out for Thai food with a couple of friends before I had to leave for a meeting. One of the seniors last year started a non-profit organization called Running Water which she passed on to one of my friends, Jared, who is a senior with me this year. He is now president of the organization and the meeting on Friday was the first meeting for Running Water. We discussed what fundraisers we wanted to host, our plans for a 5K, and most importantly, our trip to Bolivia. We plan on going there around spring break and installing water wells in areas and residential neighborhoods that otherwise wouldn't have access to clean water. They had the same trip last year and the people who went only had a wonderful experience with it. I'm excited to begin everything we have planned for this year! After our meeting, Jared and I just hung out and watched some movies to take a break form our busy week/day.

On Saturday, mom and I slept in (as we deserved to) and it was probably the highlight of my day. That and my delicious breakfast of mini-oatmeal bites which I made with banana and peanut butter!

We didn't do much Saturday except while mom went out to celebrate a friend's son's birthday, I had a mini-panic attack about college and I had to have a friend come over so we could talk college and the future for a while. Whoops! I had planned to work on essays all of Saturday, but then again how does one work on essays when one doesn't even know where she wants to go to school?? (Can you tell why I had my panic attack?) Anyway, my friend helped me realize what schools I genuinely would want to go to and which ones I was just hopelessly hanging on to. I even added a couple to my list per his advice. He was a big help to me, however I don't how big of a help I was to him...He had vowed to cap his list at 5-6 schools, but I convinced him to add a couple more. Now he's at 10....my bad! 

On Sunday, I actually got out of the house and got some fresh air for a change! Two friends and I had made plans to go hiking the first week of school, but that actually never panned out. But hey! Better late than ever! So today, we finally went on our long-awaited hike after nearly three months of just talking about going. 

We headed out to Red River Gorge which is something of a tourist attraction in Kentucky, but we love it anyway. After debating in between singing old Disney Channel songs and laughing at all the silly things we do when around each other, we settled on a 3.5 mile loop called Gray's Arch.

We could not have picked a better day to go hiking -- I'm actually kind of glad that our original plan fell through just because it would not have been as pretty in August as it was now in October! All the leaves were turning and the forest was full of colors. Our luckiest moment of the day was with the weather because not only was it sunny, the temperature was neither hot nor cold; perfect for a Sunday hiking. 

Too many pictures of the Gorge and the Arch were taken, but I just couldn't resist. The entire forest looked so awesome that I couldn't pass up the opportunity to snap up a couple pictures. 

On our way up to the Arch, we had kept such good time. We had brought along with us a guide book considering didn't know the trail and didn't want to get lost and have it get dark on us. Of course, in some ironic twist of fate, we did get lost. And to be honest, it was probably because we had the book with us. In our defense, the map was very small and very difficult to read! And, the trails around the actual Arch were not marked decently! Thus, we probably walked an extra mile or so and took turns leading each other blindly down what eventually turned out to be dead-ends. But hey, thats what adventures are made from! 

All in all, my weekend was incredibly relaxing and well-needed after an exhausting week. Hiking and seeing some friends was exactly what I needed to get my mind off of the stress of college, and regular school, and gosh knows what else. Also, I apologize for my lack of regular posts during the week -- I promise to pick those back up again considering this week will be much calmer! Here's to a fresh start and a new week -- hope everyone's weekend was as leisurely and restorative as mine!:)

Uganda Project
Yesterday, I finally was able to finish a year-long project I had been working on. It started the beginning of Junior year. For the past three years, I have been volunteering at a local non-profit called The International Book Project whose mission is to supply books to all areas of the globe that are desperately in need of them. This could be impoverished third world countries or an under-funded school. In either situation, they strive to promote literacy and positive education around the globe. Volunteering for them after school during the week, I enjoyed my time incredibly - I would either open and file thank you notes from all of the places that have benefited from books being sent or I would either work in their bookshop, pricing or organizing books. That one day out of the week that I would volunteer was usually the best day of my week.

That is until, one day, coming in to volunteer, one of the workers topped me and handed me a flyer and started talking to me about a somewhat-new project they were promoting. It was called Books as Bridges and it encourages students like myself to run an entire project and help a country of my choice just like the company would. At first I was overwhelmed - taking this on would mean I would have to choose a country, find someone in that area to receive my shipment, keep in constant contact with them making sure everything is going as planned, advertise for my project, fund raise all of the money needed to ship the books over, and finally, once all of that was done, pack the pallet of 1,700+ books and finally send it off. i was more than a little apprehensive. This would ultimately fill up my entire year and I would have to make time to do all of the work on top of my already busy school schedule.

But, I did it anyway. And I am so happy that I did because this past year, being able to participate in this amazing project, has been one of the most fulfilling years of my life. Now, that’s not to say I didn’t struggle. Boy, there were so many ups and downs that I thought I was on a roller coaster a couple times (and everybody knows how much I hate roller coasters) First, there was he advertising issue. Flyers were pasted everywhere - downtown, on billboards, in schools, in grocery stores, yet nothing seemed to be working because I wasn’t garnering enough attention towards my project. The country I had chosen to work with was Uganda and I had established a partnership with the head of a school there. The second problem arose when it would be months before he would return any of my emails, if at all. The lack of communication got so bad that I gave him an ultimatum, which he did not meet, and I was forced to drop him as my partner. I was then stuck in a situation, I knew I wanted to send to Uganda, I was raising shipment money to be able to send to Uganda, I just had no one there to receive my shipment. My adviser in the project was like my lifeline - she was the one who kept the sane head during all of this madness and if it wasn’t for her, I might not have ever gone through with finishing this project.

