departure #1

John left yesterday. John, one of my best friends and the first of my close friends to go home for break, left without saying goodbye. I didn't really feel like I was leaving until I realized he's back home, that I didn't get that last hug I'd been banking on. This morning, Mitch, who lives across the hall, and Morgan, my roommate, left. Later today Brez and Matt and Stu will go, and Shawn tomorrow. Emily and Kelly are here until Monday, but Emily's already packed everything, and my parents come on Sunday, so I doubt I'll see the two of them much after today. Panic.

I have a paper due at 3 pm. I've been procrastinating more than usual. I can't decide if it's because I know this particular professor is more flexible than some others, or because I know this is the last thing I have to do. Even the verb "have to" is relative--I don't need to pass this class in order to graduate. Mostly, it's loyalty to Dr. Madden that's keeping me even minimally motivated.

Tomorrow I'm giving a presentation on my trip to Tanzania at Second Hour of Quaker Meeting. I still have to prepare for that, as well. I'm worried about going over there for the last time ever. More than anywhere but Preston, Meeting has been my home. Those people have been so supportive and loving... how do I say thank you for that?

I thought this post would be cathartic, but it's really just making me more nervous. I'll write later, when I don't have a paper deadline breathing down my neck.

the start of my final finals

Well, it's that time, I suppose. I turned in my final project for my anthro class this morning, tomorrow is my film exam, Wednesday I turn in my writing portfolio, Thursday is linguistics, and Saturday a term paper for Irish lit... That all sounds hectic when it's written in one sentence like that, but I'm not stressed at all. I feel really, creepily calm about it, actually.

I started packing last night--mostly the unnecessary things I shouldn't have even brought down here, but packing all the same. I have my cap and gown and dinner reservations for Monday night. Things are coming to a close. I don't really know what to say other than that.

Seriously?

I keep wondering if this is really happening.

I graduate in 18 days--which is now closer to two weeks than three--and in just over one month I am getting on a plane and flying to another country and staying there for some time. I'll have a job and no homework. I'll have an apartment and no roommate. I'll be 22. There will be snow on the ground and I'll be much more than an hour and a half from an ocean. I will primarily be speaking a language that my parents don't understand more than five words of. I will pay for things in Euros (and I will want to cry when I think about how many dollars each one is worth). When I walk out of my room in the morning there won't be these people around me that have been there for the last two/four/seven/twenty years. I'll have to find a new coffee shop to hang out in--if there even is a coffee shop to hang out in. Will I sit in a bar instead? In a church? In a museum?

On the one hand I'm grateful to be able to leave all the things I've been bitching about for as long as I can remember--can we talk about the fact that it's almost December and I can still wear short sleeves outside?--I'm glad the break will be complete. I won't have to walk that line between being a graduate and still wishing I could go to college parties or worrying about bumping into people in five points who will ask "Wait, I thought you graduated?" I've been watching my friends who finished last spring (and those who should've finished years ago but still haven't) sit around, unable to get real jobs with their liberal arts Bachelor degrees and I'm glad I don't have to do that, to walk into a temp agency just to pay the rent. But they're all still here, in Columbia, together, trying to make it work and to figure out what it means that there's no more papers or tests or projects to do. Will I have to do that on my own? When I call home on Wednesday nights at 10 pm, will my Preston friends be too busy eating cereal to answer? Will they understand that I know exactly what time it is and yeah, that's why I called from my quiet apartment where I can't eat Lucky Charms because Germans believe in healthy breakfasts? Will they think about me over spring break in their flip flops and sun dresses and laugh because they know I'm still wearing my parka?

This post feels self-indulgent and I'm sorry. I think I thought it was some kind of game until now. That I would wake up one morning and we would all look at each other and go "PSYCH!" and laugh because, no, of course I'm not leaving, we'll be together forever... The truth is, all I've ever been is a student. All I've ever known is eating dinner with the same people every night, ordering the same coffee every day, climbing to the third floor of the same building for the last three years. I'm worried I won't be able to forget all those things I wish I could be doing. Maybe I'm more worried someone else will too easily forget that I did those things with them.

germany?

I'm sorry to be away so long. I feel like very little is happening in way of my plans, and so I'm rarely reminded of anything to write about.

Of course, it's not entirely true that nothing is happening. I'm doing well this semester and am fully confident that I will in fact graduate from USC on December 17th (which, by the way, is also my birthday). Everything seems to be in order for my move to Eisleben. I'm in the process of getting a plane ticket, housing is set up, and I get my visa and insurance settled after I get there... Kinda exciting. Kinda scary.

I'm also working on applications for Border Servant Corps and Lutheran Volunteer Corps so that I can spend a little time back in the states before running off in the Peace Corps. I've discovered that it's possible to earn a Master's degree while in the Peace Corps as well. That's an exciting prospect. If only I knew what I wanted to study next...

I still haven't fully processed what I experienced in Tanzania. I'm feeling nostalgic about it and wanting to go back, and trying to make myself remember that it was also a difficult experience. I'm not the kind of person who takes orders easily, and although I have no doubt that I have found my calling in social justice (particularly as it pertains to international concerns), I wonder how I will deal with a lifetime of Bishops looking at me and telling me where my place is within a new social order.

I guess I still haven't said anything about working at camp, either. That was also a mixed experience. I'm grateful to have learned a lot from my co-workers about living in community with people unlike myself. I also met a lot of people who are much much better than any other college students I know at separating out people's beliefs and the words they say from their being. That sounds vague, I know, but I can't find any better way of saying it. At the same time, it was a difficult job, and I often felt unprepared, inadequate, and unappreciated. I keep asking myself if I'd do it again... I think that I'm glad that I did it, and if I were to go back in time, I wouldn't take back the decision to spend my summer at Agape, but I also know I will never go back to camp...

Well, that's all for now. Homework calls.

change of plans

Right. Well, I found out this weekend that it's not as affordable for my family to send me abroad as I thought. And my dad realized (for the millionth time) that I only need three more classes to graduate. So I'm not going to Ireland next year. I'll be in Columbia, graduate in December, and hopefully move to Germany for the remainder of the year and be able to travel around.

I'm kinda bummed right now. Yesterday I was excited about it. Either way, it takes a lot of stress out of the next month. Only problem is I need a place to live. So if you know anyone who's got something small from August to December, hook me up, please? I think I could live in Preston as long as I tell them by Friday, but I'd really like my own space that I can kick everyone else out of.
No, I'm really really bummed out about this. I've been planning for Ireland for the last two years! Dad keeps saying it's feasible, we can totally make this happen, I can go, but it really is a pain to do it. There's tons of paperwork and I'd be afraid things wouldn't come back for graduation... I know that I'm making the right decision, but...

I started running away from all these unknowns where I couldn't make decisions because I was waiting on someone else to make them for me, and now I have to make tons of big decisions ultra fast and not when everyone else is making similar ones... ::pout::