Not real just yet

Well.

Everything I own is still mostly scattered across the floor of my Grandma's spare bedroom, and I am ignoring the looming packing job and sitting at a coffee shop with LindseyLoo, taking care of such important details as making this blog I may or may not actually use. 

I'll give the usual spiel and tell you that I am going to try to keep this updated as I go, but it will all depend. On the internet, on how tired I am, on life. 

So, what will I be up to? Many things! 

Of general interest:

Week one we'll be around Cape Town, week two we'll be working with Habitat for Humanity in Stellenbosch, week three going to the Grahmstown Theatre Festival, and then heading out to do some touristy things, like going on a safari.

Of interest to nerds & academics:

I'll be working on assignments for Dr. Segall's South African Lit & Theater classes, writing papers (by hand!) and such. I'll also be getting started on my senior honors project, something involving a study & comparison of Community-based health clinics over there and back here. That is probably the thing that I am the most excited about so far- I might get to interview some health care workers, and scout around book stores. 

...

If this all sounds very vague, it's because that's how I feel right about now. I have known for probably over a year that I am going on this trip, but it has all sounded like a far-away plan until a few days ago when I started putting things in my backpack. 

The one thing I can see clearly is that God has brought me here, and is sending me on this trip. I have no idea why, but do we ever? It is a funny thing, just a small study-abroad. Not a call to abandon everything and move in a day- but a gradual nudge. It's as if God has been whispering into my ear that I will go, igniting a spark of excitement in my heart when I heard this trip announced as a freshman and leaving a persistent, restless feeling that I was to go.  

That's the most intriguing part- I was ready to go last summer, but didn't.  Circumstances didn't cancel the trip, just rearranged themselves so that I would go this summer instead of last. In spite of wanting to go, I probably denied the invitation 3 or 4 times before Dr. Segall called me into her office and said, Kael- you will love this, you will go. I can't honestly say it applies to my major, or that I carefully selected it from a catalog of options. I just know, I am supposed to go. Not to say that I don't value the work we'll do there- Oh no. I know for a fact it will kick my tiny non-English major behind, and will force me to wrap my head around so many new things I will want to explode. I am just really quite interested to know what God's got planned for me there. Maybe I won't know for quite some time everything it will teach me. But, what I do know is- I am supposed to go. For whatever awaits me there, I will go. 

I am ready to open my arms and mind to see what South Africa has to teach me. 

...

That being said, I really hate waiting out the day before I fly away. I get sick to my stomach thinking of all these new, "independent(!)" and unknown journeys, and can't decide if it would be better to already be there or to go and hide at home. So, I'll do things like pack and re-pack and pack too much in fear I will forget something, then forget something anyway.