Last night in America

Well, folks, this is it. Less than 24 hours from now I'll be on a plane out of America, and I won't be back for at least 9 months. People keep asking me if I'm excited, or nervous, or a variety of other emotions, but honestly, at the moment, I'm pretty numb about the whole thing. It's like I've been planning on this for so long, that I can't really believe that it's happening finally. Also, since I've been to Petersburg before, I don't feel the terror of stepping into the unknown that I felt before I left in 2005.

There are 13 of us going on this trip, and we're about evenly split between girls and guys. Everyone seems very nice so far, and we come from a variety of backgrounds and interests, so I think we'll be able to learn a lot from each other. Even though everyone seems great, I've been uncharacteristically shy the past couple of days. Perhaps my silence is a mark of the stress I don't feel like I'm feeling.

Our orientation has been not as bad as I thought it would be. We've had it separate from the main ACTR group, which has been nice, because the information has been more tailored to advanced learners of Russian and for people who have a lot of experience living and traveling abroad. That said, I've about died of boredom each of the past two days, not because the information being provided was not useful or interesting, but because you can't sit for 8 hours like that and still be as excited by the end as you were at the beginning. Or at least I can't. They've done their best to scare the crap out of us with the health and safety talk, but having already lived in Petersburg, I know they're just giving the worst-case scenario for everything we might encounter. Life in Petersburg is going to be fine.