It's a Date!

Dear readers,

I regret my recent lack of updates. To give myself some practice in taking notes for research, I took notes on my recent training in Montréal, and I intended to turn those notes into wonderful blog posts. But a nasty cold has overtaken me, and I haven't had the strength nor the will to write about that training. I have found out quite a bit more information about my placement, so I will share that, and some of my feelings on it, with you.

My expected departure date is June 10, 2010. Finding out the date of departure has really changed my feelings about the placement. Before finding out (last week), I knew that I would be leaving and that I would be leaving those close to me (and those not close to me) at some point during the summer, probably late in May. But knowing the date has tempted me to count down the days to departure and to drive myself nuts over worrying if I'll really have taken care of everything I'll need to have taken care of. I'm currently consoling myself with the idea that I will conquer my placement-related affairs once this cold is gone.

Alongside the worry has come excitement. I am prepared to have an amazing time doing amazing things for ATEC and for HCC. I'm excited to be able to carry out intellectually-engaging (i.e. more complex than "Where is the bathroom?" and "How much to take the taxi to the embassy?") conversations in Vietnamese. I'm excited to have a heck of a lot of new types of food. I'm excited to make new friends and acquaintances - not that current friends and acquaintances are not good enough. I'm excited to do social research. Of course, I am expecting that the novelty of Việt Nam will wear off. There will probably be some things that are challenging to deal with. I hope that I don't Occidentally make any cultural mistakes. But I will appreciate the wonderment while it lasts. There's no point in agreeing slavishly with the assertion in Ecclesiastes that there is nothing new under the sun. To do so would take the fun out of discovering new things.