Intro: Dev does the waiting game.

You probably know me; if not, you will soon enough.

I'll skip some of the boring stuff and get to the meat: this Thursday, 10/24/13, I'll be heading 950 miles northwest of home to serve my country in a less-than-conventional way.

If you've managed to find my blog, you're probably at least a little familiar with Americorps NCCC (if only because I won't stop talking about it). I'll have training in Denver, then spend 9-odd months doing service projects throughout the six-state area. If there's a national/natural disaster, I may go outside even that broad section of country to help wherever help is needed.

I've had a lot of people ask, "Why are you doing this?"

The answer's not an easy one because there are so many reasons. Because I learned about this years ago and have always wanted to do it (cop-out). Because I want to put off finding a "real job" or going to college by another year (the ultimate cop-out). Because I have a deep-seated need to travel, to have experiences, to "do things." 

Ultimately, I guess the truest answer is that I want to help.

Getting past the "why" leads us to the what, as in, "Devon, you leave the day after tomorrow, what are you doing to get ready?"

The unfortunate answer is, so far, not a dang thing. I kinda started to pack, in the form of shoving things into my suitcase that I need to remember to pack later. I almost started to pick out which clothes I'm bringing; I sat and started a blog instead.

Oops.

This is all just finally starting to feel real to me. I was supposed to leave a couple weeks ago, but with the government shutdown, I was delayed. Since that happened, I'm kind of waiting for the other shoe to drop. While I know nothing will likely happen in the next couple days to delay or cancel my plans (again), I can't help but be a little bit nervous about it. I'm the unfortunate sort who expects it to rain on picnic day despite clear skies, only because she's having a picnic.

That's one of the eighty zillion things I plan to work on in the next year or so. In the next hour or so, though, I really need to work on the packing.