If you thought I was a bad procrastinator in college, you're still right.

I will be leaving my house for the airport in little more than 9 hours. I have not truly started packing yet. I realize this probably sounds atrocious to most people, but it really doesn't phase me. This is how I operate. I have acquired everything I need (I hope!), my laundry is almost done, my clothes are sorted into piles, my bed is covered in other piles, and I have empty suitcases awaiting all my stuff, once I decide exactly how much of it I am actually bringing. Packing for a year is hard. Especially when you aren't sure how long it takes you to go through a tube of toothpaste, what shoes will end up being most comfortable and appropriate for teaching (in a country that doesn't sell women's shoes my size! Last time I was in China I tried desperately to go shoe shopping and felt like the ugly stepsister everywhere), or how much time you will have to read books. I'm trying to strike a balance between being prepared for everything and packing as lightly as possible. I think my general rule of thumb is: bring LOTS of books, bring LOTS of dental floss, and be prepared to wear the same clothes over and over again.

Someone told me that you can't buy dental floss in China. I told this to my dentist yesterday. He was fixing an old filling of mine that probably wouldn't have caused any problems in the next year, but who wants to risk it? He was wondering how the dental care in China is, saying, "It might be really good, but you probably don't want to find out." I told him about the dearth of dental floss, and he shuddered and said it was a good thing I was there getting my filling fixed. I don't even floss regularly, but being told that I won't be able to buy dental floss is making me pack a lot of it. I think we might be flossing our teeth some day in my American Culture class, if I verify that floss really doesn't exist in China. I'm skeptical. But prepared.

The fact that I am leaving for China in the morning still hasn't really set in. It doesn't feel like the summer is over. It doesn't feel like my job at the architecture firm is over. It doesn't feel like Steve and Pythagoras (our kitten) are on their way to Phoenix, not to be seen by me for 10 months. And it certainly doesn't feel like I will be moving halfway across the world to become an English teacher.

Watching Stephen and Pythagoras drive away today was one of the hardest things I've had to do in a long time. And I wasn't even doing anything; I was standing there crying and waving and laughing when Steve drove the wrong way down the street at first and had to turn around. It's a bit difficult to reconcile the fact that this exciting new chapter in my life comes at the cost of leaving behind a lot of people and places that I love.

This is probably why I'm having so much trouble packing. As much as I love traveling and going new places, I hate the little transitions where I don't have a place to call home. Which is why I packed for college the night before, packed for Italy the night before, and packed for every summer the night before. Once I start packing I just want to LEAVE, so that I can get to a new home and unpack. I can't wait to unpack in Xi'an.

Next time you hear from me I should be in China, jetlagged and ready to hit the ground running.

T minus 5 days

So I leave for China in 5 days. I've known this was coming for awhile, but it feels a lot more real now. Today was my last day of work for the summer, and it's a strange feeling knowing that I won't be going back there on Monday and plugging away on drawings like I've been doing all summer. Instead I'll be frantically trying to finish gathering all the things I need, packing, enjoying the last of my time with Steve. I leave Denver at 11:17 am on Wednesday and arrive in Xi'an at 9:25 pm on Thursday. Granted, China is 14 hours ahead of CO, but that's still more than 20 hours of travel. Then again, it's better than the 3 days it took me to get home from London last spring.

I'll back up for those of you not entirely in-the-know:
I'm going to be spending the next year living in Xi'an, China, teaching English to rocket scientists and the like at Northwestern Polytechnical University. This has been made possible in part thanks to the Whitman in China program, so once again I am glad I went to a small liberal arts school with enough money to fund things like alumni fleeing the country. I took a 3-week intensive Chinese course at CSU in June. It was truly intense. We learned a semester's worth of Chinese in a sixth of the time. So I'll be able to get by, but I have a LOT left to learn. Like how to actually pronounce tones and how to remember which ones go with which words. Thankfully I have a pretty firm grasp of English, though no clue how to teach it. It should be a year full of adventures and new experiences.

I'll try to write about those here as much as possible, so keep checking back! You can find all of my contact info in the column on the right, and you can leave comments/questions/jokes/etc. here too. I'd love to hear from people as much as possible; I know I'm going to feel very far away sometimes, so it will be good to know that everyone is still within reach.