I guess now is the time to make sure everyone knows this blog is of me and won’t always reflect the views of the Peace Corps or the United States government.

With that out of the way, I am happy to report that I made it safely to staging! There are 85 other people here all getting ready to help Ukrainians speak English. Exiting, eh?

Today was mostly filled with getting to know one another. Where the exercises they devised for this would fail in a high school setting, since we are all committed, they worked and I can already see how this whole process works to make us codependent on each other.

We are each other’s best line of defense, though, so it makes sense.

This weekend I am going to get my bags packed for the 28th. I got a military duffle yesterday to be my main bag. I am trying to think of what, if anything, extra I should take besides the basics. Challenge, thy name is looking at all your stuff and deciding what you will want during the next 27 months, how much it would be used and whether it’s too big.

A guy going is dropping a whole suitcase so he can carry his guitar. Luckily, I don’t have anything that big even under consideration…although now that I am thinking about it, I think I am going to take my boomerang.

I think everything I need is either ordered or on its way. That’s a pretty good feeling.