"Wait a minute, I'm the leader, I'll say when its the end.......It's the end"

We have 5ish days till we are back in the states. As I look back at what this semester has been I am both pleasantly surprised as well as disappointed. This semester is not what I thought it was going to be. It was not an easy semester, I couldn't go wherever I wanted on the weekends, I was not invisible among the Romanian crowd. In some cases I was viewed as the ignorant American, in other cases I was seen as that lucky, awesome American, neither of which I liked at all. I didn't make relationships the way I wanted to. I didn't leave Father Ciocan's house feeling good about myself in regards that I made my stay pleasant for them. I have regrets and I can't change that. I don't know if it's possible to have an experience like this and not leave without regrets.

However, in spite of all the things that I regret, there is so much more good that happened. Yes, it was a hard semester, but an excellent semester. I learned more than I could have dreamed of. Many time I ask myself, "What is a computer science major doing on a semester like this?" Well the answer is a simple answer, I just plain ole wanted to travel abroad, I love traveling and I wanted to see the world. This semester offered that to me. But even though I'm a computer science major I still had a wonderful time learning about the issues in our classes. Obviously since were in Romania, I had a Romanian Culture and History class, and I definitely enjoyed it. Since the Romania is mostly Orthodox Christian we had an Eastern Orthodoxy class, and since I am Christian Reformed I had many beneficial struggles and eye openers in this class. Since we are studying under an organization that deals with development we had a class call Sustainable and Human development, many of the things I learned in this class I had never heard of before, and I loved it, even though it was insanely hard and confusing at times. And since this organization uses experiential education to teach kids about how to be active in their communities I had a class called Experiential Education. This class I probably struggled the most with, since I'm not good with short term relationships that I had to make with the kids. But I still learned a ton from it, I learned what New Horizons is all about and what experiential education can do for kids and their country.

But this semester was great for more than just the classes. We had amazing awesome trips around Romania which showed us beautiful sights and taught us a little more about Romania's history. Our group of students was able to bond and not tear at each others throats by the end. I found this fascinating, not that I wanted to tear at each others throats but I just thought that a group this small would get sick of each other quite fast under the circumstances that put us together all the time. But the opposite happened to my delight and I can honestly say that we are good friends. There are many, many, many (I probably need more manys on this one) more reasons why this semester was fantastic, there just isn't enough room in this blog to tell them all. So it's the end now, we have a week till we're back in the states. With that being said, I would like to thank everyone who prayed for me and kept me in their thoughts. And I would like to thank our semester leaders who put up with us and enjoyed some good times with us (hopefully). Thank you all, the end is nigh.

-Zach Hankel