The time has finally come. The weeks up to this trip have been extremely busy, but very rewarding. I have been occupied with meetings, work, wrapping up my second to last semester of my Masters program (I'm studying Public and Social Policy at Georgetown University), working very hard with our amazing pro-bono staff on Al-Mubadarah, travels to visit my family, and catching up on month old bills.
I leave today to Bangkok. To be honest, I expected myself to be more overwhelmed with emotion-- but for now, random thoughts are running through my head (namely about leaving work and DC for 1.5 months). I intentionally did not spend much time looking up South East Asia prior to my trip as I do not want to travel there with certain expectations about what I hope to see and expect. I will let my wonderful hosts, nature and God be my tour guides as I venture around a part of the world that has always intrigued me and sparked my intellectual curiosity. I have made a commitment to myself to keep an open mind and allow myself to just soak in the culture and environment and "go with the flow" (a HUGE change from DC culture). Thank you to all of you who put me in touch with friends, family and contacts! Looking forward to meeting more wonderful people doing great work internationally!
To my wonderful parents: I love you and thank you for raising me to value diversity, culture, education, travel, but above all, for teaching me how to soak it all in and process it.
Running off to the airport, I will update again soon. I hope that through my blog, I can take you through my journey with me.
p.s. my arms are still aching from all my immunization shots!
I will be updating my travel blog on my sister site: http://hazamistravel.blogspot.com/. I will cross-list blogs on here, with links to my main travel blog site. Both blogs are linked to each other on on right navigation panel.
I leave today to Bangkok. To be honest, I expected myself to be more overwhelmed with emotion-- but for now, random thoughts are running through my head (namely about leaving work and DC for 1.5 months). I intentionally did not spend much time looking up South East Asia prior to my trip as I do not want to travel there with certain expectations about what I hope to see and expect. I will let my wonderful hosts, nature and God be my tour guides as I venture around a part of the world that has always intrigued me and sparked my intellectual curiosity. I have made a commitment to myself to keep an open mind and allow myself to just soak in the culture and environment and "go with the flow" (a HUGE change from DC culture). Thank you to all of you who put me in touch with friends, family and contacts! Looking forward to meeting more wonderful people doing great work internationally!
To my wonderful parents: I love you and thank you for raising me to value diversity, culture, education, travel, but above all, for teaching me how to soak it all in and process it.
Running off to the airport, I will update again soon. I hope that through my blog, I can take you through my journey with me.
p.s. my arms are still aching from all my immunization shots!
I will be updating my travel blog on my sister site: http://hazamistravel.blogspot.com/. I will cross-list blogs on here, with links to my main travel blog site. Both blogs are linked to each other on on right navigation panel.
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