the perils of

Earlier I was chatting with my friend Lorenzo (I mentioned him in an earlier post ) about going to Manila, and it looks like I'm not the only one who's scared brainless about moving and studying there! That's comforting. No, that's not sarcasm! I mean I'm really, really glad that I'm not doing this alone. It's not just me and Larz here - there's Jason, and Paul, and all the wonderful new friends I made at the OrSem forums who, just like me, are apprehensive about moving there. Who wouldn't freak about having to live in Manila? It is a HUGE city. It's so unlike Cagayan de Oro, where everything is basically within your reach. In CDO, the malls take less than half a day to explore (granted you don't stop to look at much stuff). And in CDO, you don't have to wait for hours on end just to get from one place to another. Traffic isn't heavy. It isn't hard going places on a jeep, either. Everything is just so simple and wonderful and fam...

Two months left 'til I move to Manila. Sometimes I can get pretty excited about moving to the Philippines' version of New York. All the amazing people I'll meet, all the fun, college-y stuff I'll get to do... Thinking about those things makes me look forward to making the big move. Or, should I say, the Big Move. But then, when I think about my family and my beautiful home here, the Big Move sounds really scary and bad. (scary and bad - I have a limited vocabulary and I know it.) I start thinking about all the family moments I'm going to miss, all the inside jokes I'm going to be left out on, and simply, all the comfort and warmth and strength I draw from my family that I won't be able to have so far away from them. I guess I'm homesick - and I haven't even left yet.