What I'll Be Leaving Behind...

Tomorrow I'll wake up at 4:00, and I'll be half a world away and almost a week older before I can once again sleep in a bed I call my own. Perhaps the hardest part of the next three months will come when I walk through security at the Spokane airport, leaving Mom and Dad, Dirk, and almost everything that I find comforting behind. But I know that once I get through those few painful moments, I'll be home free (so to speak). I'm not taking very much with me; if I wasn't carrying liquids (mostly in the form of mosquito repellent, Dr. Bronner's, sunscreen and aloe), I'd be able to carry my bag all the way. Mom is dismayed that the pile of things I'm bringing for three months can fit with a lot of room to spare into my backpack.



Here's my itinerary:



Dec 28th: leave GEG 6:40 am, arr SEA 7:40 am;

leave SEA 1:15 pm.



Dec 29th: arr Seoul, Korea 5:55 pm;

leave Seoul 9:30 pm.



Dec 30th: arr Bangkok, Thailand 1:15 am.



I will then spend almost two full days in Bangkok with eight of my classmates, celebrating the Western New Year in a country that doesn't follow our calendar. Then, I'll leave on



Jan 1st: leave Bangkok 10:55 am, arr Chennai/Madras, India 12:45 pm.



At Chennai, I'll be picked up by Shankar, an Aurovillian who helped us learn the local language, Tamil, when he came to visit Karen, our professor, for about a month this fall quarter. Incidentally, this summer when he was planning to come over, he had a lot of difficulty with his visa approval, though he'd been here almost half a dozen times before. With my position in Senator Murray's office, I helped him procure a 10-year visa, so that he'll be able to help classes in the future.



From that point on, I'm really not sure what my day-to-day schedule will look like. For more information about Auroville, the community I'll be living in and learning about for the next 10 weeks, go to http://www.auroville.org.



I am indescribably excited for this trip, however, it'll be extremely difficult to leave all this behind.




Wish me luck!