Packing

So, the time has finally come. I have only about a week before I begin to move myself into Brattleboro. The plan is to transport all necessary items next weekend (September 4-6ish). In one respect I am very excited, but in another, I am a bit nervous. The actual state of being nervous about moving in is an interesting thing for me, as it's something that I have oddly enough been able to avoid almost completely until now. For pretty much the entire summer, moving into Brattleboro, getting adjusted, and whatnot really seemed like a no-brainer. Oh there's so nothing to worry about. I have stayed in the same place I will be staying for a full week at the beginning of last summer (while I was attending their 2009 Aerial Skills Workshop), have been to NECCA before on many other occasions for workshops and other classes, know many of the instructors well, as well as am rather familiar with the surrounding town. I knew I could handle living there, as I had shown myself that I could. The only real difference was that this is just going to be for longer. Everyone goes to college and almost (I guess :P) everyone survives the experience fine. This, although not quite set up in the same way as college, would overall be a similar transition. Clearly a no-brainer. (HUR HUR HUR...)

Friends

Over the course of my four years at High School, I have developed a very strong group of close friends. For as long as the idea of High School has been in my head, so has College. I've always known that at some point everyone would have to go there separate ways. I never had any sort of moment of true realization where it eventually hits me that I'll be seeing these people very little over the course of likely the rest of my life. That idea has always been in the back of my head, percolating. I wanted to keep things realistic, so I did. What was to happen was to happen, and there's no use of repressing it out of your head because it's something that's just going to come up. It's just a fact of the way that society here in the United States works.

Some of my close High School friends and I.

However, this morning, I woke up with an odd feeling regarding these close friends of mine. Already, even though most hadn't left yet, I felt a bit of a tension in my chest, because I miss them. It was an interesting moment for me, as I began to realize that no matter how much you can be aware of the fact that something like this is going to occur, there is nothing that will be able to stop your emotions. I value my friends greatly and have had so many great experiences over the past few years, and to finally let go of that is something that I currently have found to be of unanticipated difficulty. I wasn't expecting this. I thought I had it all down, I thought I could make this transition as easy as could be if I just had the right mindset, but today I found that I was proved wrong. You may know that your friends are all going to go away, but it still affects you just as much.

A List of Goals

Currently, with twenty days left until I start my training, I have decided to sit down for a bit to put together a little list of goals for myself that are to be achieved over the course of this upcoming year. This may be the first time I've actually written a list of things I've wanted to do, but it certainly isn't the first time I've thought about it.

A couple of months ago, I had a short chat with someone who was in last year's Professional Development Program (2009). One of the things that he told me was this: "You have to know what you want. They'll help get you there, but first, you must know what you want." So I took his suggestion to heart, and began to think about what I really wanted to get out of this year of my life. At first, I started to mentally make a list. Every time I saw a new trick on YouTube or at some sort of live performance that I found interesting, I'd think to myself, "Ah. That's so something I want to learn." Mentally, I was a bit stuck in this mindset that I was going to NECCA this year to learn individual tricks and skills, however, I have come to realize that this is really not the case.