Wanderlust Wendy

Yesterday was my 10-day countdown until this next journey begins. People have been asking me how I am feeling, and if I am ready. I don’t really know if there is any way to truly be ready for this – moving to a country that you have never visited and had no idea what you will actually do once you arrive. Wait, I’ve done that already. Out of curiosity on how I was feeling back then, I found a blog post that I wrote just four days before leaving for the Peace Corps. This is how I described it back then:

I have things all over my bedroom floor, hence not packed. I don’t actually know what all the paperwork are that I must complete. I still have to move furniture back home. There are friends I still want to see, things I still want/need to take care of before I leave in … 4 days. Yet, I am nonchalant 85% of the time. There is one moment per day when I feel like I am going to freak out, but that never lasts long.

I laughed after reading this. Four years later, I am exactly the same as I was. As you can see from the picture, I am nowhere near packed. I have things all over the house reminding me of the fact that I am not packed. There is that moment a day when I stop to try to think about what I am really doing, and I want to freak out. I then immediately stop thinking about it, and so it goes.

Much like four years ago, I have used social media to connect with people that I will meet. Back then was Facebook. I had become “friends” with more than half of my Peace Corps group, and had conversed with them before I left. I remember Kate, a girl who ended up being one of my closest friends in  Cameroon, telling a group of us how she thought I’d be annoying being the Facebook girl, but I turned out to be really cool. (Not sure why people think active social media usage equates annoying personality…)

This time around, I have approached this move a tad more professionally. I’ve created a pretty solid list of contacts via LinkedIn. My Twitter network actually led me to some really incredible people now living in Shanghai. I even succumb to the Chinese social media and joined its version of Twitter – Weibo (When in Rome…). So, even though I am moving to a city where I don’t actually know anyone (well, other than a few guys from college that I haven’t really talked to since…), there are already so many people TO meet, and to get to know upon arrival. I am once again amazed by the power of social media, yet somehow, in this day in age, there are people who still think it’s a waste of time. I digress, that’s another post for another time.

As it was in 2008 and as it is now: One day at a time. Live in the moment. That is all.