Let's just fill our time with joy...

Last night with our German boys

Hottuck is looking good...

Fancy pantsy meal, fit for the the Queen

Hottuck is not looking so good....

There are only 3 months until school is out. 101 days until my flight back home. I know this because my friend Kara is counting down. Most of our online chats end with something like, "I can wait to seeeeeeeeeeeee yoooooooooooooou! I miss you soooooooooooo much!!! Only x number of days!! eeeeeeee!" I have a feeling there will be a lot of squealing when she picks me up from the airport.

I have mixed feelings about going back home. Tonight I was 10 seconds away from a panic attack from a wave of feelings of homesickness and fear of returning to something that is completely different that when you left. Luckily, my stomach was so famished it grew a brain and decided an omlette was the solution to the problem. Who argues with their stomach? While comforting my panic with an omlette and an episode of Friends, I was thinking about my friends and my old life back home. It seems very far away and forgotten. I don't exist there anymore - people have taken my place in so many different areas. I have been replaced. I am replaceable.

No one ever wants to think that they are replaceable, but really, we are pretty replaceable in most aspects of our lives. People will take over our jobs, apartments, relationships, whatever it is we leave behind. This is nothing to get really worked up over; if the world wasn't able to replace us, then it would stop running after awhile. Who wants that?! Not me! Replace me! Hurry up!

My German friends left for Germany last week. They were the first of my friends here to leave. I'm excited to have friends all over the world, but unfortunately, that means that I must be somewhere they are not. This is the 'nature of the job' I'm told, but it doesn't make it easy to accept. What I can accept and believe is that God provides us with replacements and often, refreshments, when needed. He has a way of sending us the right people at the right time. After my attack, my friend Emily called out of the blue to say hi. While talking to her, my friend Phil called. See? Refreshments!! If I can only hang on long enough to wait for them.

The bright side of being replaced is that YOU get to replace someone else and in that process, you learn a lot. Lately, I've been embracing my new culture by learning how to cook! Some of it's good, some of it would not be placed in the good category. Hopefully, by the time I go visit my old life, only to be faced with a massive amount of unexpected and unwelcomed change, I will be able to calm everyone's panic attack with some tasty Korean food. If God is as funny as I think He is, I'll even get a chance to feed my replacements. How refreshing.