Quotes and Quotes and Quotes

I don't know what it is, but I seem to be on a rather bizarre sleep schedule recently.  Or rather, I'm not on any sort of sleep schedule at all.  It's 3AM, and I'm lying in bed fully awake and jittery as if I've just consumed three gallons of coffee.  Three gallons of coffee is a lot, right?  I wouldn't know... I don't even drink coffee.  So what can you do when you're wide awake in the wee hours of the morn with no sign of sleep in sight?  Share all your thinkythoughts and feelies with the internet!  Here we go!

Only a measly ten days before I leave for staging in Philadelphia!  I've been scrambling around trying to make sure I have everything that I will need/want for the next two years.  This includes about 15 pounds of candy and three jars of Nutella.  Yesterday I spent the entire afternoon sitting in front of all of my gear, staring at it, organizing and reorganizing, and giggling with excitement.

A few weeks ago, a friend asked me if I was nervous.  "How can I be nervous for something that I've been wanting for my entire life?"  It seemed so plain and simple.  Nervous?  Nope, not me.  I was born for this.  I've wanted this for so long, and now that it's fast approaching, there should be no ounce of emotion other than excitement.

As staging gets closed and closer, this attitude is getting more and more difficult to cling on to.  I find myself filling with little fears.  Nothing too major -- after all, this IS exactly what I want to do.  I'm not really nervous about the new environment or new culture or anything like that; that's the part I find exciting.  I'd say I can attribute all of my anxiety to three main issues:

1. Making new friends.  This is just like going off to college all over again!  Sure, give me all that crap about how everyone is in the same boat, everyone is in a new place and looking to make friends, blahblahblah.  Okay, true... I know that everyone else is in the same boat, but it's still scary as all heck!  I mean, what if no one else shares my love of unicorns or understands my intense love of ice cream, or worse: what if no one else speaks cat?!  Although I must admit, this fear has mostly been squashed thanks to the PC Cameroon Facebook group that has allowed me to shamelessly stalk err... "meet" many of the other volunteers.  They seem like pretty awesome humans.  I think it might work out.
2. Gosh darn it, I'm gonna miss my mommy!  (and other family and friends)!  Need I elaborate on this one? 
3. I keep having visions of me curled up in a ball all alone in the corner of a little mud hut.  Is that normal?  Probably not.

Anyways, I was originally coping by distracting myself with smutty novels and Grey's Anatomy.  However, I've decided that now is a good time to begin re-reading the Unofficial Peace Corps Volunteer Handbook.  This nifty little book gives advice for each step of the Peace Corps journey, from the application process all the way to returning to the good ol' U.S. of A.  As I was reading tonight, I found myself getting distracted by the quotes tucked away at the bottoms of the pages.  I ended up not reading the actual content of the book, but instead flipping through the pages to read all of the quotes.

I know no one wants to see a giant compilation of quotes (or maybe that's your jam...who am I to judge?), but I wanted to jot them all down here anyways.  I think they'll all be incredibly useful to remember while in Cameroon, and I know if I write them on a piece of paper, I'd lose them.  (Can't lose the internet, right?)  Plus, they are much better than quotes from my mom: "You should listen to your butt." -- Advice Unicorn, 2012.  Probably nobody will understand this reference.  Maybe someday you will be so privileged to meet Advice Unicorn.  Today is not that day.

"This is the time to awake, while you are young and strong." -- Buddha

"It's better to travel well than to arrive." -- Buudha
 

"If you judge people, you have no time to love them." -- Mother Teresa

"Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished." -- Lao Tzu

"The best effect of fine persons is felt after we have left their presence." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"I can learn from every man and in that he is my superior." -- Henry David Thoreau

"If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head.  If you talk to him in his own language, that goes to his heart." -- Nelson Mandela

"Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work.  And the only way to do great work is to love what you do.  If you haven't found it yet, keep looking.  Don't settle." -- Steve Jobs

"To straighten the crooked you must first do a harder thing - straighten yourself." -- Buddha

"The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy." -- Martin Luther King, Jr.

"The shortest answer is doing the thing." -- Ernest Hemingway

"As he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness." -- Henry David Thoreau

"Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions.  Small people always do that, but the really great ones make you feel that you, too, can become great." -- Mark Twain

"Never confuse movement with action." -- Ernest Hemingway

"Our truest life is when we are in dreams awake." -- Henry David Thoreau

"Enthusiasm is one of the most powerful engines of success.  When you do a thing, do it with all your might.  Put your whole soul into it.  Stamp it with your own personality.  Be active, be energetic, be enthusiastic and faithful, and you will accomplish your object.  Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"The person who says something is impossible should not interrupt the person who is doing it." -- Chinese Proverb

"What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think.  This rule, equally arduous in actual and in intellectual life, may serve for the whole distinction between greatness and meanness." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Choose a job you love and you'll never have to work a day in your life." -- Confucius 

"You can only become truly accomplished at something you love...Pursue the things you love doing, and then do them so well that people can't take their eyes off you." -- Maya Angelou

"We make ourselves rich by making our wants few... A man is rich in proportion to the things he can afford to let alone." -- Henry David Thoreau

"Better than a thousand hollow words, is one word that brings peace." -- Buddha

"Go to the people, Live with the people.  Learn from them, Love them.  Start with what they know.  Build on what they have.  But with the best leaders, when the work is done the people all say, 'We have done it ourselves.'" -- Lao Tzu

"Never go on trips with anyone you do not love." -- Ernest Hemingway

"The wisdom of this idea is that someday we'll bring it home to America." -- John F. Kennedy