Nicole....and journeys

In order to be able and willing to do something of this magnitude, I'd really need to know who I am, what I want out of life, and what to do to make myself happy. But how am I to know this when it sometimes becomes so hard to be detached from the outside world and from people's various influences. You sometimes feel like you have to look at everyone elses advice and compare them to your own desires and needs. If they don't match, it then becomes so easy to beleive that you're in the wrong and not those people who see you with what's easily imagined to be a more objective eye. But if you've let other influences shape and mould you for so long, how can they know what's in your own heart? Their view really becomes less objective and more a product of what they see in the vision that they have made of you, and thus really not you at all. If I want something bad enough, I guess I'll just have to trust that it will feel right and that somewhere within myself I will be able to find the courage to go on even if it's by myself.

School's really been really hitting me hard lately. What with work and meetings to prepare for going to Africa, and other meetings for farm committee and Rotaract. Then there's the events for Farm and Rotaract, and then on top of that, an attempt to maintain my social life. It's been craziness and so for the next few weeks, I think it would be a good thing to just lay low for the next couple of weeks and focus on school, philanthropy and making money.

On the other hand, I feel like I finally have something to look forward to, to be ambitious about and to kind of guide my focus. It's a good feeling because it's definitely helping me motivate myself to get other things in my life done as well. I find that I'm increasingly enjoying the filling my time with acts of philanthropy and would do events for this for days on end if time permitted me to, and if other obligations didn't stop me. Shak and I are finally getting moving on the 'musical' club night. Right now we're looking for a DJ who's willing to do charity work. There was something Shak said about being able to give them a tax receipt but I'm not entirely sure through who we would get the proper documentation for this. Of course, he knows more about this than I do so I'll just rely on him to deal with the technicalities and I'll deal with the finding of the DJ and etc...

I've also been talking a lot to people about my going to Africa next year to do volunteer work and I find that I'm getting oddly mixed reactions from people; Ranging from the "oh! That's great" to the "Oh! Good for you, you're crazy" and then we can't forget the plain old "You're crazy, what would possess you to do something like this". Most people seem to just take a stance of "that's nice, I’m moving on with my day now" and that's quite alright with me. I have no problems with people keeping the focus on their own lives, but at the same time, I like to at times raise awareness in others about the needs in other countries and among other peoples. I like the fact that barring any major complications, I will be going to Africa next year and this seems to spark, at least momentarily, some degree of recognition of a problem among some. It seems that the only people who are able to fully appreciate what I want to do are the people who have already gone there and done something similar themselves or people who have a serious desire to do this in the near future. Most other's just don’t' seem to be able to fully comprehend what is involved and therefore seem to lack some degree of appreciation for the motivations that drive someone to come to the decision to offer their services to those who are materially less fortunate than we, as westerner's are.