I'm a bit conflicted at the moment.
On the one hand, I'll be departing springtime Ireland for springtime America, which is duly fantastic in its own right, but at the same time there is much running around to be done before then. I'll admit, I'm not the best organised person in the world... There are a few outstanding things to be taken care of first, one of the most important ones being a 4,000 word essay.
This is usually the part where I reveal that I've gotten no books out and that I've less research done than the Irish nuclear weapons programme....
But, sorry, I've been working away at it in bits and pieces for some time now. Damn. I even have highly relevant sources lined up and all... My bibliography isn't full by any means, but I have a decent head start. The plan is to start writing on Monday and hopefully by Friday I'll have it mostly finished.
While things on the academic side are under control, I must admit I still have to book my train to Dublin and sort out an airport hotel. I swore to myself I wouldn't put myself through trying to sleep in the airport again after the insanely long day of travel it took to get to Prague. Great holiday, but I cannot function without sleep. At all.
I also have my ever concerned mother's suggestions about getting travel insurance...
This is essentially my last proper week to get all these things done and dusted as I'll be in Dublin airport before I know it and knowing my luck, I'll have forgotten to pack underpants.....
While it'll be great to go and see someone I haven't seen since last May, I have to ask whatI did in a past life to deserve a three flight journey on a strange continent with the most paranoid security apparatus in the western hemisphere. I'm not complaining, but it is an awful lot of travelling to do in one day, and I just hope I can keep myself suitably well fueled throughout the day in order to tackle it. I'm taking this seriously and approaching it realistically at this stage, because there are a number of things that can go wrong. It doesn't mean they will go wrong, mind you.
I'm fed up of being accused of looking for things to be paranoid about, or for things that will scare me, but quite frankly, I'm being just being coldly realistic. I am not one for going into a situation blind, and I'm rather irked when people think I'm just being pessimistic.
I refuse to allow myself to get into a situation where something goes wrong because I didn't do my research or homework properly. I just don't see what's so bad about having a guarded attitude to the longest solo journey I've ever undertaken to a country that I've only been to once, where I will be largely cut off from any help if, God forbid, something goes awry.
There's nothing wrong with looking at the world through clear lenses.
By considering all potential pitfalls that I can easily avoid by being aware of them, I put myself at ease. I hate being poorly prepared for travelling, and this journey is too long, and too important to fuck up purely because I was too lazy, or too dumb to get things properly organised.
I have been looking forward to this way too much to allow anything to get in my way.
May 2009 to February 2010 is far too long a time, and it's begun to tell in some ways. This trip is my first priority right now, as it provides a much, much needed reprieve from months of wishing I was somewhere else. And not just for me.
[I just realised that nobody reads this blog, so I can pretty much say what I want. Cool and faintly depressing at the same time]
