Previously Promised Panic Post

Wasn't that some fun alliteration?

Where to begin.

Well first off Justin Bieber has a movie coming out about his rise to terrifying teen stardom called ‘Never Say Never’…in 3-D. Let that one soak in for a bit.

Let it be known this is not the planned freak out post that was supposed to happen right before I left. I knew this would happen. I’m not actually going to panic until either:
1) I’m on the plane to Amman and realize the full gravity of everything or
2) Sometime after I get there, 5 minutes or three days in, and I remember that I don’t know any Arabic and just generally don’t know a.n.y.t.h.i.n.g.

Alas, being a tad on the neurotic side I over-planned my freak out post and scheduled to be writing it now and would freak out if I did not indeed write it now in its reserved time. It makes sense in my head, I promise. 

It must be addressed. What is going on in the Middle East right now?? Tunisia, then Egypt, Lebanon, and now something about Palestine and Syria was it? It’s hard to keep track. CNN gives more airtime to pianos on sandbars and fluffy animals than I ever thought a legitimate news station could pull off without viewer complaints. Nevertheless, NPR set me straight a bit and I’m sure I’ll understand things better on the flip side when I’m actually there. 

I’m so excited/terrified to meet my host family. I hope they don’t think I’m utterly insane/annoying. Did I mention how much I’m going to miss Texas? I forget how much I like it here until the prospect of leaving is overwhelming. It really is the best state ever. A last minute trip to San Antonio for a much needed “get-your-mind-off-of-leaving-and-generally-chill-out” drive was the best remedy for impending panic. I mean, what’s not to love about this view for 2 and ½ hours and good music (Emory Quinn if you’d like to know)? Beautiful.

Also, probably my most favorite photo of my parents ever from a good last night in the states. 

Alrighty, I have a very important date with a bathtub that involves copious amounts of lavender…are lavender comas possible? Who knows, alas, I have nothing left to type except:

1) I hope to all get out that my flights are okay and I don’t for some reason end up in Podunk, Kansas tomorrow and
2) HOLY CRAP I’m going to JORDAN tomorrow!!!!!!! Who would have ever thought I’d be studying abroad at all? Then again who’d have thought I’d ever be in a sorority… or that I would have gone to school in Texas. High school Sarah would have laughed in my face at all of this. 

I just spoke about myself in the third person, it’s definitely time to end this post. See y’all on the other side! Or in the London airport if my layover becomes insufferable ;)

Victory!

The moment the formatting is just the way you want it is such a blissful thing. For me though this was instead the moment where I had given up trying to make this blog look perfectly perfect because:

1) I have better things to do, and, even though this may not be true at the moment and it really translates to watching an episode of Psych, I like to pretend I have something exceedingly important and pressing to do... like reading those required books. woops.
2) I don't feel like fussing with the HTML anymore. My days of Myspace are long behind me so formatting in code, a little like my french skills, has faded into the recesses of my memory.
3) You, out there, yes- you, are either a parent, friend, or really random internet searcher whom I will never meet and for that audience I just don't feel perfection is important, you like me despite messy blogs, right! (Though I can't speak to the random internet searchers out there)
4) I really should be reading that book...

Ahhh, okedokee, let's settle in shall we? So I have a month until departure, 2 books to read and a paper to write prior to said departure, and major packing that needs to be done. I may or may not have jumped on this blog train a little too early. Oh well, who says you can't talk about something before you've done it, preparation counts right? Don't worry, I won't bore you all with the banality of packing. This will probably be my first and only post before I leave (even as I write that I know I'm lying...there will undoubtedly be a 'holy-crap-i-leave-tomorrow' post the night before take off).

Why, Sarah, in all of the possible places you could have gone are you going to Amman you might ask. Well, the long-and-short of it is that it was a run-off between China and Jordan (both cultural anthropology programs). I really, really, really want to go to China someday. Knowing this, the obvious choice was Jordan! Because of my fervency in someday visiting China, I know that someday, no matter what, I will indeed find myself there. I, however, could never imagine myself just randomly deciding to go to Jordan. So it was settled, I would go to a place I knew I would never travel to for fun and learn Arabic in an intensive language course (which I will be fluent in someday! Sorry french...).

Thinking about it post-decision and program acceptance I'm actually really happy about the random choice I've made. More happy than I would have been in China I think. Of course, according to popular psychological theory, human beings have a tendency to rationalize any choice, good or bad, into seeming like the best possible choice as a sort of self-preservation thing. So that sort of blows it out of the water... but I don't care! Can't wait- end of story.

Alrighty-roo, that is all for now! You'll hear from me again when I've entered the zone of 'oh my god my flight is a week from now'.

PS-get used to the copious amounts of commas, I never really learned how to properly use them and I'm a run-on sentence fiend, so- love the commas.

-Sarah