Well well well... after months of planning, researching, learning Portuguese and convincing my friends and family that I'll be fine, it's here! I leave tomorrow. Although I'm a little nervous, for the most part I'm just READY. I'm ready to see new places, learn new things, meet great people and if anything does go wrong I'll just deal with it. I'm somewhat prepared for losing things or petty theft and I'll do my best to avoid it, but truth be told, most things are replaceable.

I've sent my close family my itinerary with all of the info they need for flights and who I'm staying with, etc but I will probably post one on here too so people can keep track of it. And of course, I'm going to try my best to stay updated on here and/or facebook of where I am :-).

Most people know that I just graduated from SDSU so this is kind of my big freedom trip after graduation and before getting a grown up job, but I don't think I've totally expressed the learning I'm expecting to do while traveling. My career goals are anywhere in Human Rights, Social Work, Public Health, Micro-Loans or any community development with non-profits in poor communities. I'd love to create non-profit programs/foundations to help people get on their own feet and help give people opportunities. Ideally, in the far future, I'd LOVE to be a writer/speaker/representitive that helps get the word out about Global Issues but that might take time :-).

I'm about to start two different books about International Social Work and Humanitarian work, I'm hoping to gain personal knowledge and get hands-on experience to compare to the books I'm reading. I plan to visit a few different organizations along the way and I purposely planned to spend 4-5 weeks in Brazil so that I have time to volunteer substantially. The orgs I want to see (so far) are Fundacion Mario Santo Domingo in Colombia, AfroReggae in Rio de Janeiro and Christel House in Mexico City. I hope to see even more than that, and I'll be on the lookout for people who might be good connections/teachers (such as a woman I'm staying with in Porto Alegre, Brazil does Community Work).

So now everyone kind of has a clear idea of what I'm doing, I'll do my best to post pictures and stay updated on here of my experiences!!!