It seems impossible to me that I'll be home in Atlanta five weeks from Sunday. It's not that the trip has gone by so quickly; things I did in the first month here, like visiting Alexandria, seem like years ago. Rather, it's that I had been planning on and looking forward to this semester for a long time-- at least three years-- and it's so strange that it's almost over. In a lot of ways, I think I have kind of been subconsciously dividing my life plans into a "before Egypt" section and "after Egypt" section. Before Egypt, I was just a college junior, looking ahead to the next few years but not really reaping any of the benefits of my work yet. I'd only left the continent once, and had never gone more than two months or so without seeing my parents. After Egypt comes the future: senior year, the GRE, graduate school, fellowships, (probably) moving to Washington, D.C., and a whole lot of goodbyes.
Well, since spring break, After Egypt has been approaching at a faster and scarier rate than I could ever have imagined. A lot of it is great stuff. I will be interning on Capitol Hill this summer in the office of my hometown (Decatur, Georgia) Representative, Hank Johnson, on behalf of J Street, a pro-Israel, pro-peace lobby for which I worked on a few projects while interning at the Carter Center Human Rights program last summer (more on J Street here). Especially as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict comes more and more to the forefront of international politics with the Obama administration's increased emphasis on the settlement issue, I am incredibly excited to be right in the middle of everything for the whole summer! But this also marks another two months I'll be spending away from Atlanta, my oldest friends, and my family, and my first experience living alone. I've felt so ready for this experience (living in D.C.) for so long that thinking it's happening in six weeks feels totally surreal.
Two weeks ago, I was also told that I'm being flown to D.C. on May 5 for four days to interview for a huge graduate fellowship program. I don't want to say too much about it for fear of jinxing myself, but if you're a friend or family member, please feel free to ask . If I thought I was nervous about moving to D.C. in June, it doesn't even compare to how excited and anxious I am about this opportunity. It was also great to hear that I get to take a little jaunt back to the U.S. (free of charge-- the best part!), a month earlier than I thought I would be returning. My parents are going to be able to come up and see me while I'm there, which is even better, and I have other family members in the area who I'm excited to spend time with. But it's just another future destination rushing up to meet me-- so much faster than I expected it would.
I can't even begin to cover here all of the preparations I've been having to make for my senior year at USC while I'm abroad. From running for executive board positions in organizations to planning Homecoming for my sorority to finding a director for my senior thesis, I sometimes feel like I never left Columbia at all! I hear that from a lot of the other study abroad students here, as well. I think studying abroad in my parents' era must have been a very different experience; with email, Facebook, Skype, and international cell phones, I always have one foot back in South Carolina, even if the rest of me is here in Egypt.
I've been thinking lately about something I heard at the study abroad orientation session I attended last semester at USC. The speaker said that, while it's hard to actively feel yourself changing, everyone comes back from a study abroad experience irrevocably changed. It's kind of the point, right? And considering how much I think I've changed from semester to semester even without leaving the Southeast, it scares me a little how different I may be the time I move back to Columbia for sorority rush in the fall. Will I even fit there anymore? Even with 25,000 students, is USC going to be too small for me now?
I really don't know. I miss USC, Columbia, Atlanta, all of my friends, and most of all, my family more than I can say, and that's not even mentioning all of the tiny little things about America I never appreciated before leaving: courtesy and Southern hospitality; animal shelters; effective social services; my own cell phone, and being able to call anyone whenever I want; a non-twin-sized bed; pork (which I never really even eat at home); traffic control of any kind; weirdly, American-style Chinese food; and MARTA trains where everyone feels safe to ride together, as opposed to a gender-segregated subway. (Did I really just say I missed MARTA? Seriously?) But maybe there will be a dozen other things I actually miss about Egypt when I get back (other than the exchange rate, that is). Maybe I'll be addicted to getting new stamps in my passport, and staying in one country for the rest of the year will be torture. I don't know, so there's nothing to be done except to look forward to the bright, bright future of After Egypt, and enjoy the time I have left here as best I can.
I started on that latter task this weekend by going to Dahab, a resort town on the Red Sea, with a lot of my closest friends from AUC! The post directly after this one will have pictures and some stories, mainly about my climb of Mount Sinai. I hope y'all are still reading!
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