Stress...

My life is not easy. Growing up isn't easy either.

This is an honest account, and I'm living it right now.

Today is Thursday, March 19, 2009. It has now been several months since I've started on my journey to plan my entire summer by myself for the first time in my life. Guess what? Life sucks. My summer plans, so far, have all failed. Miserably.

My plan, for a couple years now, has been to visit Israel. And I'm lucky enough that I have the ability to get a trip that would be mostly paid for. However, it's a lot of work to get that whole experience going, especially in light of the recent economical crisis. (The economy is making less money readily available to groups that take young adults to Israel, so less people are getting to go, which means the competition to get accepted for the trip is more advanced.) So far, I had tried and failed last year (summer 2008) to go to Israel, which put me on this year's priority list, which was supposed to give me an advantage in getting access to Israel.

That doesn't seem to have happened. Instead, I've worked my ass off since last summer, making plans that were supposed to work in my favor, including telling my cousin when to register, who to register with, etc. so that we could go together and room together.

Well, that didn't work at all. Instead, she got accepted, and I got waitlisted AGAIN! I don't think that this is my fault, but truly the fault of the group I chose. You see, I never got called for my personal interview, so I sent an email asking about it. In response, I got an urgent email which stated that I needed to call in the next day, in the morning. This email also said that they'd be open from 3 am on. Problem with that? Yes there is. WHAT 3 am are they talking about? Which time zone?

Anyways, I called the next morning, at 7 am my time (Pacific Standard Time), only to get a snobby woman on the other end of the line, telling me my call was in the late afternoon, not the morning like everyone else's. Well, throw me a clue here, woman! Either way, the interview did not go very well due to her attitude, and my anger at her not for giving me the benefit of the doubt about the time issue.

At the end of the interview, this woman informed me that I'd hear back again from the group as to whether or not I was accepted by the following Sunday, which didn't happen at all. Instead, I got an email from them this time that simply said I was wait listed again several days after Sunday. I forwarded the response to my father, since I believed I'd get a better response from this group if a parent inquired as to what had happened instead of the applicant. My father did send the group an email, with these three questions:

1) I don't understand how my daughter went from being wait listed last year - to being priority this year - and being wait listed again.
2) I understand the world financial situation, yet we have a friend who didn't apply last year and who received a position this year. That doesn't seem to be fair to my daughter, does it?
3) Since we will be on the wait list for another year, do we receive interest on our deposit should we leave it with you?

They never responded to any of the questions, and I'm stuck without something fun to do this summer. There's nothing more I can do with this but wait for another chance to go to a place I've never been before.

There's another part of my summer that may be saved, though... So here's hoping for that!