I'm asking myself this now...wondering how I will fit everything in before my Jan 8th flight to Nassau. I'm sure I'll also be asking myself this very question on April 24th when we arrive back in the states.
Lots has happened since the last time I posted. Last Wednesday I received my two vaccines for yellow fever and typhoid fever. I don't think having a cold helped while getting these shots. I thought I was on the mend with this yucky cold I have had, until Thursday morning when I felt like I was dying of some strange southern hemisphere disease....maybe yellow fever? I felt like that girl in the "Sick" poem by Shel Silverstein: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/16480 ...except I most certainly didn't want to go out and play.
I keep talking to my Mom about all the things that need to be packed from clothes that cover my knees in India to dresses for the Ambassador's Ball to European plug converters to the amounts of shampoo, conditioner, toothpaste, and ....girlie products I'll need. Apparently lots of it can't be purchased past South Africa. Shampoo+conditioner combination bottles NEVER work for me. Until I found this Garnier Fructis stuff. Which means, less luggage space taken up by bottles and more space for....everything else I need to jam in my bag for four months.
Everyone keeps asking me how excited I am to go on my "cruise." Or how big the boat is. Or they say it's so not academic and just a party at sea the whole time.
Lets clear some things up:
1. It's most definitely not a cruise. There IS indeed schoolwork involved. The syllabi are freaking me out. I'd call it more like a voyage.
2. It's not a boat. I'm not going to be floating around the world in a dinghy. That could get pretty intense and with my clumsiness, I probably wouldn't even make it to Dominica before falling out and being eaten by sharks. It's a ship.
3. I'm excited yes. But I'm also really scared. When I tell that to people everyone is like "But WHY are you scared? That's silly" Are you kidding me?! I've never step foot outside of this country (Canada doesn't count.) I'm scared to be in the minority, to be looked at as the "Ugly American." I'm scared I'll get lost, won't know how to communicate with locals, won't be able to call my Mom or Chris at a moments notice when I feel like the world is collapsing around me!!!!! But I'll make it. I know I will.
What else....
I got my visas back from Pinnacle and boy do they look SPIFFY!
I applied for a scholarship.....there's about a 1 in 325346 chance I'll get it. Plus with my luck with scholarships my chances decrease to about a 1 in 32534678390 chance. But hey, it's worth a shot. Like the lottery....ya can't win if you don't play. (That just made me sound like a lottery addict. Definitely not.)
I bought a trip to the Taj Mahal. I had a theory that after looking at pictures of it which look fake EVERY time, that the Taj really didnt exist. So my job, is to prove that it does exist. In order to do this Chris says I have to chip off a piece of the Taj and bring it back to him. I'll tell you how that pans out when you receive a letter from me in an Indian jail guarded by elephants. So after a million bank fiascos and talking to fraud and unblocking my debit card (thanks Mom!), I was finally able to book my trip to the Taj through an Indian travel agency's website...travelmyindia.com.
I also signed up for some trips in Dominica, Brazil and Ghana. River tubing, an Amazon culinary class, night time gator hunting on the Amazon (What am I thinking??), and some kind of Castles and Slave Dungeons in Ghana. SAS trips work like a lottery so I might not get any of these but figured I'd sign up for them as a back up.
I REALLY want to do this Basic Great Wall trip where you sleep in sleeping bags on the Great Wall for a night. But I don't know how it will work out with my required field practica for classes. So we'll see.
So I have exams this week. And I should be studying for them. But combinations of a bad cold and thoughts of SAS lead to little productivity and....Facebook. Or YouTube.
Here's a video that was posted by another SASer on Facebook....which led me to YouTube. Imagine that!
It's slightly ruined by the fact that it's a Louis Vuitton commercial. But I thought about it and this commercial ties in SO well to my interests (and vices...I like luggage/backpacks/bags)
The combination of culture, discovery, travel, pop culture, advertising, and thought provoking messages make me absolutely LOVE the message in this commercial. And the music is perfect too! :)
That's all for now....guess I should study. SIX DAYS LEFT!!!!
It sounds like this is going to be the voyage of your life. I know if will be tough and there will be a lot of work. But just think about the work you would have to do in Oxford! It's work either way, but this is work with stories to last a lifetime. I cannot wait to hear each and every one of them!
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