Adios Allendale

Oh HI. Please don't hate me. I was incredibly busy over break and had simply no time to write and then a tornado picked my house up and it landed somewhere crazy, but I found a fabulous pair of new red shoes...oh wait, that's not my life. And I didn't write because, quite frankly, I did not think about it. Only once in a while did I even remember that I had a blog; I have no excuses. I am sorry that I was so rude as to neglect this.

Anyway. I feel like I should write a blog about my "quasi-resolutions," because they range from slightly ridiculous to mostly sincere, but I think that I will save that for another time. Because I have news. Big news. Extremely incredible, exciting, potentially life-altering news.

I am going abroad.

Now before Julie yells at me for announcing it to the world, let me qualify: it's not quite official. I mean, I'm officially accepted and I officially paid my deposit today [let's talk about how painful it is to part with $1000 of my own money...] and I am officially letting excitement eek in and ebb out the nervousness that comes with the possibility of sailing around the Mediterranean for 67 days, but a lot depends on financial aid and scholarships and how much my parents love me. Naturally.

You see, this fall my dear friend Christine called me. Though it was merely September, I was already deep in the throes of my hectic schedule, so imagine the glimmer of hope that furrowed in my heart when I heard her describe a program that took you to not only one country, but eight. On a modified cruise ship, no less. Imagine the wanderlust that overcame my entire body when she started listing destinations: Spain, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Egypt, and Morocco, among others...

That day I physically sat on a beautiful green lawn overlooking the library, but mentally I was far far away, somewhere in the future. On a Greek Island. In a Spanish piazza. In an Italian vineyard. In a Moroccan bazaar. Then my mind went back to the past summer, still an all-too recent memory at that point. I thought about the hours that I worked, the mind-numbing frustration and boredom that I experienced, the domestic confusion of moving home...I vowed never to do that again. What did I have to lose by applying?

Fast forward a few months, and suddenly this once vague, shimmery dream is shaping into something more solid, something that looks very much like a possibility. Sure, there are still a million and a half little details to be worked out, but those will be a labor of love more than anything. The opportunity of a lifetime awaits, and I am reaching out to grab it...I could not be more thrilled.

The good news for you, my beloved, faithful readership, is that I promise that I will not neglect you when I am on the ship like I did over Christmas break. I will write you lengthy blogs about my escapades running around Istanbul and the beautiful Greek men who randomly propose to me. Honestly, I'm almost as excited about the writing opportunity aspect of this trip as I am about the trip itself. I wanted to let you know about it, though, so you can work with me on this and be excited with me. Because, let's be honest, these things are far less fun with nobody to share it with.

Adieu!!