Unraveling Before Unwinding

I don't want to set the cadence for blog posts considering I probably won't have electricity in a few months, but I thought it would be good to capture the fact that I am stressed. I'll look back on it two years from now and think, "Awww, precious. Old Austin, your unraveling is soooo cute."

I feel like I don't have room for living my life and preparing to leave. I'm going backpacking this weekend to do some soul searching and get back to nature. Normally, this is an amazing idea. Today, I'm ready to vomit. The idea of spending the weekend doing something completely unrelated to reading up on Panama or packing up my belongings is a hard sell. That being said, I know that looking out over pine and granite will help refocus my remaining weeks in the States.

I found out today that I'm having my orientation in Washington D.C. In Peace Corps speak, this is my Staging Event. As far as I could tell, my staging event was to be a two-day affair and would serve as an "orientation" before heading to Panama. You may have a fixation with punctuation and thus noted the quotation marks around "orientation". I received the itinerary today. I'll recap the highlights:

Day 1

1:30pm Register

3:00pm Orientation

Day 2

8:00am Head to Airport

12:55pm Fly to Panama

I absolutely love it! Welcome to the Peace Corps. Here's your gate number. I'm going to D.C. and less than 24 hours later I'm headed to Panama. This is officially going to be amazing.