It's starting to be real.

I do have a journal, a genuine little number with a leather cover and quite a few pages filled with letters to an older me. I suppose I don't really expect anyone to ever read that except some nostalgic self feeling self-indulgent. Maybe post-posthumously but by then, who gives a damn anyway? The problem tonight is that my journal, that sexy little leather thing with a wraparound strap and several overseas trips' anxieties contained within, is quite frankly unavailable. Hell with it. Hello blogging.
So for right now it hasn't really sunk in that all you other people will be reading this and I'm able to just write with impunity into the emptiness... I imagine future entries here will be somewhat more constrained with the illusion of public opinion. My life, this life, is ending. It's mostly over already. A new life will begin June 17. Of course this is much easier to envision now when Mauritania might as well be Mars, but previous experience has taught me that the world is smaller than it appears. I can only hope that holds true.
Have you ever tried to pack your life into two 50lb bags? It doesn't work. Instead you have to plan for a new life, a new country, a new group of friends, a new new new everything. Pack for an environment that is foreign from my own to the point that the only obvious similarity is that everyone on both sides of this culture barrier is human. Pack mosquito netting in case I'm in a wet zone (referring of course to the river not the rain), pack sandals for the heat, a single sweatshirt for occasionally chilly nights (apparently yes, they do come along), pack for heat like an oven and so much sand I'll eat drink and dream of it. Pack for Mars.
I am afraid of failing, yes. But what good does thinking about all this do? I'm running out of time, why waste what I have so little of worrying about things better left for the flight in? Instead of worrying I study French. I hang out with my family, I plan for the GRE, I say goodbye to good friends... best friends. I am trying, so far successfully, to maintain my sanity, my calm, my peace of mind.

T-minus 43 days

I had the last class of my undergraduate life last night. I have one paper to write over the next week before I graduate. Suddenly I have almost nothing to do and I'm freaking out a little bit, June 21 seems a lot closer today than it did yesterday. I'm moving to the Sahara! It blows my mind.