So tonight ends another chapter in my life I suppose. This was the first summer I've lived away from home and I suppose it marks the official point where I've moved out of my parents house.

I'm stopping in for a couple of days just to get organized and get packed for my trip to England. I leave Saturday.

I keep telling myself a month isn't a long time, but saying my goodbyes tonight, made me realize, these are the people I see every single day. Absolutely every single day I'm alive, I see one or more of these folks. They are my family outside of Pittsburgh. Now I'm leaving these folks for a month. I feel like I'm going to miss a great deal by not spending the time with them.

On the other hand I cannot wait to get out of here. I feel like I could use the fresh start. I just need to drop everything Erie, Penn State, Pittsburgh, and emotionally related. Drop it all and start fresh. I'm flying thousands of miles away from any problem or confusion I have here and I can't spend time worrying about it until August. That in itself is a great feeling. Its not one of a permanent fix, but one where I know I'll come back with a better perspective and ability to size up who and what is actually important to me in life. The last two weeks have shaken that whole issue up for me.

I am 100% sure it is going to be a fast month. I have some amazing trips planned and I'm going to be meeting a lot of new people. Soon it will be time to start back to school, start back to research, and start back to those "cares in the world."

So we'll see. I'm nervous, excited, sad, and happy to be leaving all for different reasons I don't really care to share with anyone but myself at this point. So here is cheers to me, to a safe, fun, and exciting trip.

-Much growing and learning to be done in the next 5 weeks. To everyone still here, please bear with me, I'm hoping to have lots of pictures, stories, and experiences to share, but I'm sure I'm going to be one of those annoying folks that starts everything with, "Well, in England..." So just tell me to shut my trap when I do.

Last Note: There were somethings I wanted to tell some people (mostly one person) that I wish I could have. I guess I didn't b/c it was a mix of too scared and partly a 'why bother?' kind of thing. It wouldn't have helped anything to say something I guess, who knows, maybe I'll regret it later and can worry about it then.