I just realized, thanks to a friend of mine, that in order for you to respond to my posts, you have to join this blog. I knew this blog was too good to be true… I’m imagining that about 99% of you aren’t going to want to do that. As such, I will not feel insulted if I receive no posts from anyone, but will continue writing this blog as though the entire world is reading it… or noyone at all, depending on how I look at it.
I leave for Africa in 3 days. There isn’t much to say, but I felt I should write one final post before I depart, especially since I haven’t written a thing this whole month. Last weekend my mom came to Chicago and helped me move out of my dorm. What a task that was!! I accumulated essentially 3 suburbans full of stuff over the past year. Hard to imagine since my room isn’t all that big…
Anyway, I am now back in Toronto, NOT enjoying the perfect pool weather because I have had a million errands to run over the past few days. Oh yeah, and I’ve been fighting a cold. As a sidenote, though, I felt this cold coming last Wednesday, but told myself I had too much to do, and so I forced the cold to wait. Too bad I couldn’t force it out of me entirely.
The biggest task I have before me, strangely enough, is burning mixed cds for my African family and friends. It’s a good idea to bring the host family gifts, so of course being the music lover that I am, I decided to give them my favorite music. I just didn’t realize that it was going to take up as much time as it has. Being the anal person that I am, I went through every single song of all of my 400 cds, and created a list. I have probably spent close to 100 hours narrowing this list down and I’m still not quite done!! Then comes the burning process, which on the computer with the world’s largest lagtime (I still don’t see what I’ve just written up on the screen yet), takes forever! So, when I should be spending time packing or doing last minute shopping, I’m burning cds!! The irony of it all!
A lot of people have asked me if I’m exited about going to Africa. And I guess I am, sort of. But to tell you the truth, I have NO idea what Africa is like, and it’s kind of hard to get excited about the unknown. Anticipation is the better word. It’s not unlike my childhood Christmas Eves, when I would fall asleep with butterflies in my stomach, anticipating the presents I would open the next morning. The thought of going to Africa is like the anticipation of opening a present.
So, this post is going on forever. I’m going to end things now with a wish of good luck to myself for a postive experience these next four months. I know I will be different when I return to the Western world, and I’m sure I will like who that person is, I just hope all of you do. Be well, and I’ll see you all on the other side.
