Three hours late, two meteorites, and a woman named Shirley. . . .

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Hi all! Chris Diak signing on here. I'm terribly sorry I haven't introduced myself yet, but it's been sooooo busy! But here we are, in Puerto Rico of all places, and as many of you are probably aware, this is NOT WHERE WE SHOULD BE AT ALL. All that aside, I'm not complaining, it's beautiful here. But maybe a proper explanation of how we got here (through my eyes) could illuminate a little bit about myself for y'all, so here goes:

At the end of Monday, I did the drawing for the Darn Pretty (TM) Raffle that my parents held for the school, which raised a WHOPPING 7,600 dollars for the South American Exchange Scholarship Fund! The winner was a Rebecca S. from Juneau, Alaska, and four other lucky winners got some other beautiful prizes. After the raffle, I had planned on doing my introduction (on this blog) but instead vowed to fall asleep by 9 o'clock.

I was asleep by 9:30 and woke up a comfortable 7 hours later. I felt energized and alive, and for the first time, it really hit me that I have been waiting for this trip for FIVE YEARS! Crazy that it's already here, right? Well anyways, after my final ride in a Cadillac for far too long, I arrived at Compass, and within a few short hours, we were at the airport.

Our first plane had some MAJOR mechanical issues, so it was wise to deplane, and soon (not really) we were in Miami. Miami seemed nice, but the entire time I was there, I was captivated by something I'd seen on my flight down.

As if the experience of flying again wasn't enough, I saw two black missiles screaming through the sky a few hundred miles over the ocean! But they weren't missiles, they were meteorites! It was the most incredible thing I'd ever seen, never thought I'd see a shooting star from the side . . . .

My ride to Puerto Rico was equally as exciting, as I had a wonderful bonding experience with Raven, a classmate of mine, and with a Puerto Rican woman named Shirley, who I had the pleasure of speaking with. . . in Spanish.

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