Saturday, August 29, 2009

Intro Post

From September 1st through to December 1st 2009 I will be away from my home country of Canada as I travel to and from Greece, where I will participate in an archaeological excavation through the field school program at Simon Fraser University. While I've technically lived away from 'home' for over three years now, and have come to call a whole new province and city my home, this will be the longest time I've ever spent abroad.

I'm writing this entry exactly 48 hours before I get on a plane to Halifax to travel a long, rather circuitous route to Poros, Kefalonia. My bags are packed and my passport has been photocopied multiple times and my arm still twinges from my tetanus shot, but I remain in a state of disbelief at how lucky I am to be doing this. Not only to I get to study overseas, but I get to do it on an island in the Ionian, and I get to study the things I love. Until I actually step off the plane I don't think I will believe it.

Please bring strange things.
Please come bringing new things.
Let very old things come into your hands.
Let what you do not know come into your eyes.
Let desert sand harden your feet.
Let the arch of your feet be your mountains.
Let the paths of your fingertips be your maps
and the ways you go be the lines on your palms.
Let there be deep snow in your inbreathing
and your outbreath be the shining of ice.
May your mouth contain the shapes of strange words.
May you smell food cooking you have not eaten.
May the spring of a foreign river be your navel.
May your soul be at home where there are no houses...

- Ursula K. LeGuin

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