welp, here we go...

so, with my departure date for the Peace Corps fast approaching, I figured I should probably start one of these things. I've always been reluctant to have a blog because I have never felt that my thoughts and ideas are interesting/intelligent/witty enough. but here i am, a college graduate with a new chapter of life waiting to be written, and i feel like the time is ripe for me to jot life updates for those i'll be leaving behind in a few short months. I still feel a little presumptous and silly, and perhaps a tad vulnerable, but here goes nothing!
peace corps.
for those of you who don't know, my post-graduate plans consist of packing up and heading out for a 27 month adventure serving in the Peace Corps. In January, I was nominated for a teaching position in Central/South America departing in June. Welp, it's now May and I've yet to be medically cleared. i guess whenever you have childhood glaucoma, your medical history becomes a bit more complicated. needless to say, the past 4 months have been a whirlwind of faxes, emails, doctors' appointments, and phone conversations where I begged various offices to send information to the men and women who were holding court over whether I was ok to serve in a foreign country with limited medical resources. As of now, I'm in an awkward state of limbo, where I could be leaving as early as June 22 and as late as September. Though most would be panicking about the seriously ambiguous state of my summer, I am surprisingly at peace. I feel like (fingers crossed!) that my next two years will be filled with obstacles and frustrations and this is just a slight taste of what's to come, and I'd be wise to learn well these lessons about patience, perseverance, and timing.
it's surreal to think that my college years are now over. the past four years have been the best yet, but i think that's why i was able to leave without a whole lot of sadness. I guess I just feel like my time was well spent, that i created friendships that are deep and meaningful, that I was challenged by my professors and gained a little bit of insight along the way. and with all of that within me, i was able to leave believing that life still holds greater adventures and even better years. it was still difficult though to say farewell to a place that was the center of so many joyous occasions, triumphs, failures, fearful realizations, and beautiful moments. but, onward to new people and places. :)
I'm not really sure how to end these entries. tonight i'll close with a beautiful passage from the book i'm currently reading. from Marilynne Robinson's Gilead:
"I feel sometimes as if I were a child who opens its eyes on the world once and sees amazing things it will never know any names for and then has to close its eyes again. I know this is all mere apparition compared to what awaits us, but it is only lovelier for that. there is a human beauty in it. and i can't believe that, when we have all been changed and put on incorruptibility, we will forget our fantastic condition of mortality and impermanence, the great bright dream of procreating and perishing that meant the whole world to us. In eternity this world will be Troy, I believe, and all that has passed here will be the epic of the universe, the ballad they sing in the streets. Because I don't imagine any reality putting this one in the shade entirely, and I think piety forbids me to try" (57)
annnnnnnnnd done.