Asia-bound

How many people can say that they have had the opportunity to study abroad for a semester in another country? How about in 3 countries? Well, that is the adventure I am hoping to embark upon during the spring semester at the college I am attending. Our comparitve politics course is taking an 18 day excursion to Thailand, Vietnam, and Cambodia. I've been saving for this and looking forward to this ever since I took political science last winter and my professor told the class there could be a study abroad for 2009. I got involved in our international studies club on campus and we got approval from the college to make the trip happen. I officially registered back in June and I kept consistent with my payments throughout the summer until my $595 deposit had been payed off at the end of June. Now it's up to me to pay the remaining $4200 by February 1st. The money situation looked good until I had some unwanted hospital bills to pay. I've only saved up just under $2000 due to those bills and the increase in credit costs at the college. I picked up a second job to make up for the defecit, but because of economic pressure, both my jobs cut my hours down. I thought for sure there is no way I'll be able to afford the trip with so many expenses left. I need to register for my passport and my visa (which both cost money) and my winter semester payment is coming up fast and I'm going to have to take about $600 out of my trip savings to make up the costs that my scholarship grant does not cover. It seems as though I may not make it to Asia after all. I don't want to go because it'll look good on college applications or job resumes, I want to go because I want to be thrust into a culture I have no understanding of. I want to take the risk and travel to exotic places and have those experiences that not many others can say that they have had. I am 19 years old, going on 20 soon and I have never even been on a plane. I've never flown anywhere or done anything nearly this exciting. I live about 45 minutes from Canada and I've never even been there either. This is my one chance, and despite the cost I told myself that I was going, that this is what I want to do and for once I am doing something for myself. I dropped by the financial aid office here at the college and picked up a request for a stafford loan. I always said I wasn't going to get a loan until I was headed for vet school because I know the cost will be tremendous. But unfortunately this seems to be the only way to go. If I keep working through December and January until the payments are due, I should only need another $1500, which is what I applied for. I'd be happy with any amount considering I don't have any credit and no one to cosign a loan for me.
I want to be one of those people that can say "I spent half my spring semester in Asia, and it was the best 18 days of my life" despite the obvious consequences such as the cost, and the possibility of contracting botulism or something of the sort. A lot of college students can say that they've been to Europe, or to Mexico, or maybe even Japan, but someplace so excluded from the rest of the world, someplace that has been through so much political trauma and anguish, that is just amazing. I want to walk to the troubled streets of a surpressed Thailand. I want to lie on the beaches of Vietnam where we lost so many men who had lied there and died there during times of war. The tainted sands are calling me and I can't turn back now. I just wish that there was someway to make all this happen, someway that wouldn't cause such stress upon my shoulders especially with so many immense weights holding me down.
I'm scared to go, and so many of my friends and family wish I wouldn't, but sometimes when you want something so bad you just need to let yourself have it.