Surviving

I have made it through the first 3 days of classes.  We have class 6 days a week for 2 weeks here in Atlanta, then we head to Istanbul on the 17th.  We will leave here on the 17th and arrive on the 19th thanks to a 7 hour layover in Amsterdam.  Which should be an adventure.
The last three days have been insane, I get home and run from here to there and I should be doing homework that is due the next day.  I am supposed to have read The World is Flat by tomorrow, but is has been super tough to read a 650 page book in the last 4 days.  It has been demanding but I have already felt like I have learned a lot about international business and I am excited to learn more.
Now I have to figure out when I am going to have time to prepare for the trip.

First Day of Class

My study abroad class has officially begun. I had almost a full week off before this class started. I purged the whole house and got rid of enough stuff to fill the whole Garage. And enough body aches to keep me from moving first thing in the morning. We are now having a garage sale to make some spending cash for my trip. Well Shay is having a garage sale, I will be in class. Yes that is right, we have class on Saturdays. I am excited to get to know our group, they seem really great. I had a mommt date with Adam the last day out of class, we did a Superhero adventure. It was so fun.









-Misty

Battle Strategy

I have been thinking about getting Skyler to take some college courses starting next summer.  He will be going into High School and I have a plan for him to have his Bachelors before he leaves on his mission.  I am not sure it will work, but I want to give it a try.  He will still go to High School but will take college courses in the Summer.  So I asked him what his best subject was so we could start thinking about what major he should work toward, his answer "Battle Strategy".  My first thought was, "maybe he is not ready for college classes", second thought "maybe he is".  I am hopeful that I can make this work.  I am excited to try.

Scholarships

I have been super busy trying to finish up this semester. It is now finals week. I am very happy to be one semester closer to graduation next May. But some good news, I got the IEF Scholarship for my trip. It is 1000$ and on the reward email, the director said there were over 100 people who did not get it. I feel very fortunate.

I also wanted to say Thank You to those who helped me out by donating for this trip. I could not have done it without that help. We were able to scrap together just enough. We actually have been eating out of our food storage to make it all happen. So THANK YOU!

I have one more Scholarship I am hoping to get, so if you are willing, pray that I get that one too. I am excited for the trip and I am so thankful to everyone who will be helping with the kids this summer while I take classes. Let me know what I can do to pay you back.

Istanbul Study Abroad Blog

So they asked us to fill out a profile for the blog they are doing for the study abroad trip. It is going to be a lot of work, but I am excited. The link to the blog is at the bottom of my profile so check it out if you want.

Name	Misty H
Major	Journalism PR/ Art Minor
Fun Facts about yourself	Grew up with the Okefenokee Swamp as my backyard (South Georgia). I have been married for 13 years. I have 5 kids. I was one of the two white girls on my high school basketball team.
Anything else you want to share (Background, Accomplishments, Vision)	Background- I am the middle of 7 kids. Accomplishments- I have potty trained twins. Vision- I want to work hard and hopefully leave this world a better place. My dream is to do humanitarian work and convince my kids to want to change the world as well.
Your expectations about Turkey and this program	I expect to work like crazy and enjoy every minute, except the jetlag. I am most excited for the food; it looks to be an experience in itself.

http://www.gsustudyabroadistanbul.blogspot.com/

Textbooks at an amazing price

It is starting to get close enough to the trip that I am finally getting some information. For one, I just found out what my textbooks are and I bought them on Amazon for .46cents+shipping. Definitely the cheapest textbooks I have ever purchased. They are:

Undercover Economist by Tim Harford

The World is Flat: 3.0 by Thomas Friedman

Shay is excited that I am reading business books. I guess he wants me to be like him. Which is reasonable considering he is awesome.

I also found out that Turkey is 7 hours ahead of US Standard Eastern time. Which means we leave on the 17th and arrive on the 19th at 12:45 a.m.. Yikes.

Typhoid fever

The appointment I made at the school clinic finally came. Our health insurance changed this year to where the first 6 k is out of pocket, so I opted to go to the school clinic because it is included in tuition. Finally after an hour I saw the doctor, she told me that I needed to get some vaccinations to go to Istanbul. Hep A and Typhoid fever. The latter had to be taken orally over 8 days. My least favorite part is that it is a live virus. My only experience with live viruses was when Shay got live flu mist and then got the flu. I really didn't want to do it, but have opted to. I hope it has different results than Shay's flu mist!