I’m not sure how to begin.

I could tell you all about my perceptions of how I think Oxford is going to be. But I’d be mostly wrong. I could tell you all about where I’m going to travel. But I don’t really know. I could tell you how my classes are gonna go, how I’m gonna live with my fellow classmates, how I’m going to be changed by this experience forever. But I don’t know.

And that is why I’m so dang excited! The very fact that I have no clue what to expect is exciting. Complete uncertainty? The prospect of failure? The abundance of uncomfortable situations? Sign me up!

So, let me tell you about what has been going on up to this point.

Packing.

You should know something about me. I’m not a plan person. I’m a go-with-the-flow kinda guy. Roll with the punches, if you know what I mean. So when my dear mother comes up to me and says “Son, you need to start packing. You know you’re gonna be gone for 4 months,” you can imagine what was going through my head. Something like this: “Um… so four months is 30×4 days so 120 days tops so…. oh boy. I don’t think I have that many clean pairs of socks.” Now I have trouble planning what I’m going to pack in a weekend bag to Houston. I can’t really decide what I’m gonna wear in advance. It’s too committal. I like to wear what I want when I want. But 4 months? Without access to all my other stuff? Oi. So I spent all day laboring over which shirts to take and which to abandon forever. Then, I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t put it in my suitcase. Physically incapable. Don’t ask me why. I don’t know. Thankfully I have a wonderful jet-setting mother who’s done this type of thing a bajillion times to lead me through step by step.

Back in A-Town.

Sunday through Wednesday is “Orientation” or “Information Session” or something like that. What it really is is an opportunity for the faculty and staff of Study Abroad to build up as much anticipation for the trip as possible without actually allowing you to leave. So feel free to talk on Monday from 8am to 4pm and Tues from 8am to 1pm about how awesome it’s gonna be and how much we’re gonna see and do. But don’t worry, you still have 24 more hours to sit around and stare at the wall (No lodging, food, or transportation was provided for these three days on campus) until you load your luggage onto a big bus that ships you off to the airport. Whee.

But because I know my mother is concerned: We learned about safety abroad, about how to avoid getting scammed, about how to take good pictures and stay healthy, about how to get through customs without getting arrested. And loads of other stuff that would be just as interesting for you to read as it was for me to learn. But necessary, I guess. Oh well.

So I’m not one for countdowns normally. Countdowns are just another way of looking at the future while completely ignoring the here and now. I mean, if all we did was count down to things, wouldn’t we always miss the thing we were counting down to because we had to start the next countdown? Anyways, this is a special occasion. So for all you counters down out there:

23 Hours, 14 minutes, and 17 seconds until take-off. And counting.