This is the Final Countdown

"Oh the things you can find if you don't stay behind!" 

-Dr. Seuss

I am officially less than a month away from boarding a plane and winging my way to China for at least a year. That milestone came over the weekend while I was visiting family in Florida; I returned back to my hometown yesterday and thought to myself, It could be years before I walk this way through the airport again. I admit, it makes me sad. I am a bit of a juxtaposition--I live to travel and see new things but I am also a bit of a homebody. I love being in my bedroom and snuggling with my cat. I love hanging out with my small group of friends. I love spending time with my parents and the rest of my small family. But I also love adventure.

"I want adventure in the great wide somewhere... I want it more than I can tell!"

-Belle

Ever since I was a little girl, I've had an urge to constantly be moving, seeing new things, trying new foods, and meeting new people. I've been traveling internationally for over ten years now starting in 2002 when I traveled to England and France as a student ambassador. 

"Once you have traveled, the voyage never ends."

-Pat Conroy

I'm not a religious person (though I do consider myself to be very spiritual) but I do like to believe that this is my destiny (excuse the cliche but it gets the point across). When I was a little girl (we're talking two or three years old) my mom had a dream that I was married to a black man. At first, she didn't understand it--the dream seemed a bit random but nothing out of this world. In her mediation and prayer, she came to realize that it was a simple heads up: I would be off doing things in the world far from home and she would have to be okay with letting me go. It's almost unbelievable to see something that happened twenty years ago, now, finally coming to be. 

I think that dream is what is keeping me calm. I wake up at night and think to myself, "What are you doing?!? You can't live in China alone and teach at a college! You don't have the training or the experience!" But I have to tell those fears to keep quiet. Life is the best school--I'll learn as I go and get a lifetime of experience while I am over there. After I do this (and I know I will), I'll be able to do anything. 

"Women are like tea bags--you never know how strong they are until they're in hot water."

-Eleanor Roosevelt

Today is really the beginning of the end of my time in the US (at least for a little while). I (finally) got my official letter of invitation from Hangzhou Normal University so I can send out for my visa (no longer a tourist visa!). Today I got my first wave of vaccines--Hepatitis A with typhoid taken orally next week (still not sure if I'm willing to drop about $800 on Japanese Encephalitis).  Booking my flight, getting my visa, and getting shots make it all feel so much closer than ever before.

I still have a few things I have to do before getting on my Delta flight to Pudong Airport:

• Get my VPN because if I can't get on Facebook and Youtube for a whole year, I might just cry.
• Order a Kindle and get some books on there for the flight. [For those of you who know me, you know how painful it is for me to do this, being such a staunch eBook hater for years now... but I'd rather have digital books than no books at all]
• Exchange money (do it at the airport)
• Actually pack
• Go to the drive-in one last time
• Visit my schmoops
• Brush up on my Chinese
• Eat as much cheese as I possibly can
• Enjoy the little time I have left with my parents, my brother, my cat, my aunt, uncle, and cousins, and my friends.

 I don't have too much time left in little old Tonawanda, New York but I intend to make the most of the 29 days I have left. I start to panic a bit when I think of boarding that plane that will take me away from my home and family and the life I have worked so hard to build around me... but I would never forgive myself if I didn't go out and find out what China has in store for me--it could be even bigger and greater than anything I had planned back home.

"There are seven days in the week and SOMEDAY is not one of them."

-Unknown

Until Next Time,
Amanda