Cause I'm leaving on a jet plane...

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Trip Start Feb 11, 2006 Trip End May 27, 2006 Next
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  Andover, New York, United States
Friday, February 10, 2006

Well my bags are all packed and I think I'm just about ready to go. Good thing too because it turns out we're headed to Rochester tonight instead of tomorrow as originally planned; American Airlines called this afternoon to say their Chicago to LA flight wouldn't be operating and the only alternative was for me to fly out at 7:00am instead of noon tomorrow. Since we're an hour and a half from the airport, we just decided to head up tonight and stay in a hotel so the family and I don't have to get up quite so early to make the drive tomorrow. For those of you who are familiar with my bad luck with airlines, this shouldn't come as too much of a surprise (my last flying experience took me 26 hours to get from Louisiana to Andover).

My newly modified itinerary takes me from Rochester to Dallas-Fort Worth to Los Angeles, where I meet up with the rest of the SIT Fiji students (5 other girls from schools across the US). I leave Los Angeles for Nadi, Fiji around 10:30pm Pacific time. I'll land in Fiji on Monday, February 13th at 5:15am Fiji time. So if I've calculated it correctly, that's about 11:15am on Sunday, February 12th back here on the east coast. Since I cross the international dateline and jump forward in time, February 12th will not exist for me. Kinda cool actually! I'm sure I won't be saying that when I'm so jet lagged though!

Here's the rest of my tenative itinerary according to my Fiji program director (note that the day comes before the month):

13-19 February Arrival & Orientation
19 February Homestay begins
20-26 February Week 2: Intro to the Pacific
27 Feb - 5 March Week 3: Human Ecology
6-12 March Week 4: Colonial Histories
13-19 March Week 5: Fijian Histories
20-26 March Week 6: Indian Histories
27 March - 2 April Week 7: Multicultural Histories & Arts
3-9 April Week 8: Politics, Economics & Regionalism
10-16 April Week 9: Social Issues & Change
14-17 April Easter Weekend
14 April Homestay Ends
17-23 April Week 10: Vanua Levu excursion
24 April - 21 May Weeks 11-14 ISP period
24 May Independent Study Project Presentations & Final Dinner
25-27 May Re-entry period
27 May Depart for two weeks in Australia
10 June Depart for US

Before I head out though I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who's supported me as I've been preparing to leave and say thank you in advance for the support I know I'll receive throughout my journey. Just the fact that you're reading this shows that you care about what I'm up to, and that really means a lot to me. All the well wishes, phone calls, cards and prayers have been greatly appreciated. I want to especially say thank you to all the fabulous ladies in Medical Records at the hospital where I've been working during my extended time home for the awesome tropical surprise send-off party. I'll never forget wearing a grass skirt in the presence of my work colleagues...

Well it's just about time to sit down to the last dinner at home for the next four months. Thanks again for all your support and I'll try my best to post updates, pictures and stories as often as I can.

Talk to you soon from Fiji!

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