Just a few days to go.

So it's less than forty-eight hours from now that I'll be hovering somewhere over the Atlantic, and let's face it, I'm kind of scared. I haven't been very good with planes since I was about ten years old--about the time I started to realize what they actually were, and also around the time that Swissair Flight 111 crashed off the coast of Nova Scotia with my mother's friend Ingrid on board. I know that was over a decade ago, but it still gives me chills.

I guess I'm using my fear of flying as a kind of distraction from my real fear, which is the fact that I'm going to a totally foreign country (despite my avid Anglophilia) where I know exactly one person. Never mind the fact that Scotland is exquisite and that I can't wait to go and that I know that I'm doing this for myself, for my own personal growth--I'll be completely on my own and for some reason, after three years of college and some relative independence, that fact terrifies me.

I think I've built up a comfort zone stemming from the fact that I know Washington, D.C. like the back of my hand, having lived here for more than ten years, and that my parents are, at most, ten or fifteen Metro stops away. Three thousand miles (give or take) is a little different. And I'm leaving behind all of the friends I've made at AU and at home, I'm forcing myself to be myself and not fall into this trap of becoming complacent with my own socializing, and while I know that it's a good thing I still can't get over my abject terror at the thought of having to...introduce myself, to talk to people, to get out and be someone.

So why am I starting a blog? I always meant to start one, and I thought that study abroad would be a good opportunity, especially since certain people are waiting for certain drafts of certain scripts that are still running around in my head somewhere. I'm going to use this weblog to document my experiences, my thoughts, my feelings, and hopefully it will lend itself to ground me both in Edinburgh and back home, become a link between my life in Scotland and my life at AU.

So...University of Edinburgh, here I come!