As the days leading up to my departure narrow\u00a0and I get closer and closer to boarding a\u00a0plane that will plant\u00a0me nearly 5,000 miles from home, I’ve been ambushed by friends and family alike with what has seemingly\u00a0lent itself as the\u00a0go-to question: “Are you excited?”.<\/p>\n
And while the obvious answer is YES, I’ve found it quite\u00a0difficult to formulate an accurate response.<\/p>\n
Of course I’m excited! I get to study and work abroad for an 8 week period \u00a0(I’m heading to Lebanon for a few weeks following Prishtina). While in the Balkans, I will\u00a0immerse\u00a0myself in a cultural landscape\u00a0that I have only scarcely touched on through previous schooling. I will learn through interactions with new people and my\u00a0new environment. I will expand upon my horizons and in doing so, I will expand upon\u00a0my understanding of conflict and resolution. All of this excites me greatly.<\/p>\n
So why do I have such a difficult time returning a simple answer to a simple question?<\/p>\n
Because while I am excited,<\/em> I am also anxious<\/em>.<\/p>\n Not in a\u00a0bad “keeps you up at night” kind of way, but I’ve been harvesting\u00a0an energy that I’m quite eager to spend.<\/p>\n I’m going to Kosovo for the experience of traveling to a foreign place, but with a distinct purpose and motivation. I want to find stories, and I want to leave with a body of work that best\u00a0represents and\u00a0communicates the stories\u00a0that I pursue.<\/p>\n One can prepare for something like this by reading and researching as much as possible prior to arrival, and that I have, but only with my feet planted firmly on Kosovar soil, will I know my advantages and my limitations.<\/p>\n Today I am packing my bag full of journals and pens, and preparing to roll with the punches.<\/p>\n Put, simply: I am very excited for the journey ahead.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As the days leading up to my departure narrow\u00a0and I get closer and closer to boarding a\u00a0plane that will plant\u00a0me nearly 5,000 miles from home, I’ve been ambushed by friends and family alike with what has seemingly\u00a0lent itself as the\u00a0go-to question: “Are you excited?”. And while the obvious answer is YES, I’ve found it quite\u00a0difficult … Continue reading “The Countdown to Takeoff”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pj.rit.edu\/kosovo\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pj.rit.edu\/kosovo\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pj.rit.edu\/kosovo\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pj.rit.edu\/kosovo\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/29"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pj.rit.edu\/kosovo\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/pj.rit.edu\/kosovo\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34,"href":"https:\/\/pj.rit.edu\/kosovo\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24\/revisions\/34"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pj.rit.edu\/kosovo\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pj.rit.edu\/kosovo\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pj.rit.edu\/kosovo\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}