Journey, part II

The room I'm staying in,
the result of a couple hours of assembly.

Hey everyone!  It's been a teeney bit longer than I was expecting since my last post, but I guess it's better now than later.  :P  Anyway, the day before yesterday (Saturday), my parents and I arrived here at my place in Brattleboro and moved all of my stuff in.  We did a bunch more shopping for extra room stuff and had a lovely Thai lunch at the Thai Bamboo restaurant in town.  It's by far my favorite restaurant here in Brattleboro that I've gone to.  There is always such an incredible amount of flavor in their dishes and soups.

My parents stayed over with me in my room that night and in the morning we went for some more shopping at Wal-Mart and Price Chopper, got a wonderful $5 lamp, as well as some shelves, a refrigerator and a microwave, and some food.  As we were going to lunch, I ran into my old Smirkus Camp counselor, T (he's here for the year as well attending NECCA's Intensive Training Program).  We all went together to the Co-op to get some food and then headed back to my place for me to say goodbye and whatnot.  The move-in process was very smooth in general.  The only real problem that we had was that my iHome transformer blew out when I was trying to plug it in, but I am grateful that everything else went so well.  I don't get cell service in my room though, which is kind of awkward since if I'm not online, there is no way for anyone to contact me, but hey, that's a little bit of Vermont for you.  Other places in town as well as at NECCA itself I get sufficient service.

Journey, part I

I wasn't originally going to make a blog post today because I didn't think I had very much to say but I feel like I should update all those interested as to where I am in my Chappaqua to Brattleboro transition.  :-)  My parents and I finished up all of my packing and we put everything I'm planning on bringing into a U-Haul trailer.  We drove up today to our house that we have upstate, which we're basically using as a rest stop for the rest of the trip tomorrow.  Without a U-Haul trailer, the drive up to here is about four hours from Chappaqua as opposed to the about three to Brattleboro, so it is a bit of a detour, but it's nice to have a place to comfortably stay for a night (as well as a place to drop off the cats while I move in).  There also are a couple of things that we have kept up here that we're going to bring to Brattleboro as well.  The overall combination of these things made it make more sense to come here first.

Tomorrow morning we leave with all of my stuff for my new home for the next nine months.  I am still a mix of emotions, but I currently find myself more excited than anything.  I have been waiting for these days for quite a while this summer, and really am overjoyed that they have finally arrived.  I can't wait to meet everyone who's going to be in the Professional Development program (it's only 18 people, which I think should make for a very interesting experience!) as well as to start training.

When I arrive, I plan to take pictures of my room, so I can post them on my blog here for all to see (In a predicted "Journey, part II" post :P).  I really hope moving in goes smoothly.  Wish me luck! ^_^

Trevor

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.