The Listy Blog of Lists

With two weeks to go before this whole deal goes down, I have been doing lots of thinking. And list making. Let me share...

Things I am really stoked about:
-Meeting new people
-Learning new things
-Eating fresh mangos by the bushel
-Seeing a giraffe
-Wicked sexy perma-tan
-Sunshine, sunshine, sunshine (also read, NO SNOW!!!)
-Being able to teach people about stuff that make me excited
-Being bilingual
-Wearing cool clothes
-My bicycle
-Bucket baths
-Having a host family (i hope they're cool)
-The experience of a lifetime

Things I'm not so excited about, but am prepared to deal with:
-culture shock
-being sick...all the time...
-missing people I love
-warm beer
-no cheese
-freaking huge insects...that are eaten :-\
-missing people that I love (did I mention that already?)

Things I have left to procure:
-new socks
-extra underwear
-Icy-hot balm (sore muscles and joints are not considered important in the PC med-kit)
-Emergen-C (also not considered critical, but considering the above list, any little bit helps)
-stamps and envelopes and addresses
-pictures and recipes that might be handy (Like Mom's pie crust formula of greatness!)
-rechargable batteries

Things I have left to do:
-Clean my room and do tons of laundry
-Actually pack my bags
-Dig out my special ladybug mug from the boxes in the attic from when I moved back home. It's my favorite.
-Also, dig out the extra cooking spices so my dad stops worrying about oregano-smoking mice that may or may not wreak havoc on said boxes in the attic
-Finish filling out necessary paperwork
-Go out one more time with my girls
-Savor the last few days with the people I love
-Finish secret squirrel projects that are super secret suprises
-Transfer all of my music and necessary documents to wee lapTot (I'm putting this one off...)
-Organize my unread books in an easy-access, ready-to-ship-overseas manner
-Fill out FAFSA (just in case. I mean, you never know...)

Things I am not allowed to do anymore:
-Buy shoes
-Buy books
-Go out shopping, in general
-Use the "Oh yeah? Well, maybe I'll just move to Africa!" retort (Not that I ever retort at my parents. I'm just saying that it's no longer an option. For obvious reasons.)

So, the seconds tick on. Crazy. I just can't believe that after a year (!!!) I'm finally here at this point. It took forrrrrreverrrrr to get here. All of this nervous excitement is building up inside of me and I can barely stand it anymore. Let's do this already, right?

xo
ash