Spain from a distance

I'm leaving on Wednesday for the my first job abroad. I'm being paid to chaperone 13 highschool students during a month long homestay/tour of Spain. I'm hoping this blog will help me a little reflective about what things mean to me while I'm traveling. Events always seem to rush past me so quickly and I sometimes regret not having more get up and go. This should help hold those moments a little more still and motivate me to find things to write about. I guess those 18 days when the students are with their host families I won't feel so alone because I'll be sharing those moments with all of you. That said, post any comments you might have about my travels/observations and for those of you "stuck" in your own respective corners of the world enjoy the ride through me. Whenever I leave the country things always seem to happen in much the same way. It's so hard to envision myself in that different world until I step into it. I've been seriously dissapointed these last few days because I applied for a Rotary scholarship to study abroad in an Arabic-speaking country and I found out I'll miss the interview portion during my trip. I struggled through the application and paid someone to help me translate it into French. Now I won't even be able to compete. I considered renigging on this trip. I talked to my Mom today and she told me I had to think about my integrity and the committment I had already made to do this trip. I think she's right. Every time I've made serious committments in my life I haven't backed down. Maybe that's why marriage and kids scare me so much. I guess that means I'll stay here in the States for grad school. UC Berkeley maybe..hmmm..I'll guess we'll see. More to come next week.