This is going to have to hold you over for 5 days

I leave tomorrow for Morocco. At 4:00am I will walk to our meeting point in eager anticipation of our arrival in a country that has been described to ous in terms of its danger and filth. I am armed for the voyage with two novels, several blank pages in my journal, and a roll of chocolate-filled cookies. I wish I could send my mind waves into this blog while I´m there -- I can only imagine the emotions and thoughts I will experience. Ahh, anticipation.
For today I have to corral my thoughts into the first 4,000 years of Spain´s history over which I will be tested in an hour and a half. Last night we had a "study session", which was unlike any I had ever been to. At 10:30pm anyone who wanted to met up in the main plaza and then we relocated to a well-known bar by the river to sip on sangria and beer while we studied. I feel pretty well prepared. It´s fairly easy to remember information when its so intriguing and mysterious. The only parts I have a hard time with are the more modern events, like the Civil War at the beginning of the 20th century; it had too much to do with the kind of politics that seem to control everything today, and which I often feel completely uncapable of understanding.

Yesterday i was homesick for the first time. I have missed home and friends and family and cats and my dog all along, but yesterday I felt the first pinches of homesickness in that invisible organ in the deepest depths of my self. I think homesickness for me comes from self-pity, which I am only able to keep away from in the honeymoon stage of being away because I am completely distracted by excitement and the adreneline of newness. Now that I am establishing patterns and a sense of normalcy homesickness has had the chance to plunge its fingers into my mind. Luckily the homesickness of this trip is nothing in comparisson to that which I have known in the not-too-distant past. I understand myself better, and I know that I am in the middle of an amazing experience that I will be talking about for the rest of my life. For all I know this bland middle could be the beginning of something awesome. I have a different kind of relationship with God now too, which has contributed to my being able to cope. I have stopped thinking of God in the way that He has been taught to me, and started thinking of Him in the way that He whispers inside of me. God no longer serves as an excuse to profess the lies that "i know everything will be better in the end", but rather as knowledge that pain and discomfort are as much of a blessing as times of comfort and happiness.

Never before in my life have I felt alienated by my disenchantment with the concept of getting drunk and partying. Now I feel like it has put up a wall beteween me and most people here because our concepts of "fun" are so completely different. I have met many people who I really like and who I like to spend time with, but I feel that there´s a part of me that has to go into hiding because it has no companion. I suppose I shouldn´t feel that any part of me is missing depending on who I am around, but I´m beginning to see that "independence" is not quite that I always thought it meant.