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 :)