The eve of departure was busy and long. It also wasn’t really the eve of departure. I guess technically right now is the eve of departure since my flight will leave at 5:15 to Copenhagen, where I’ll have a casual FOURTEEN hour layover, before continuing to Zurich on Friday night.
The past week and a half has been busy, really. The last day of classes was May 8th, I visited my mother for Mother’s Day from the 10th-12th, I gave my class their final exam on May 13th and then I was supposed to have plenty of time (a week and a half) to finish up loose ends around campus and prepare for my trip, but somehow things always take longer than expected. I left my apartment in Blacksburg on Wednesday, May 22nd and I won’t be back until July 15th. I will go to Raleigh directly after the GPP trip is over, and then I go from there to a family vacation, and then finally back to Blacksburg.
Before I left, I had to set some meetings with undergraduate students working in one of my labs this summer to show them how to do their tasks while I’m gone, meet with the faculty director of that same lab to go over preliminary analyses (we might have a significant result- whoo!), meet with a committee member to discuss my prelim prep, and meet with my advisor to work on about four different things, return some books to the library, cancel a recurring monthly subscription and pick up my dog’s heartworm medicine, on top of packing for not only this trip but my next month and a half.
I actually did most of the school/work-related stuff, though my advisor and I only got through one of our four tasks and I have to go back through and carefully merge some data files when I come home. I didn’t pick up my dog’s medicine because apparently he needed a prescription we didn’t have and I think I packed enough clothes for the next seven and a half weeks, but who really knows. I have a notorious habit of forgetting at least one integral category of clothing (shirts, underwear, etc.) on every major trip since childhood.
I was so busy running around buying last minute items and throwing things in, then taking them out of my suitcase that I didn’t even have time to think/worry/get excited about the trip. But now I can do that all on my first 8-hour flight, FOURTEEN hour layover, and then the two extra days I’ll have in Zurich before GPP officially starts.
Here’s to a great experience and hopefully enough underwear.