(here) it goes…

Welcome to my redesigned, relocated weblog/website. I offer it to you today in the midst of change and excitement and endings and beginnings.

For starters, a month ago today I began overhauling clare.overt.org and the blog, which I’ve shifted from Blogger/Blogspot to MT/overt.org. Many thanks to Bryan and Ali for their help with this. Also, R.I.P. showcat, though I hope to keep it online for archival purposes, at least until Blogger decides to squoosh it.

Webdesign proved maddening enough to adequately distract me from thesis work for a while. However, seeing as how exactly a month from now I’ll have finished with college classes and have less than 24 hours to turn in my thesis, I figure it’s time to kick this thing out into the world and, I don’t know, start editing some video. All the same, expect a rant or two about CSS and div’s and browsers to come eventually. Design was a bitch.

Other reasons why the switch today? This morning I flew back from spring visit weekend at UC-Berkeley (my photos and Leslie’s), a few surreal days in which I fell even more madly in love with the city, the school, the program, the faculty/staff/students, the trees, the sky, the public transportation, etc., etc…. and then this afternoon I called the Peace Corps offices in DC to officially accept my invitation to Senegal.

And the butterflies in my stomach right now are only the ones that flutter around a momentous decision, not those of doubt or regret. It was strange—I was walking through the Berkeley campus feeling utterly at home, yet even in the golden sunlight coming through the storybook trees, I knew that I wanted to go to Africa in September.

And I do. Berkeley’s J-school was amazing, and after this weekend I’m absolutely certain that I want to study there—eventually. But right now I want the adventure and the challenge of two years far, far from home.

After reading more and talking with more people, I can imagine staging in the US. I can imagine arriving in Dakar and stepping off the plane. I can imagine the bus ride to training in Thies. Struggling with French, learning a completely new African language. Meeting my host family and sitting down to my first meal with them. I can even almost picture my first night alone at my assignment (the night of my 23rd birthday, according to the schedule that arrived with my invitation packet). After that, it’s still hazy in my mind—daily routines, my job, being the only American for miles and miles around… but I want all of it, scary and exhilarating and whatever else it may prove to be.

So there. New site, new plans, blah blah blah. Onward.