El fin

I just realized that I never really gave closure to this blog. I guess I've been lazy/decompressing/busy, but it's only right to have a proper ending (or at least a segue post....not that I'm even sure what I mean by that).

Anyway, a favorite quote from my last night in Ibarra with my host family, after my host mom told me again that she was going to miss me (and all in Spanish, of course):

"Stephanie, I've never hosted someone like you. All you do is read!!"

:) Yes, I did indeed read a lot....not as much as I thought would warrant a quote like that, but I guess.....I do read a lot. And not that I wasn't participating in Ecuadorian life!! Just in the downtimes...which, there were quite a few....which only happen during the non-school-year parts of the year, so, you know. I gotta aprovechar those moments.

I've realized from this internship that I don't want to spend the rest of my life doing urban planning, which is fine. At least, not solely urban planning. I realized that my heart still lies with righting all the injustices in the world--human trafficking, slums, poverty, malnutrition. And my interest in urban planning actually arose from my interest in slum development--finding a practical and applicable way of doing that. I realized while I was in the Amazon, however, that law school would probably be a good solution/start to addressing injustice......(duh)......so I guess the final update now is that I'm studying for the LSAT (to be taken in October) in still somewhat off-balanced hopes of going to law school and changing the world. Off-balanced hopes of law school, that is, because I did try to not be a lawyer for most of my college career. But I still want to change the world no matter what, and ever since I discovered the international human rights and public interest programs in law schools, I've been a little more convinced (sigh....aka I just never really did my research and let my biases take over instead).

Since I'm back at school now and reuniting with old friends and acquaintances, when people ask me how my summer was, I always answer with "challenging." But I always follow that up with "but it ended up being very good, and I enjoyed it a lot." Which is the truth, folks :). And I also realized that I never mentioned I was doing this through ELI (Experiential Learning International), but I literally would not have been in Ecuador this past summer if they hadn't been so kind and expedient in placing me in their program! So I'm obviously very grateful, and I do recommend them if anyone is looking to do an internship or volunteer program abroad.

Y así hemos llegado a la conclusión. ¡Que todos les vayan bien en las aventuras de la vida!