One More Cup of Coffee Before I Go

So I'm sitting here in my room, totally jacked on caffeine and putting off packing for yet another night.
This whole Mali, Africa internship happened so fast that I'm having a hard time wrapping my mind around where to even begin preparing for 6 months abroad.
Whats more, when I think about the timing of this opportunity and how everything kind of needed to happen exactly as it did, my head spins. I had to not find a job on the coast, or overseas right after graduating, so that I could move to Calgary, make enough coin to go volunteer in Haiti, and in doing so, I made my application stronger. Then on the coattails of an amazing summer, I had to not have my government contract extended, so that I'd be free to apply on this internship which was referred to me by an organization offering a different internship that I applied for earlier in the year, but did not even get an interview. Everything just kind of clicked, and all in good time...groovy!

In all honesty, I'm already about 3/4 packed, I have a subletter, catsitters, carsitter, banjositter, sweatersitter, automatic loan payments set up, been vaccinated, had training and had crucial, albeit far too brief, visits.

I'm incomprehensibly excited, nervous, curious, terrified, a tiny bit sad, but 98% thrilled that I leave in 4 days. It is the longest I will have ever been gone, and the farthest away. At the same time, it is only 6 short months, (5 as a worker, then an extra month as a wanderer), and I know that the time will fly. I'm looking forward to learning, exploring, changing, and experiencing it all: the wonderment of being in a new land with people who don't do things like at home; the at times, crippling loneliness that comes from being surrounded by the unfamiliar; the devastation of missing loved ones and knowing that they are so very far away; but most importantly, the excitement of new friends, food, habits, hobbies and horizons.

Time to use what's left of this caffeine rush and do something productive.