17 days.

so i'm leaving to go to cape town on the 21st, via new york city/greenwich, ct via gambier via chicago. i have some apprehensions about not leaving straight from home, but i'm pretty sure that that's just the type a emerging, since i won't have everything packed exactly the way i want it.

i've been thinking a lot about the bullshit surrounding new year's eve/new year's resolutions and how there's a lot of pressure to have the best night ever on new year's eve and then to miraculously commence being a better person or a healthier person on january 1st. the ironic thing is that because of the pressure to have an absurdly great night on new year's eve, i wouldn't hesitate to say that 90% of the population of the united states wakes up and enters whatever new year it is hungover and, if the three pillars of a good night (no throwing up, no hooking up, no crying) failed them, sad/confused and naked next to some dude that you probably didn't plan on doing. whoops about it.

anyways, alyssa and i were talking last night about how we want to be in a constant state of self-betterment, and i guess i hope that going to cape town for the semester will catapult me back into the state of mind and state of constant improvement that i was in at the beginning of freshman year. i feel like this is my last real new beginning, in that going abroad is the last time i have to hit refresh and go into something with a totally open mind and just exist without the burdens of the other new beginnings that are imminent on the horizon--graduation, real life/real job, etc. yikes. you could very easily make the argument that graduation and getting a real job and an apartment or house or whatever are bigger deals and more important to life and personal growth than going abroad, but cape town is the last thing i have that doesn't have a million complicated and seriously important strings attached. i hope it's as great as i kind of need it to be.

we'll see. i'll know in like two weeks, jeez. i find out where i'm living and get my visa and isic card on the 8th or 9th, so i guess this means i'm really going. huh.