The Final Countdown (da da daa da)

Great song and makes a great background track for this post so just hum it while you read. Trust me, it will make your experience that much better.

As I was running down the street today in nicely groomed neighborhood with painted houses, manicured yards, and paved streets, I realized that one week from now the setting for my not so frequent runs will have changed. Not only will I not be in any well groomed neighborhoods but I will be in Nicaragua, the second poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, and will remain there for the next two years and twenty seven months of my life. For a lot of people, this realization would be scary or anxiety provoking, but for me, I just smiled, thought about how different life is going to be, and continued my jog.

I am so ready to go. Well, mentally ready at least. Physically ready, as in packed, purchased, and completed all last minute things…not so much. For the last week to ten days, apart from spending time with friends and sleeping a lot, I have been busy hustling around town to find everything that I thought I would need for the next two years. Some items, such as toiletries, belts, and electronics, were easy to get but other decisions were much harder. For example, should I buy a hiking backpack or just a travel pack and how dressed up I am supposed to be for work in Nicaragua? These two questions topped the list and were thought about extensively, to my parents chagrin.

For anyone that knows me, you know that there are two things that I hate in life. I actually would call them my two least favorite activities. Packing and shopping. Why, you ask? I hate packing because I am never quite sure what to bring with me and end up pondering over this black shirt or that red button down long enough until I end up staying up until 4am the night before I leave and just pack everything then. For a while, I just made up my mind that I was not even going to begin to think about packing until the last night. That way, there would be no over thinking and I would be forced to just pack and make my way to the airport, train, etc. Normally, this works well but since I am going away for a tad longer than I normally would, I thought I would be put in a lot more thought into this packing job. Anyways, I think it turned out to be the wrong idea because I am still not packed and have just thought about packing for the past week. Never a good combination. As always, I know I will at least be packed before I leave.

Travel pack and black shoes/dressy casual pants. The answers to the question way up there. I ended up deciding that I would just go with a cheaper travel pack that still had straps on it but without all the bells and whistles (not a big hiker anyways) and that I would try to actually look nice/professional for my teaching job. Meaning I am bringing black and brown dressy casual shoes along with khakis and gray pants. I honestly have no idea what I will end up wearing to teach but I figured that when you look nice it is hard to go wrong. I want the kids to respect me as an authority figure and think that I should dress the part. Still, I cant help picturing my first day of teaching/advising, looking suave in my gray pants and button down shirt, standing next to my Nicaraguan teaching counterpart in jeans and a tshirt. So, in the end, I could look out of place, but I will probably look out of place, being tall and white anyways, so I got nothing to lose.

Many people are probably wondering what is going through my head right now as I prepare to move to the unknown and make this leap in my life. And the answer that I have for you is not very exciting….not too much. I am very excited to go and just start and sick of waiting around the United States to leave. I wrote a while ago that I thought six weeks from invitation to departure would not be long enough but it has more than long enough. I have gotten to spend quality time with my family, friends, and members of the opposite sex (I am worried about the fact that I may become celibate in Nica), driven my car around town, hung out in Gainesville, played basketball, eaten great, fatty American fast food, gone to the beach, and enjoyed the Florida weather. I am really excited to get down to Nicaragua to begin my job, improve my Spanish, and just get settled into a stable environment.