Is this real life?

So we have been home for about a week now. It was one of the hardest transitions getting back on the daily grind. I was so excited to go back to school and see all of my friends and most importantly, my fellow asb family. We would see one another and jump all over each other with hugs. My friends from here began to think I was crazy because we were all obsessed with each other. I had to explain to them numerous times "When you go from living together for a week to not at all, you miss your family!" Even when I got home from the airport and was just home for one night, I went stir crazy over how much I missed being in our tight quarters and just being a family. Although I will admit, having my own bathroom again was a godsent. LOL
All I can say is Miss Molly Goguen was completely right... It was so hard to focus last week! I kept thinking "last week at this time we were ziplining" or just remembering other things we were doing. I just could not focus at all... and when you have to complete an 18 page paper due the Thursday we got back, yeah it was almost impossible. But I managed and I finally put up all of the pictures on facebook on Thursday night! I would not let myself do it before I passed in that paper; that had to come first!
Words cannot describe this experience. I now walk into Wal*Marts and want to cry because of the good times we had, I look through pictures and laugh at all the good times and I hear Adele and We are Young and I blast it and sing it at the top of my lungs. Whenever family or friends ask me how the trip was I immediately say "It was the best week of my life." And that's because it was. We all went on this barely knowing each other and we came back a family. This was by far one of the most amazing experiences I have ever had. We laughed together, we cried together, we ate together, we rode together and most importantly, we worked together as a team.
Just the feeling of knowing you are making a difference, no matter how big or small, is amazing. Rhonda was such a grateful, kind hearted woman with a big smile. Getting to know the woman and her family whom we were helping just made the work so much more worthwhile. I am now back in Massachusetts and try and think of the smallest acts of kindness to take on whether it is picking up a piece of trash or holding the door open or simply just saying hi to a stranger. Any act, no matter how big or small can make a difference This was one experience I will remember forever and ever and ever and ever. I still get sad thinking about how it has already come and gone, but in Dr. Seuss's words
"Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened"
... I should probably go get some homework done... Love you all!
~Erin the Elephant :)