Visa Problems Gone

I have finally sent in my visa application. I'm so mad at myself for taking so long! ......ugh! At first, I wanted to take as long as possible because they basically gave me a months notice, and looking at that now, it's like, whyyyyy did that bother me? Was I afraid that I was going to be jetting off in a week?! Probably, but at least it would be DONE! and I wouldn't be so frustrated with still being home, with nothing to do, with just time to spend. I'm stuck in the stage of beating myself up for procrastinating, because now the process is that much longer, it's that much more waiting. Shame on me. Same, shame, shame. And I talked to one gal who's serving in Australia now, asking her questions and stuff, and she told me that, basically, everyone who's serving there now is leaving in May, which means I'll get to know them, get comfortable, and then they'll leave, leaving me as the only one, or "experienced" one when all new people come in. I can't help but be nervous about that. When and why and how did I get stuck procrastinating everything?? I mean, in school I would do it, but not to the extent I do it now. I guess when you're not given a deadline you just leave it to the side. This isn't good. I need to learn to depend on myself, to do things myself and to be able to be disciplined about things like this, for crying out loud! If not for any reason than for people to stop asking me "When are you leaving?" or "Aren't you gone yet?" or "What do you do with your days?" If this blog does nothing but answer those questions, I'll be happy...let's get to the part of how you're doing and just bypass my current lame existence, because then you'll feel good about the good you're doing and I won't have to voice and feel bad about what I'm not doing. We'll see how long it takes my helper to file the papers and then we'll see how long it'll be before I leave. I still have to make reservations, and prices are always unstable which means we'll probably get screwed. Thinking I should take up boxing.

Visa = semi done

It is 12:30 am, midnight morning, and we're going into Tuesday, and I'm wide awake, and I've just semi finished my visa applications. Notice the 's' on applications. I had been stalling and stalling, I think mainly because I didn't want to read 10 pages of "this is what you're filling out" before I filled out the actual documents. Well, I just got down to it. It's been weighing on my shoulders for, dare I say, weeks! I just had to at least start. And I'm almost done. I thrive on late night hours. I'm a night person, I think I can only truly finish things that need to be done when it's dark and silent outside; which is unfortunate since I usually spend my days lamenting on what I have to do that day, wasting my time worrying (this will be a theme you will soon find out), and basically not getting any work done. Anyway, almost done because I sent a long, long list of questions to a Baha'i friend in Australia who's helping with the application process. It was a long, long, long list until I got up courage and read those 10 preface pages and found out that half of my questions were answered right there. That goes to show you, read the questions before you answer, kids. The funny thing is, I'm sitting there, looking at English letters and phrases, and saying to myself "Why don't I understand this?! It's English. I can read. Why doesn't it make sense?!" I swear, it's like a whole different language. It's not difficult, but when you're trying to figure out what "please lodge your application" means, I would think you're in trouble. Oh no. Basically all I have to do is wait for my friend to reply and I'll quickly fill in the blanks, send it in, and wait for the faithful day of "You've been accepted, see you tomorrow!" Hooray! Waiting is the hardest part. The anticipation. The unknown. The anxiety that builds up. I wish I was the type of person that would go with the flow, no care in the world, live everyday like it's the last. Oh, how life would be so much more relaxed. So, until then I will do the usual and let my anxiety build up and complain about it here, so y'all can dib dab in my world and experience the pain with me. Next stop: a finished application flying halfway across the world....Actually, next stop: bed.

My First Post...I'm Leaving!

Wow. My first post. I never thought I would jump on the blogging wagon, but since I'm leaving the country soon to set off on new adventures, and by the request of many people, I've decided to jump on that wagon, albeit 5 years late of the trend :)

So, a little bit of history might help. The Baha'i Faith is a faith aimed at bringing unity to the world. We just want everyone to live in harmony. Peace and Love. Unity in diversity. The Baha'i community urges the youth and young adults to go on a Year of Service, to render time and help to the world of humanity, doing whatever needs to be done. It's always been in my "life plan" to do a year of service, and after going to community college for two years and still not know what I would enjoy as a career, I thought it'd be the perfect time. This way I would get to see the world, travel, and also serve. So instead of wasting my parents' money on years and years of over-priced college while I change my major 15 times, I would be putting that money to good use in offering my services to my faith.

So, my long quest of finding a location to serve for the Baha'i Faith finally came to an end a couple of weeks ago. If you don't already know, I first applied to Haifa, Israel, which is the main "headquarters," if you will, of the Baha'i Faith. Well, that didn't work out. And since I had the world at my disposal, where any location would be a good location, it took me a long 6 months of whining, stressing, and freaking out, to finally decide and apply to Australia. Many ask why. Well, to tell you the truth, I don't know. It's always been a land I eagerly wanted to visit; I mean, does anyone not like the Australian accent? :) And one other reason was that dear Chuck at the Pioneering Office at the Baha'i National Offices suggested I go (he stuck with me through all my indecisiveness and worrying and just finally pushed, and I went). It just so happens they needed youth volunteers. So I applied. And then got accepted. When I heard the news, I was a bit shocked. Then I got scared. Then I got worried. Really worried. And anyone that knows me knows that is not a shock.

So, now I'm in the process of applying for my visa (that procrastination is definitely kicking in again), and after that is done I will hopefully have a plane ticket out of here. They want me there between April 10-30, and since that's coming up soon, I'll either be scrabbling for all my belongings and jet off within 2 days notice, or I'll be leaving in early May...we'll see. And in true Ailene fashion, I've been put on the "gardening/maintenance team"- the one area I didn't check in the questionnaire. But I will do anything they need me to do, because I'm going to serve, not to play and sit on the beach (although I'm really close to the beach...hmmm). What I really need to work on is seeing the positive side of things. I mean, I'm finally going to travel! I'm finally going to see Australia! I'm finally getting to go serve! Finally!

I hope everyone who reads this enjoys it. I hope I'll have stories to tell! We'll see how well I do grammatically since I won't have my mom editing every other sentence. And I hope that, through this experience, though frightening and terribly new, I learn more about myself, my identity as a Baha'i, and get a more worldly experience, see how the other side do things. This will be a good thing....it just has to be :)