it’s june 4th. my tickets are booked to athens and home from hong kong. i turned in the aforementioned final papers, passed my classes, moved out of my apartment, went back home, and came back to portland all in this past month. it’s really great to be living with my housemates again. as nice as it was to stay with my family, there is something to be said for living in a house filled with other 20 somethings that you personally chose to live with (as opposed to random assignment a la the dorms.) i guess there isn’t all that much to say besides that i’m happy to be home, and excited for my fellowship to start in just two weeks!

4 Months from today, a Royal Caribbean Cruise Liner will be disembarking from Athens, Greece with 600 University students on it. I will be one of those students. www.thescholarship.com for more information. This blog (blog is a pretty funny word, don’t you think?) is, in essence, a time-saver for me. There are lots of people who want to stay updated about this amazing opportunity, and, well, I’m going to be too busy being on the ocean and exploring the world to keep everyone in the loop. This way, I can upload pictures and write up stories once. This blog won’t be fancy– I’m not very technology savvy (when I bought my new phone a few weeks a go, the phrase “oh my goodness! the technology you all have these days!” accidentally came out of my mouth several times) but it should get the job done. I’ve seen people go get their blogs rated and fish for comments and strangers to read the blogs etc etc. That’s not what this is about. This is about procrastination communication, and that’s it!

Before I go, however, I have several things to take care of. Starting this blog was certainly not one of them, but panic mode hasn’t set in yet. I wish it would. For example:

• I have 30 pages due at noon on Monday, and it is currently 11 AM on Saturday. How many pages do I currently have written? 5. Yup.
• I have a final the next day. Have I even picked up the practice problems? Maybe looked over my past problem sets? At least checked to see what chapters the final is on? I’ll let you guess.
• A week from tomorrow, I have to have my apartment spotless, and be ready to move out. Use your imagination here.
• And, my favourite: A week a go, I was supposed to turn in an ID picture for my internship this summer. Have I even looked into where I can get that taken?

Stupid Fourth Quarter Burn Out Syndrome. I’ve worked too damn hard this year to end like this!

Anyway, I’ll probably post again at the 3 month count down mark, although I’m not so sure why: I’m not even going to tell people about this blog until I’m actually close to debarkation. And then they’ll see that I’ve been writing here for 4 months. And that will be a little embarrassing.