Drawing To a Close

    It's been awhile! But here we go!

    Two Saturdays ago was our End-of-the-Year Orientation where we began the wrapping up of our year abroad. We talked about reverse culture shock and wrote thank-yous to our senators and the US Ambassador here in Sarajevo. Together we came up with ideas how to battle reverse culture shock and ease back into our life back as a regular American where it won't be weird to hear people speak English. Seriously. I'll be walking in a mall here and I can hear two words of English and I will get excited. I've mentioned this before. It was sad to think that this meant we're drawing to a close. All of us talking about our bittersweet feelings towards going home; what we're looking forward to, what we're not. I try not to think about going home and live in the moment. But when every second you are reminded that you're going home soon, it's a little difficult.

    After our monthly meeting and the wrapping up of the orientation, we headed over to Anna's house to work on CAS stuff and just bum around for awhile.
    Yeah, we ended up bumming around for six hours.
    We dyed Emma and Savannah's hair, we talked about weird stuff (as you do), we took Hogwarts housing quizzes where we figured out I was a Hufflepuff, and we just chilled. And it's really sad to think that in two weeks I won't see these girls again for a ridiculous amount of time. From hanging out with them almost every day to not at all, I'm not sure how I'm going to cope with this. Guess we'll find out.
    As evening came along, we headed out to the kino (movie theater) to watch the new Star Trek! And oh my gosh, I think I just became a Trekkie. I don't know, man, but the soundtrack and the storyline and the acting (Benedict Cumberbatch aka Khan is incredible. Watch BBCs Sherlock. Seriously. Go watch it. Now.) and the action was just so good. Not to mention I got to see it with my favorite girls and have Helena freak out when the original Star Trek theme song started playing (if you don't know it, apparently you're the spawn of Satan according to Helena.) and Anna grab your hand for dear life when something dramatic was happening. Needless to say it was an excellent end to a great day with those girls. It always makes us realize how grateful we are that we got put together all that time ago.

English Through Tolerance class + SAKE

    Last Saturday, SAKE visited Žepče where there is a two schools under one roof. This high school has two separate entrances and curricula for the Croatian/Catholic students and the Bosnian/Muslim students and the students have no contact with each other within the school. However, the reason for our visit was to meet up with the Tolerance Through English program, where students from both schools joined together to learn about American culture and speak English. We met up with the class of about eight or nine students and talked for about a half hour about the school and their life, while they asked us questions about differences between Bosnia and America. It was nice talking to them, especially as they told us how despite the two schools under one roof, they still are friends with the other school's students. Žepče isn't a very big town, so it's hard to just ignore one another and the students are all working at easing away the tension.

    We were then all paired off with a student to have them show us around the town and get to know one another. I was paired off with a girl named Kristina, who was one of the Catholic students, and we became really good friends during our half hour walk around the city. We talked about both our lives and she told me how she wanted to become an English teacher in Bosnia, which I found really, really cool.
    We then met back at the school with the rest of the students and said our goodbyes! It seemed like we were just getting to know them and it was already sad to just be making new friends and having to head out so quickly.

     After our goodbyes, we headed out to Vranduk where there was an old fort that we were able to explore, as well as get our coffee. Once done there, we went to Zenica where we mainly grabbed snacks and hung out for about a half hour before heading home.

     Since then, my friend Alex came to visit for the past four days. She's also an American exchange student, studying up in Banja Luka, so we've only been able to hang out twice. We had a great time with lots of movies, games, and food. I'm going to miss her so much, but thankfully she lives fairly close to where I live in the States so we're going to meet up sometime soon :)

     In that time, we had coffee and cake with the Ambassador Patrick Moon at the American Embassy, where we talked about our year and how it incredible it all was. And if you don't know this already, it was a really, really incredible year.

l-r Luljeta, Helena, Selma, me, Savannah, Ambassador Patrick Moon, Emma, Anna, Toma Mesa, Emily Armitage

    And now we prepare for the last ELEVEN days here. Well. Ten now, if you don't include today. How is that even possible? We have so many things to do still, including so many last minute adventures and goodbyes. Pretty much everyday for the next ten days is completely booked, but that's ok! I'm excited to do as many things as I can in these next few days. And then, next thing I know, I'll be on a plane home to the US of A.

    Anyway, I better go write some more thank you cards and figure out what college courses I'm taking next year.

    Until after the SHAKE sleepover,
-Katie