Beauty

"This is the highest cost, take you and make you off,
Love you and leave you lost, will you forgive me?" -Maxwell

I'm boarding the flight in five hours. I have the chills and nervous energy is spreading each nerve. I am so vain; I just want people to like me. I'm getting used to these braces and I don't even know if I like me with them on yet. But I have perspective.

When much of the world is making $1 a day, I'm willing to go into $5000 of debt for them, to achieve some undefined definition of beauty. And so I'm a little bit of a dork, I'm not so hot right now-- I guess it isn't the end of the world. Thousands upon thousands of people are dead and millions are in distress in Haiti right now. Such beautiful people without food, shelter, water. There's definitely some perspective to be had there. The best I can do is keep my heart with them.

Johannesburg, Hanoi, Sao Paulo-- bringing minimal makeup, no dresses or fancy clothes, I hope we get down and dirty and really live among people to understand why we're part of the world... to be part of it, not better than it, or it's savior. If it's a good program, we'll also have to be shown the U.S.'s greed and flaws which negatively affect the world, of which there are many, I'm sure.

I feel like some divine thing is bringing me good friends. I feel blessed for the opportunity to feel special, for the chance to smile this much, for the opportunity to let my guard down a bit and feel again. I hope soon, this divine thing will bring some smiles to Haiti as well. I hope my naive green self will be ok abroad and meet real people. I want to learn. I want to enjoy every second of it.