See you next week, Thailand!

A week from today, I will be in the air flying over the pacific. Actually, I think by now I might be in Taipei. Either way, I’ll have stepped away from the my home country, not to set foot back here for about 5 months.

I must be in major denial because I’m not nervous yet. Maybe I’ve been too busy soaking up all of Portland that I can, or maybe I’ve just spent too many months preparing and thinking about it that I’ve become numb to the reality of Thailand. However, I’m pretty sure that when I get there, it will hit me.

I guess I’ll set some guidelines and goals for this blog for while I’m away.

Guidelines: Post once a week. (Is this too much to ask? I’m not sure how intense the structure of my program will be, but I hear we’ll be kept pretty busy. Hopefully I can find time for posts, even if they’re quick and silly.)

I want my posts to be about the things that I’m learning. Hopefully with photos too.

Goals: I really really want to learn a lot while I’m in Thailand. As much as I want to think the learning will just occur, I probably have to work hard to really incorporate my experiences into life lessons, or something. I want to become a better journalist, and a more adventurous and responsible person.

While this may be too much to ask, I want to cement some kind of future goals while I’m there, whether it means committing to come back to Thailand at some point to teach and live, or a change of major, or a change in career goals. And I definitely, definitely want to bring what I’ve learned back home with me.

I want to learn how to do some solid Thai cooking, either from my homestay families or from Thai friends that I make.

Also, I want to come away not hating hot weather as much as I do here. I think this will have to be my basic survival tactic. Hot weather = the reality = fine with me.