Beginning of the end…

Last Thursday we had a meeting of all the leaving volunteers. I was expecting it to be just like all our other volunteer meetings – WAAYYYY too long and waaaaayyyy too little actually getting done. We met in House 1 (the visitor’s house) at 8:30 and spoke a little about what our lives were like after a year at NPH. Each volunteer got up and talked about their experiences: what they had learned, what they thought they had contributed to NPH, what they were going to take away from living here…and then each of the other volunteers got to say a few words to them about how they had seen them grow, or what it meant to share a year with them here. To be honest, I wasn’t expecting other people to say too much about me – I’ve been insanely negative throughout a lot of this year and ready to go home…and not afraid to say it. Yet people said some of the nicest things to me about my dedication, hard work and determination in my classes. For me, it was nice to see that my peers thought that way about me – it made me rethink, at least a little bit, how I feel about this year overall…maybe I have accomplished more than I thought I have…and maybe I am starting to grow up a little bit after all :).

All the volunteers (minus Cassie :( )