Still in Portland

As of right now I am still in Portland, Oregon, but in a little more than a week I will be flying to Vermont in order to go to college. It's a tad scary to tell the truth; I knew it would be a change, but for the most part I just pushed it out of my mind. I'll probably be staying in Vermont until Winter Break in mid-December, which means over three months away from everyone and everything that makes Portland home. Of course, I do prefer the country to the city, so that'll be nice. It's also a pretty liberal area, so I'll probably be around roughly the same kinds of people I am over here, though I'm not too sure how good of a thing that is. At least it'll be familiar.

One of the things I will be doing in Vermont (one of the first things actually) is going caving for nine days. Nine days camping and exploring caves with people I have only had the briefest contact with in the past. Hopefully it won't be more than nine or ten people, otherwise the social aspect of the trip will diminish somewhat and I'll feel like just another face in the crowd. I've never really been on a trip like this before without someone I know fairly well going along with me. So far I have talked to one person who is actually going on this trip, but I don't know her too well at all.

I kind of hate knowing that I'm going to leave for a really long time, but still being here. It's hard when I'm hanging out with people and I'm thinking, "in less than a week and a half, I'll be on the other side of the country and won't be able to see these people again for a long time." It's kind of like dating someone and knowing you're going to break up with them soon, but for the moment you're still with them. It's just harder to enjoy being around them as much. Of course, it makes personal problems a little easier to deal with, though I haven't had a whole lot in the past month or so. Still, whenever something does come up, I can just say, "Whatever, I'm gone in a week. It doesn't matter."

Still, I want to pack some living into that week because that's what you do at a time like this. I ain't about to just fade away.