The students will be spending a week in Thailand, and then moving on their respective outreach locations.  I'll see one of our outreach teams when I go to Asia in another 10 days, but I won't see the other 20 or so students until they return in late February.  Along with the students, two of our staff members are leaving to return home.  Josie and Ayden, two Cook Islanders who have been here for a year, are going home to work and possibly help start a hip-hop DTS in New Zealand.  I'm sad to see them go, but I know that they have a lot to offer their island when they return there.

As you might have guessed, our Fall quarter is wrapping up here, meaning that in the next few days, a lot of people are going to start flying home for the holidays.  It's already eerily quiet here, and I expect by the time I leave for Asia on the 20th, it will be downright boring.  We did have an intresting visitor the other day though.  His name is Pepe, the horse from down the road who escaped from his pasture and ended up on our front lawn.  The police had to come drag him back into his fence late at night, but in the meantime, we had fun feeding him apples and petting him.  Just another crazy day in Hai'ku!

 

I'm really starting to get excited about my trip, but I'm also bummed that I won't be home for Christmas.  This will be the first time in my life that I'll be spending the holidays away from my family, and even though I'll be in an exciting place with great people, there is no replacing my parents, Kristin and George, grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins.  Like the song says, "I'll be home for Christmas... if only in my dreams"!