Here's the deal:

Here's the deal, On Monday August 24th I am leaving for two years for the Peace Corps. I'll be going down to St. Kitts and Nevis in the Eastern Caribbean to work in Youth Development.

On Monday I will be flying down to Miami for my staging event. I'll be there for less than 24 hours. After that, myself and approximately 24 others will fly from Miami to St. Lucia for a number of days and then we'll all go to our separate countries.

Yes, I am excited. No I am not packed yet. Yes I am mentally prepared so far. Yes I know I am lucky to be in the Caribbean for the next two years. No it is not a vacation.

I have a lot of packing to do and have completed very little of it. The Peace Corps offers some general guidelines as suggestions for packing, most of which can be found here: http://www.peacecorpswiki.org/Packing_list_for_the_Eastern_Caribbean So far I have taken an inventory of what they suggest compared with what I have. I'll be doing a little shopping tomorrow with my sister to pick up a few things I still need. Other than the basics such as clothes and other essential things, I will be bring along my guitar and computer. I'm slightly worried about those things taking up too much space (the guitar will be brought as one of my carry-on items). So we'll see how it works out. I've already decided to leave my nice camera and equipment at home for now, until it can be insured... that will save a decent amount of space.

I'm feeling like I'm prepared, but there is still a lot to do.