She told me not to worry, that I should, for the time being, focus my efforts on raising the money (we had a rough estimate of how much I would need to raise, around $2,500) and that finding a partner could come later. Yes well, even if we could solve the partner problem later, that still left the money problem unresolved. I wasn’t raising any. I had tried virtually everything I had legal authority to do when I realized there was one venue I had yet to try: my school. In cam the genius idea of selling chocolate to stressed out teenagers. Partnering with a local chocolate store in town, I sold for them around 500 chocolate bars and the commission was split in half. There is no better time to sell chocolate to teenagers than during finals week when everybody needs that extra jolt of sugar to be able to cram all night long. There was even a day when I clearly remembering selling about 10 chocolate bars in the span of 5 minutes - people would see me carrying the bag in the hallway, not even stop me or pull me off to the side, just thrust a dollar in my face and say “Peanut Butter!” demanding their peanut butter chocolate bar with wild eyes. I would get tapped on the shoulder by dollar bills at my locker. Walking into class, there were a couple f times when I was mauled with one foot in the door, one foot still out. Needless to say, the chocolate went over very well. However, I was only able to raise a small amount compared to the huge overall amount I needed to raise.
That was when my project was saved by a caring classmate. He had recently taken on a project himself called Kids for Kids whose purpose was to help students who had taken on large scale products to advertise their goal and help them come up with the funds needed to realize their end result. Another gal of his project was to take the initial money raised, and host an event and attempt to double the money. With his help, we were able to set up a website through a crowd-sharing website host called Rockethub where people read about our project and if they were thoroughly intrigued or interested, they would sponsor us. Through this method, we raised $920, $20 over our goal, in the span of a couple of months! Even though this was a huge step in the right direction, we were still quote short of our goal.

At this point in time, I received what was perhaps the best news I had heard throughout the entire time I was working on the project. A woman from Uganda who had heard about the company had contacted the office and expressed interest in receiving a shipment of books for the schools in her community. Her name was Paula and not only did she want my shipment, she was willing to donate $1,000 dollars to help towards shipping! I was blessed. No, I as more than blessed, it seemed as if I had killed two birds with one stone, and I couldn’t have been more relieved. The project was finally, after a long year, winding down: I had a partner established, I had a majority of the money raised. The rest seemed like smooth sailing.

And then, of course, something bad had to happen. It seems that the commission Rockethub took from us was larger than what we had expected and thus, we were left a couple hundred dollars short. I panicked. Naturally. Then, I received the second best news I had gotten throughout this project: there was a man in town, who had dedicated his entire life and entire bank account (nearly) to helping fund such projects and endeavors. In his youth, he himself had traversed the globe and had been the initiator of projects similar to mine, but now, growing older, he was no longer able to travel and thus he devoted his time to helping people, like me, do he work he wished he could be able to do. Thanks to Mr. Robey, I finally reached my goal of $2,500 and I was ready to pack my pallet and ship it off. I was even given the opportunity to speak at an international conference about the work I put into the project, the impact it will have once it is fulfilled, and the benefits it will bring. It was all an incredible experience.

Bringing this story to a close, packing the pallet is what 7 of my friends and I spent yesterday doing. We filled 24 boxes with approximately 1,700 books, stacked the pallet, taped it up nice and sturdy, and put the finishing touches on my year-long project. Taking this on has been one of the most fulfilling things I have ever had the opportunity to do and I am more than grateful for all of the care, assistance, and kindness I have experienced over this past year. None of this would every have been possible without the help of generous and caring people that supported me along the way. I will forever support the International Book Project in any and all of its endeavors. Thank you.
And now for the pictures portion, here’s the crew after we finished packing (sans 1, she had to leave early)
                  

And here’s the finished pallet! All 28 boxes and 4 layers of it!
               
                 

And then there’s my best friend…with a box on her head…of course.

                

^^That would be the tagline of IBP, and it’s true! The convention went well, I just hope my wicked cough didn’t scare any people off haha. We had two official booths, one for IBP, the other specifically for Ambassadors for Change. Tejas would usually start off talking to a person about the program after Kate had lured them in with a flyer and then they’d switch to me to explain about my project (Hopefully I'll get a post up about it soon!) We had a good system going!

There's Kate and I next to our lovely booth!

Both of them took me out for lunch and I really enjoyed myself. They’re such fun people to be around, hysterical too. It’s funny, being around them makes me about x10 more sarcastic than I usually am, and that’s probably only half to Tejas’ level - I have to step up my game!

Once the crowd fizzled out, my parents picked me up and we went to IKEA, the dinner, and drive back. I felt like I was cheating the GSP system but they really were my only ride back ;) plus, we got to listen to both Adam Lambert CD’s on the way back and that’s always a good thing. Mom stocked me up on food again and now we also have a microwave boo-yah!

Apparently, I didn’t miss much in classes. It’s been raining all day (there’s a flash flood warning on right now) so our 4th of July cookout and fireworks show were cancelled. We will be having a parade on Monday though!

I’m incredibly glad I went to the convention today! It was a great experience and I’m glad I got the opportunity to participate. I was sort of disappointed I missed my classes because today was seminar and i always enjoy that. Tomorrow is another early morning fieldtrip and then we perform!

Happy 4th of July!

                                    ~Official Representative of International Book Project~

Playing hooky from GSP today to go to Optimist International Conference with Tejas and Kate! They’ve asked me to speak on behalf of the Ambassadors for Change program with which I did my Uganda Project. Super pumped to be going!