Yep, that's right, I'm GOING!!!!
It's actually really strange. I cannot believe that I'm going (But didn't I always say that I would?)

So here's the low-down on the past few days.
I worked Fri-Sun at the golf course. Sat and Sun were pretty crazy because I had to clean Jan's (my dressage coach's) barn before work, and the golf course is 45 min in the other direction. So basically Sat and Sun are my lovely 13 hr days where I'm out the door by 6:30 am and not back until 7:30pm. But I survived and I think it'll be OK. It's good for me to be on a schedule like that. Saturday I made $110 in tips, but Sunday was really slow and boring and I only made something like $20. I did read 3/4 of my book though. Lol.
It's actually surprising how easily I just started doing this job. I wasn't nervous at all. I'm really not someone to be "friendly" or strike up conversations with people, but I don't find it hard at all. There are plenty of good-looking young guys and I don't even feel like an idiot. It's kind neat, actually, to do something so completely out of my element. I think it's good for me

Yesterday I was at the school getting one of my profs to write me a reference letter for a scholarship, and the prof who is running the Arizona trip was there. He had just got back from Arizona (he was down there setting up the course), and was all gung-ho and had photos to show me. I got so, so exciting seeing those photos!! There are so many cool things that I've never in my life seen before, and I'm so excited to photograph stuff
I still didn't know, though, at that time, whether or not I could go. My parents are in Europe right now and I hadn't been able to get a hold of them in order to ask them for a loan. I didn't even know what country they were in.

Last night the vets called me up to see if I could come in to do an all-nighter foal watch. One of the foals has contracted tendons (so its front legs are all casted), so it has to be picked up every hour and nursed, etc. So that's what I spent my night doing. Right now I'm running on 0 hours of sleep. But I'm messed up and I can never sleep during the day to catch up. So even though it is currently 10:40 am, I keep thinking it is 5 pm (plus the dark grey sky outside my window doesn't help). This wouldn't be too bad, but I am going to be doing foal watch all night again tonight. So basically by the time I finally get to sleep on Thursday night, I'll have been up for, hmm, I can't even calculate how long. Long, though.

Anyway, so enough background info. This morning, after coming home from work and consuming vast amounts of banana pancakes (I always get so hungry when I stay up all night), I called my aunt in Switzerland to see if she knew where my parents were. She said that they are, at the moment, driving home from France to Switzerland and wouldn't be there until tomorrow. I needed to know by today whether or not I was going, because there is only one spot left on the trip for the "group fare", otherwise I'd have to spend extra money on the plane ticket. So my aunt left a message on the "handy" (cell phone) that my parents have with them, telling them to call me. About an hour later I get a call from my Mom and she is nearly having a heart attack, thinking someone had died over here. She said that when she got the message (apparently my aunt relayed that the message was "an emergency", which I specifically said that it was not, but merely important), and quite literally nearly "******* her pants" - they actually had to pull over to a washroom, if that makes it anymore visibly literal. Lol. I felt so bad!! Here she thinks someone had died, and all I wanted was money I'm such a horrible daughter.
Anyway, the point of the story, is that she said yes. Readily (I think the eagerness she expressed may have gone along the lines of "Oh, thank God no one is dead, sure, take the money, what ever you want". Lol). And in about two hour's time I will be registered and officially going to the Grand Canyon!! I still can't believe I'm going, actually. Seems strange. I'm volunteering to go on a trip with 20 people I don't even know. Sleeping under the stars for 5 days with these people. Living in a dorm with these people. Hah! It's going to be flipping awesome!!!

Oh, and one last thing. I am ordering a new lens for this trip. I've been wanting a new lens anyway, and this gives me the excuse. I'm already spending like $3k on this thing, I better not waste the opportunity by not having the lens that I need!! Wee!!