The Opening Phrase

12:20am

Here we go. I’ve wanted to do this for a while now and I’ve only been waiting for a good excuse. Reading over my old journals brought me to the point of nostalgia for my older days and also simply reminded me how nice it is to have an account of everything. To be able to go back and look at what I did, even if everything now seems petty and unimportant. I can’t imagine being the person that I was just a few years ago.

So what is this? It’s a prelude. An introduction of sorts. A place where I can ramble away about.. well, anything I suppose. I’m not going to edit this really and I’m not going to try and make it seem intelligent or thoughtful. It will be full of thought, however, but not necessarily thoughtful.

A prelude to what? You may ask. A prelude to a trip, to a new experience, to a new chapter of my life. I guess that this prelude will serve as a sort of setting up of this coming experience. How do I feel about it? What to I have to do to prepare, mentally and physically? Where am I going? What am I leaving behind? All these questions will be (maybe) addressed in the next 31 days before I depart for the Southern hemisphere.

I want to start by talking a bit about language, since language has a lot do to with this trip. After attempting to learn another language, I’ve found a lot of flaws in English. I first noticed this in a conversation today with Anna in which we were talking about the word love. In Spanish, to love someone in your family, you would say “te amo;” to say that you love someone romantically, you would say “te quiero” (literally, I want you, cool, huh?). Well, besides English’s lack of a differentiation between different types of love, I realized there was another lack of clarity when I tried to think about how I feel about the coming months. I want there to be a word that means really excited about something new but at the same time terrified because it is new and upset at having to leave so much behind. Apprehensive seems to negative. I guess I’m at a loss for words. What can I say? I’ve never claimed to be a good writer.

I will try and update this once per day for this month which will conclude my prelude. Then, the true symphony will begin.