It’s mid-June, 100 degrees in St. Louis, and I’m still adjusting to this post-college life of no stress, no deadlines, and decent sleep! The last few months passed in a whirlwind of excitement as I learned of my Fulbright grant, finished my final college papers, and walked across the stage as a proud graduate of Washington University in St. Louis. It’s hard to put into words how fulfilling and happy the last year has been – I’ve found new passions, established old ones, learned more about myself, made new lifelong friends, deepened relationships with mentors, and am so excited about the future, whatever it may hold.

I haven’t blogged in ages, I know – but blogging didn’t hold the same charm for me as it used to. I started this blog as a means to share my life with family and friends but with all the other social media outlets out there, I’ve felt less of a need to blog in order to stay connected with them. This blog also used to be about cooking and baking and the joy I found in the kitchen – but in the last six months, I think I’ve made cookies once, roasted a lot of brussels sprouts, and made countless batches of hummus…but that’s about it. My meals are quite simple these days but that’s how I prefer it at the moment and hey, I’ve lost a few pounds not baking all the time!

I know I’ll start blogging regularly again when I leave for Indonesia – this blog is how I plan to share that experience. I’m growing increasingly excited about Indonesia, although I still don’t know much about where I will be or what my day to day will look like. We are supposed to hear soon what our placement will be and then I’ll know which of the 17,000 islands I’ll be living on! We are also all flying out to DC in about ten days for the Fulbright Pre-Departure Orientation. I’ll get to meet the other ETAs headed to Indonesia and will hopefully learn a lot about what my year will look like! I’m also thrilled to be headed back to DC and will get to see a lot of my friends and coworkers from last summer.

In the meantime, I’m staying in St. Louis for the remainder of the summer. It was wonderful to have my family in town for graduation – here are a few pictures from the weekend.

In addition to the craziness of the end of senior year, I also began working at Taste, a cocktail bar/restaurant in the Central West End. When I started, I had no idea what I was getting myself in to or how much I would learn or how much fun I would have… but it has been an absolute blast and I loved it so much I decided to stay on for the summer before heading to Indonesia! I work at the restaurant most evenings and have most of my days open to read, sleep, run, meet friends for lunch… it’s been an incredibly relaxing couple of weeks but as nice as it is, I’m getting a little stir crazy and ready for some intellectual stimulation again 🙂 But for the next seven weeks, I’m going to enjoy these free days while I have them and then I’ll be off to the other side of the world!