Getting Ready to Get Ready

My first ever real post in this brand spanking new blog. But it feels good, because it means that I'm actually acknowledging the fact that I'm leaving. Soon. I spent so many of the past weeks pretending to myself that working for a boring pharmaceutical company was all there was, but in the past week or so I've woken up and started preparing, mentally and physically. I got my visa in the mail, got three Ireland guides out of the library (I was standing in front of the shelf agonizing over which one to get and then remembered, "Oh! It's a library! They're free!" I won't bring all of them, probably just two.) We bought me an uber-suitcase-- seriously, this is every suitcase you could ever want combined into one-- at Macy's for 50% off. And I leave for Ireland in 54 hours. Once I'm on the plane-- then I'm REALLY going to have to come to grips with all of this.

Also, I've been looking through my pictures from the last time I went to China in the past few days. I rediscovered this picture, which I took in Lijiang. The women are Naxi. I will be doing a Naxi homestay sometime in April.