10 days left

It is now exactly 10 days until I leave for Atlanta for my staging and 13 days until I leave the U.S. for the Republic Islamique de Mauritanie. Crazy. Just like throughout this whole process, I am half excited and have scared. My bags are mostly packed but I really need to spend some more time working on my french, and by more time I mean some time. I really thought that a month was going to be plenty of time to prepare but I was definitely wrong. I've had a lot of help pulling everything together and taking care of stuff that I am going to leave here, but I feel like I have had no time to do all the reading and french practicing I had intended on.

I have been saying goodbye to people for over a month now and mostly it has not been emotional for me. I'm starting to realize that I might have been storing up all of those emotions for the my final goodbyes. I'm not sure how I feel about this because while it was awkward to not be visibly sad when I was saying goodbye to people who were crying, I am in no way prepared for all of that to hit me at once when I really leave.

On a more practical note, I have my address of where I will be for the first 10 weeks but not after that. Once I find the sheet of paper with it on it I'll post it. Also, like many things I do not know what to expect in terms of my access to the internet but I expect I should be able to get on it at least periodically throughout the first 10 weeks.

I am realizing that as much as I feel that I am not ready, I kind of just want to go now. Its like being done studying for a test. I may not be as prepared as I would have liked to be but theres not much I can do about it now and I'm just going to have to wait until it all starts.

But that's enough for now, I need to go wash my car so I can try to sell it. If anybody wants a 1999 Honda CRV, just make an offer ;)