How quickly I find myself one week from departure. I can’t believe that next week I am leaving the country for six months! Exactly why did I decide(voluntarily) to be away from my home, country, school, friends and family for so long? Sometimes I am not quite sure.
Honestly, I haven’t been focusing too much on my upcoming trip. First I had to get through Thanksgiving, and then I focused on finishing my finals. Preparing for the trip, making travel arrangements, and writing a 26-page paper wouldn’t have been so bad if I didn’t have to worry about packing too. With my job on campus during the summers, there hasn’t been a need for me to move home since my arrival at Gustavus in the Fall of 2002. At home, our dining room is filled with boxes of items with no place, the kitchen is cluttered with odds and ends from the move, and my bedroom . . . . I’ll just say that I’m lucky my bed is high off of the ground, otherwise I would sleep in the basement.
Now that Christmas is behind us, I finally have blocks of time to work on getting things ready for my trip. Working around my birthday and New Year’s, I am running errands, making lists, and most importantly, organizing all of the music that I plan on taking with me. At times it seems as if there are thousands of things that need to be accomplished before next week. Even though most of them are minute details (like buying new socks), they still add up.
My biggest tasks ahead of me seem simple enough: I must clean the dining room and my bedroom before I leave (not necessarily by my own choice), and I must figure out how to pack for six months using no more than two pieces of luggage and one carry-on. In my family, I am known as the worst packer. In the past, I have brought twice as much as necessary, and my bags have been uneven and quite messy (on a catastrophic level I must say). I have talked with my little brother (the best and most efficient packer in the universe) and he has agreed to pack my belongings away into my one suitcase on rollers, one large travel-backpack, and a small carry-on backpack. I am not exactly sure what I will owe him for this, but it shouldn’t be too much.
The fact that I will be in another part of the world hasn’t really hit me yet. It will either hit me 5 minutes before the family loads into the car to bring me to the airport, or the second day of classes. Until then, I will be caught up in the adventure side of things and not worry about the “leaving home for an extended period of time” issue. To make me feel better, I am not thinking about the fact that the longest period of time I have spent away from my home — my house — has been a maximum of three weeks. Furthermore, during those three weeks, I was only 1.5 hours away from home. Yes, I have thought about the fact that I am a prime candidate for homesickness. I’ll cross that bridge once I get there.
Next on my list of things to do (besides the last phone conversations and e-mails) is to read up on my destination. I now own two books on Scotland – one with beautiful pictures and pages of history, and one with traveling hints and fun facts about Scotland. Hopefully during the next week I can learn more about the area and pick out a few more places to travel to. Loch Lomond and Loch Ness are already included in my plans – I’ll see what other opportunities are available.
One week just doesn’t seem like enough time – but it has to be!