goodbye oh nine.

I have been thinking about writting an 09 resume a lot lately.

Thinking about what this year actually meant in my life.

Was it good? Bad? Weird? Normal? Nothing special???

As I was looking for the right adjective I spent quite a lot of time going through the whole year and I realized that what pretty much made the whole year was Service Project.

The main theme of this year's Service Project was "TRANSFORMED" (yes we got a really cool sweatshirt that says so) and as cheesy as it sounds - according to that I would call my year "TRANSFORMING".

At the beginning of this year I was deffinately not a very good kid. I was dating a boy I probably never really cared about. I was just too lazy to change something so even though I always started those fights he never wanted to break up with me and it made me more and more lazy.

I was really scared about a school stuff because I skipped a lots of classes so I promised to myself not to skip anymore. But as soon as I kinda fixed my school reputation and I successfully survived the first semester I skipped again. Who would had thought that it was my very last skipping. I went snowboarding with some of my classmates and that was the exact day when I broke my knee. I destroyed it actually. And that was how the whole transformation process started.

Believe it or not you realize a lot when you spend your 18th birthday in a hospital waiting for a surgery.

You realize a lot when you hear your doctor telling you that you can never dance again.

You realize a lot when you wake up all sweaty after those crazy dreams in which your accident happens again and again. And you realize a lot seeing who came to visit you while you were literally disabled for more than 2 months.

The only nice thing that happened while my knee was broken was when my boyfriend took me to London. Yes it was a nice week. Probably the only week in the whole 15-month relationship when I felt like I really feel something.

Right after my knee got a little better and I could walk again I went to the Service Project.

I don't need to tell you how much I love spending time there. How good does it make me feel. But this year Service Project meant a little more for me than before. This year's Service Project speaker Craig (I know this is going to sound really really lame but...) he literally spoke my mind. Literally. When he talked about relationships that are not worth being in, when he talked about all the faith stuff and a lot of other things... he even made me cry! Not only that I was laughing super loud whenever he told a joke, he also made me think about my life so deeply that it made me cry.

I also got to know a lot of amazing people I never want to lose contact with. I miss you all, I miss my first ESL group - Maggie, Margaret, Paula, I miss all the dancers - Jason, Camille, Kori, I miss all the leaders and staff - thank you so much for everything, I miss our cool translators group, I miss Scott being crazy and not liking me at the first place, I miss Sean, Bryan, Jim, Dawn, I miss sharing my room with Tyna - extremely funny experience that made us closer than ever before, I miss Nathaniel the chalk board boy who always came late for breakfast just like me and who always knew how to make me smile... I miss it all.

After I came back from Service Project I felt so transformed that I had to transform my whole everyday life. I broke up with the boy I never loved, I started to spend much more time with people who are worth it, I did all the amazing work for the Invisible Children, I set up my very firt big choreography even though it was not easy with my knee.. but as the time went by I started to lose all that Service Project fresh air. I was slowly falling back to the way I used to be and a lot of people helped it. And that was the biggest mistake of my life and I know it. I didn't go to the internship in Germany, I spent a huge amount of money on stupid things, I got back together with that boy, I broke up with him again, experienced things that I am not very proud of and in the middle of the summer I ended up all sick, tired, cheated and surrounded by fake people who lied to me the whole time. Not a good feeling friends, not a good feeling.

I hoped that Service Project in Bulgaria would be the best chance to start over but I couldn't go. Dang it!

But something amazing happened. I went to Mannheim all alone to see all the Service Project kids again and ... that was another episode of my transformation process. I met a lot of amazing people, got even closer with those I knew before, understood a little more about an army life and completely changed my whole point of view.

Considering my life, my friends, people around, future, everything.

And since then I've been living the life I've always wanted to live. I only surround myself with people I truly care about. Most of them are people I've known since I was a little kid. I know they are here for me 24/7 just like I am here for them. I know they are real, I know they live a real life and they don't need to pretend anything. I love them.

I work a lot but it's that kind of work that makes me not only content but also proud.

And that's a really good feeling.

I focus on future much more than I used to before, I believe in my own strenght, I believe that I am the one responsible for what's going to come.

And since this Christmas is over and there's only one day left till the 2010 is here I am very glad to admit that the past 4 months have been the best months of this year, probably of my whole recent life. Of course it's not always easy, of course I've been struggling a lot and sometimes I just feel like the whole world is just a crap but I hear people around telling me that me and my optimistic point of view about life makes them feel much better and stronger. And that's something that always moves me forward.

Even though I don't always feel that strong myself I know that I should make people around me to feel so. I can survive struggling, I would say I am a strong person inside but I don't want people around me to struggle. Because I love them too much.

And even though I lost my father and some other not very possitive things have been going on lately, I still know that the whole life is exactly the life we create.

It's up to us to create it and it's up to us to live it.

And this is what makes me stonger and stronger.

I have been cheated, lied to, forgotten, gossiped, broken (physically and psychically), hurt and punched down, I cheated, lied, gossiped and broke too many times in one year but I have also been loved, cared about, helped, admired and blessed.

And probably the most important thing is that I found out what love is. Now it's not only the friends-family kind of love I experience.

Now it's also the real LOVE. And even though I know it's not meant to happen now and I don't know if it ever will be, I know I am able to have true and deep feelings for someone.

And this is what matters, this is something that has made my life SO worth living!!!

I would love to thank everyone who made this year so special.

All the people I got to know during this year and made even a little change in my life, all the Service Project people, Mannheim people, Invisible Children team, all my friends (I am sure you all know, I hope I'm letting you know enough), Young Life people, my family, my class... and I would love to thank everyone who's been helping me to make my dream future becoming a real future. Especially my mum, my sisters and Ron and Marci from OWU.

Thank you everyone. I wish you happy happy New Year full of amazing dreams coming true!!!

And thank you year 2009 for moving me to this exact place and state of mind.

It was not easy but it was deffinately worth it!

Goodbye 2009.

Hello 2010.