Tick Tock

It's December 12 (12/12/12 for all you wish makers out there). Which means that...oh...in less than a month, I will set off on my voyage of journeying around the world. At this time next month, I'll be somewhere on the MV Explorer, doing classwork, talking to people, eating potatoes and pasta. A lot of what I normally do at home. Except I'll be on a ship. Traveling around the world.

Yesterday concluded the fall quarter of my sophomore year of college, and my first quarter at Fairhaven. This has by far been the best quarter so far, and I can't wait to make the next two quarters even better! I don't think it's really settled in that I'm going yet. It's always been something that was so far off in the distance, that now that it's creeping up on me, it still doesn't feel like it's just around the corner. Which it totally is.

I've signed up for quite a bit of trips. More than I think I originally intended to, but these are trips that I've had my eye on ever since I knew SAS existed. Home stays, service visits, and even a little bit of adventurous trips thrown in there. I'll be traveling around Beijing for about 4 days (and even tobogganing down the Great Wall!), I'm going to be traveling to the Mekong Delta in Vietnam and doing a home stay there (during Tet, no less), I'll be feeding monks at a monastery in Burma, riding a Snake Boat in India (I'm still not entirely sure what this is...), doing a cultural cooking class in South Africa, visiting the slave dungeons in Ghana, and possibly hiking up to Berber  villages in Morocco. And that's just one thing for each port, and I'm doing multiple day trips in a couple of them.

I'm trying to decide what I'm most excited for at this point, and I really can't say. When I think I've decided on a favorite trip, I remember another one and the process of attempting to pick out a favorite excursion starts all over again.

Winter break has officially started, which, if this were any other normal break would mean relaxing, watching too much TV, reading here and there, and just generally being lazy. But since this is the break before SAS, that means I'll be crazy busy with last minute paperwork, getting everything I could possibly want or need for the 4 months I'll be gone, and finally...packing.

If there are any other SASers out there reading this, I wish you well with getting ready, and I'll see you on the ship in less than a month!!