I woke up at six again this morning, wrote for a bit, and texted my mom. I decided to skip breakfast and have a PopTart in the room instead, to give me time to Skype with my mom, and then I took a shower and got ready to go. We met our group out at the gate at 10 o'clock to get on our little brown shuttle bus, which took us to Quianmen Dajie, a market near Tiananmen square. We stopped in a tea shop, where we were able to sample some green tea and then we walked...

It's 3 o'clock in the morning and I cannot sleep. When I woke up at 2:30, I thought it would be almost 8 and time to wake up, but when I checked the clock I saw I was about 6 hours off. It's probably because I went to bed so early, but I want to at least try to adjust to the time change. The first night is always the hardest. I wrote in my journal for a bit before going back to sleep. The next time I woke up, I expected it to be at least 7, but it was still o...

While packing last night, I started to panic a bit about leaving. Questions were cycling through my head. Why am I going? What was I thinking? What have I gotten myself into? Don't get me wrong, I was so excited to go, but I know very little about China, other than the few things I've read and watched in the past few weeks, and I do not speak the language. I drove Kaitlyn, Angela, and August home around midnight. They came over to help me pack and offer mora...