Blogging, blogging, blogging. This is a pretty new activity for me. I'm so used to having to make my status updates "short, sweet, and to the point." Not here though!
Here, I can tell everybody (or nobody, depending on who even reads this...) exactly what is going on in my life, without annoying Facebook friends and spamming everybody's News Feed. Nor do I have to worry about collecting everybody's e-mail address and making sure I don't leave anyone out. I'm beginning to like this better already...
I can't believe there are only nine days until I move. This thought blows my mind; it seems like only last week when I told Andrew that I applied to Flinders. I did it on a whim. I realized that I had to take life by the horns (or fangs, maybe tentacles or claws?) and when you're young it's the perfect chance to see the world. I've always fantasized about going somewhere amazing, somewhere completely new for college, but never did I dream that I would literally be going to the other side of the earth.
But, here I am, preparing for the biggest adventure of my life.
My mom always told me, when dealing with the stresses and pains and angst of being an adolescent: "The worst that could happen is it kills you and eats you." And I would respond "And that's not going to happen." It always comforted me that the worst thing that was going to happen couldn't really happen at all. However, after learning some disturbing statistics about the amount of deadly and poisonous creatures on that continent, I'm starting to realize that the worst thing that could happen, really could happen.
But that's only the animals. I doubt my roommate or professors will kill me and eat me, and I will make it out of this semester alive... Unless the spiders get to me.
I haven't even begun packing... I have no idea where to begin. I look around my room at the piles of fresh (and not so fresh...) laundry that I unloaded from my drawers last week. I thought it would be smart to somehow start ahead of time... Except at this point, I'm living out of three large laundry baskets. I know deep down that there's no way I'll be able to bring every item of clothing I own, because there's just SO much of it. I also realize that yes, it's 85 degrees here in sunny southern California, but in Adelaide it's the middle of winter. And so I unpack my favorite summer dresses and sandals, and set them aside for my parents to ship to me in a few months. The heat here also makes it hard for me to choose my favorite sweaters and hoodies, since none of them sound the least bit appealing right now. I had the same problem last summer when I packed for my 3-week trip to Adelaide. The climate change just makes packing completely impossible!
And packing. Isn't packing just a metaphor for how I must mentally also prepare? I have to take with me the very important things, like how to add, subtract, multiply and divide, how to sort my laundry and to remember to hang up my bath towel so that it doesn't get musty. But I also have realized that I'm parting with some very important things, like my parents. My family. My best friends. My own bathroom... And somehow I will learn to make do without these things. I'll long for them and miss them terribly, but somehow I will learn independence and what it means to be really, truly, on my own.
Okay, maybe not THAT alone. Let's be honest, Andrew's family is the next best thing to mine. It's not like everyone around me will be speaking a foreign language (except for that weird "How ya goin'?" thing and the fact that a "mate" is not somebody that you... nevermind). It will be nice to have my best friend (and sweetheart) just a short walk from my dorm. Andrew's mom is an amazing cook, which is comforting, as I'm sure that a few weeks into the semester the one thing I'll want more than anything is a home-cooked meal. Andrew's dad is a doctor, and it's reassuring (especially to my mom) to think that I'll have top-notch medical care when I'm down undah. Andrew's siblings are starting to become like my siblings, and I'm confident that in a few months, his home will be my home-away-from-home. I even love his dogs.
There's no doubt that this decision, this adventure, is going to change my life. Who knows, maybe when I come home this winter, I'll have a sweet accent. For now, I have to enjoy the next week at home and soak up as much sun as I can before I get down to Adelaide to freeze my butt off.
Cheers,
Shannon
black widow, brown recluse, western scorpion,gila minster, mexican beaded lizard, timber rattler, coral snake, copperhead, cottonmouth, desert rattler, alligator, alligator snapping turtle, great white shark, killer whale, brown bear, grizzly bear, black bear, cougar, wolf, red wolf, coyote, feral hog, elk, moose, mulie buck, whitetail buck, gangster, carjacker, drunk driver, sober driver texting or changing radio stations. These are some of the critters that come to mind that can kill you here in the USA, just to put things in perspective.
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