Prologue - Jitters

I'm writing this on the eve of an important journey, a trip towards that undiscovered country. For all I know, it may end tomorrow in a plane crash over the Atlantic Ocean (let's be realistic for a moment here), but, somber thoughts aside, and with a little bit of defying fate, I don't think it will.

This trip is, in a way, about defying fate and doing the unexpected. Doing what I don't expect of myself, but others seem to think I can and should do, quite inexplicably.  It is a good thing I do not believe in fate (though it does kind of ruins the opening premise of this paragraph).

It's been suggested to me that I should write a blog to document this journey into the west and my adventures there, and it does seem like a good idea. I just hope that not unlike the trip, I'll make good on it and keep it updated.

Although my mind is set and I have (vague) plans regarding this future, I'm not without doubts. Of course, I'm never without doubts. I consider doubt to be a healthy and necessary thing. Being confident is not to be without doubt just like being brave does not mean you are not afraid. It just means you have faced your doubts and fears and have come to a sort of understanding with them. I can't say I have reached that desired understanding myself, but the negotiations are still ongoing.

 The purpose of this trip is to experience life. It is not that there is no life here to experience that I have to go halfway around the world for it, but that it has given me the opportunity to decide to want to seek that experience, to dare, to try, to experiment, to leave behind old things, to move on.

My first objective, after settling into the new apartment and performing the necessary rituals of the local bureaucracy, is to fill the enormous gap in my professional knowledge and skills that are to be required for work. The new position comes with a lot of responsibility and I'm determined to do the best I can there. I'll make plenty of mistakes there; I already have. But I need to learn from those mistakes and try to anticipate the next ones.

The next few days to a week will be dedicated to settling in and creating a sort of a base of operations. Some would call it "home"; perhaps I will too in time. So, the plan is getting a credit card, getting the keys to the apartment, furniture from Ikea, getting much needed internet to maintain my connection with Azeroth and that small, strange place in the East and more, and that's just the first day. Who knows what I'll be able to do when I eventually snap out of the inevitable jet lag?

I don't know, but I'd like to find out.