Glinda, Where Are You?

Its almost time. I leave Monday morning, but I might as well be counting the hours I have left. Those hours are packed with things I still have to do. I get increasingly stressed about getting everything done and my body’s reaction is to take a nap. It’s slowly shutting down as if it’s trying to tell me ‘you’ll get so much more done if you’re rested.’ LIES! So, in addition to accomplishing the ever expanding to-do list, I have to fight the feeling that I’ve entered a field of poppies (poppies…poppies).
I would say that there just aren’t enough hours in the day, and maybe that’s true, but really what it comes down to is.. I procrastinate. I’ve always wanted to be one of those ‘How does she do it all’ types. Maybe to some I actually am, but when the clock is ticking I certainly don’t feel that I am. I get visions of the Wicked Witch in her crystal ball, ‘Sleep, my pretty, sleeeep’. Meanwhile, I’m struggling with ‘what food in the refrigerator should I get rid of?’, ‘what do I need for the return. I mean, I’m certainly not going to want to cook.’, ‘I need to go to the grocery store.’ The hourglass turns… Sleep… “I have sooo much paperwork to do.” “Oh, I wanted to pack that, but it’s dirty. I need to do another load of laundry.”… Sleeeep…

Square Peg in a Round Hole

Packing. For the most part, I’m pretty good at it. When I travel I vow not to check luggage. I usually take a standard roller-type carry-on bag and another smaller bag like a day pack/purse. I have found that no matter the length of the trip, whether it’s four days or two weeks, I just don’t need much more room than that. Of course, this is driven by the fear that my checked bag will be sent to some other land no where near its intended destination. If I’m carrying it on, then I can’t lose it (at least not by someone else’s stupidity… Only my own, but that’s not the issue here). So, my packing is methodical, organized. Everything matches everything else. I have options for day and night. Matching accessories, cute shoes. It works and I look good.

I’ve discovered a wrench in my well-oiled machine. In the middle of my travels between hot, ancient Chiang Mai and intense, stylish Bangkok I have the volunteer program in rural Surin Province. I need to go from ‘cute, fun, and flirty’ to ‘get dirty’. How does this happen in 2 1/2 cubic feet of space?! I’m convinced the solution lies in lists (as does much of my life). It’s like packing for two separate trips. One is the normal ‘site-seeing, exploring, fantastic meals, and meeting new friends over drinks’ type packing. The other is packing things I expect to leave behind in Thailand. The ‘I was going to get rid of this anyway’ packing. I’m not conditioned to bringing my own sheets and towels when I travel, but this is a different kind of trip. I will NOT, however, bring my own toilet paper from home. That, I will steal from the hotel the night before the program starts.

Tap, Tap, Tap… Testing… Is this thing on?

 

So, this is a whole new world for me. The blogging, I mean, not the travel. I’ve been doing that for a long time now.

 

I have this trip to Thailand coming up and it’s something different for me. First, I’ll be traveling alone… which I’ve done before, but never quite like this. This trip will be almost three weeks in a country with squiggle letters and no Latin root helping me guess meanings. Just getting myself out of the airport seems daunting. Secondly, I will be volunteering for a week as part of the vacation. I’m really excited about this. I’m thrilled to put my Wildlife Conservation degree to work after shelving it for so long. I’ll be spending a week in the Surin Province near the Cambodian border working on an elephant preserve. For these two reasons I thought it would be a good idea to start a blog. Not to mention, I have people that want proof I’ve not been abducted and sold into a sex ring. I keep telling them not to worry about that with me. I’m waaaay too old for those demographics. 🙂  but if I continue to update the blog, their fears can be quelled. 

 

I hope I can make this interesting enough that people will want to read the blog and experience this new territory with me.