proper preparations...

Yesterday I finally got round to doing something I have been meaning to do for a few weeks now - booking my flights to Columbia, South Carolina. This is due to the fact that this summer I’m going to be leaving the grey skies (although knowing my luck 2013 will be the year that we get a real, hot, sunny summer-sods law) of England and travelling to the ‘Deep South’. As fun and exciting as this sounds, I’m actually terrified as it’s going to mean leaving everything and almost everyone I know behind, BUT as I have been told that it will be character-building/the best year of my life/very friendly/very hot I feel that the best thing to do is suck it up and try and change my currently equal feelings of excitement and terror to be fully in favour of excitement.
South Carolina is not a place I knew much about up until a couple of months ago but since then I’ve learnt some fun facts about it…

• it was the first colony to declare independence in the American Revolution (edgy)
• it was the first colony to secede from the union in the Civil War (edgier)
• The Notebook, Dear John, and Forrest Gump were all filmed there
• the national state dance is the shag, of which I have found a video which isn’t great but nonetheless I think that the fact it’s called ‘shagging with the stars’ deserves some sort of recognition.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDNJtQTW3XQ
• it is also known as

- the palmetto state (something to do with a tree)
- the rice state (lots of rice)
- the swamp state…wonderful

• the mascot of the historical University of South Carolina, founded in 1801, and an institution of strong academic standing, is Cocky the Cock

there he is.

So, even though it feels like christmas just happened, suddenly easter is almost here, and it’s less than six months until I will be arriving in America and experiencing all the joys of gamecock life (that’s their football team). Between now and then I have got to undergo the process of obtaining a visa, which is likely to happen in the middle of exams, and will involve hours/days/decades of waiting inside the US embassy, all for a five minute appointment (cant wait), filling in various other forms, and then attempting to somehow achieve enough organisational skills to pack everything I need in my life into one small suitcase.
From my current position (floor 3 of the library -where else?) the view out of the window can only be described as GREY, as in, absolutely everything I can see is definitely one shade or another of dull grey. Right now the idea of a ‘humid subtropical climate’ sounds lush, and the fact that there’s an outdoor pool as part of the gym is definitely a plus. So here’s to hoping that by the summer I will have been able to maintain the suppression of nervousness about living in a place pretty different to what I’m used to, where you can own guns and get married at an age where you can’t have a beer. At least I know what I’m getting everyone for christmas…


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