And She's Taking Off Yet Again

When I got off the plane in Muscat almost 6 months ago, probably one of the most prominent thoughts I had was "the next time I'm on a plane, I will be going home". Turns out I was way off base. This weekend is my long awaited trip to Sri Lanka, and I'm both excited and very nervous for this incredible opportunity to travel in a unique setting (as a participant in a school trip). I'm saving details about that for the next post - when I get back, I'll be writing about everything that happened and uploading lots of visuals. But for now, more about this week.

Nothing particularly exciting had happened for a while (barring our trip to the Muscat festival together last week), and so tonight was completely perfect. The five of us YES girls were invited to a "jazz" concert at the house of the American ambassador to Oman (we have  now met her several times; she's really nice), and so we went straight from AMIDEAST after class (we watched a video during Arabic today called Amreeka). It turned out the "jazz" was more of a country-rock mashup, and we wound up dancing on the lawn with each other and ambassadors from various other countries in a crazy jumble of tangled hair and swaying limbs as the Mary McBride Band played in front of us (photos coming soon). 

This is, in a way, a pretty perfect analogy for my life in Oman. Nothing is ever really how I expect it to be, but it almost always turns out well and into a meaningful experience - this one was perhaps some of the most fun I've had in a very long time. I still can't believe that this is my life - hobnobbing (this is probably one of my favorite pieces of British terminology) with ambassadors and attending VIP concerts with four other girls I love dearly, but I can honestly say that even though it can be tricky to be an exchange student, it is completely worth it for the moments like these.

As my dad is so fond of saying, "when the going gets tough, the tough get going". That's what exchange is about. It's about keeping yourself going to enjoy the beautiful little moments when everything pays off and you capture for yourself a memory to keep with you for the rest of your life. But I don't want to get sentimental, so I'll sign of with the promise of more news to come next week when I return from Sri Lanka; in the mean time, here's a song to tide you (and me) and over until then.

🎶Carry On - Fun.🎶