Hi everyone! Family, friends, professors, and the rest of cyberspace, I welcome you to my lovely blog! I will do my best to keep this updated (I hope at least weekly) while I am away in order to keep you all informed of my exploits, but I also have a selfish motive behind all of this. I will use this blog as a sort of journal of my experiences. I know this is a time in my life that I will want to remember forever, and I have observed as I've gotten older how quickly time flies. I want to be sure to remember not only the major events of my time in Kőszeg, Hungary, but also the day-to-day occurrences that may be lost if not recorded. I am incredibly excited to start this new chapter in my life, and I'm thrilled to take all of you along for the ride!
Well, back to the title of this post. As the ironically named band, Europe, immortalized in song, it is certainly the final countdown for me! 16 days left before my departure from Dulles to Munich and finally to Budapest. While I have been contemplating the potential degree of my homesickness as well as the various procedural hurdles that I will have to negotiate upon landing in Hungary, as my departure date draws closer, I am just getting more and more excited. I was talking to a great friend of mine earlier today, and we were definitely in agreement that this was a good thing! I can't imagine if it was the opposite! I was one of those kids who rarely slept in a different location from my parents growing up. I never went to sleep-away camp, and if I did spend multiple nights away from home, it was always at the home of a family member or close friend in close proximity to home. The first time I left home for any length of time was when I left for college. I purposely chose a place where I felt comfortable (Boston, the city of my birth) but was relatively far away from home. I knew I had to push myself in order to become the independent adult that I had always envisioned. I have since become quite independent and self-reliant, but I do still love being home. I don't feel the need to live under the same roof as my parents of course, but I would not mind being in the same area.
All of that being said, this past spring, with graduation from W&M on the horizon, I was contemplating my future. I was all but offered a teaching job at our career fair in a county within commuting distance from home, and while I was excited about the prospect, something didn't feel right. I felt that my adventures would be over, as immature as that sounds. I would be "settling down," starting a job where I would be working toward tenure, a pension, and a position as a visible member of the community. Perhaps I'm a bit of a gypsy soul, or else I have a travel bug that I can't ignore, but the thought of settling where I grew up at age 24, just felt like I did all of that work on myself for nothing. That sounds awful, and I promise that this has nothing to do with where I'm from or my family, because I love both very much. I feel the strong need to keep pushing myself and discovering new and exciting things about the world. I hope this will help me to know myself better and to be a better teacher when I return to the US.
Well anyway, that's my story. Now perhaps you can all better understand my battle with homesickness, which I'm sure will be a running theme in this blog. And you can see why my increasing excitement about the trip must be a good sign! This experience feels right, and even though I'm sure I will never feel fully ready, the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.
~KMK
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