It's the Final Countdown!

One week. One week until I jet off across the world to the Land Down Under for a glorious year studying bats and living the good life. I've been thinking, worrying, dreaming about this for over a year, and it's finally here. My room's a mess with all the potential stuff I'm taking (I'm restricting myself to two suitcases and a backpack, which limits things a bit) and my recent dreams have been filled with bats, bats, and more bats. I've been running around town getting last-minute things together, including several passport sized photographs from AAA in which I look like an angry criminal (hopefully they will never see the light of day), power converters so I don't blow anything up, and comfy field pants from Goodwill to replace the dearly beloved field pants I've been wearing the past three summers and that have been held together with duct tape for the past year.

I've also been spending as much time as possible with my family and friends and enjoying being home for the summer. It's the first summer I've been home since high school and not off somewhere doing research, and I really have loved it. I've loved coming home to the familiar smells of cats and home cooking, having family dinners with all my relatives, and spending the evenings with my parents watching Bones and Storage Wars. It's hard to believe I won't be coming back or seeing my family for over a year! I still can't believe how unbelievably lucky I am to have this opportunity to travel to (and live in!) a country I've always dreamed of visiting and to spend a year studying the animals I have become so passionate about: bats. I'm excited and nervous at the same time, but I KNOW that it will be a wonderful year full of great adventures!