First Post

As I sit under the departure board and wait for my flight to arrive, I've decided to put up my first post. 

I don't have grand ambitions for this blog, let's get that straight. I intend to use it primarily as a way to show you how my life is going in a completely new and exciting place. I intend to post as often as possible, but as my access to the Internet will be sporadic at best, regularity may be a bit of a pipe dream.

As for the nature of my posts, I'm going to try and keep them relatively neat and tidy. I'm going to try and write in some semblance of a journalistic style. However, this is NOT a professional blog and I will most likely be injecting a healthy amount of, er... "personality" into my posts. 

In addition to the written posts, I'll be trying to keep you supplied with plenty of photographs. I brought both of my cameras... 

...but just realized that I forgot my cables for them. Shit. I guess I'll have to buy another set...

Anyways, however I manage to upload my pictures (and I assure you, I will), I'll be uploading as many as appropriate to this site. I'm also going to post them on Facebook for those of you who have it. I'm considering getting a second Flickr account to put up some for the rest of you, and I'll keep you posted on it.

The name of this blog is a bit cheesy (okay, so it's really cheesy), but there's a story behind it. As some of you may know, I have great faith in the power of shuffle. As I hadn't been able to come up with a suitable name on my own, I decided to trust in my iPod for inspiration. Driving home from Orleans the other day, I put my entire library on shuffle and decided to go through five or six songs to see what struck me. After coming to the difficult decision that neither "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots Pt.1" or "Mona's Pizza" were suitable names for a blog (though "American Gigolo" had some promise, I ultimately decided against it), I'd almost given up. One more click brought the sounds of ELO to the radio, and though I did decide that, if I were one of you, I'd certainly make fun of me, "Calling America" was just too perfect a fit, and for some of us (read: me), breaking the rule of Shuffle is tantamount to heresy. It also leaves the door open for some of our other friends traveling the world to contribute guest articles once and a while without having the title not match.

People have been asking me all summer if I was nervous, and I have been answering with a simple "No" all summer. It's true. I've thought it over and over again, and have come to the conclusion that I am really, truly not nervous. I am excited. I am very ready for this, and I know that, no matter what problem arises, I can handle it. 

In about an hour, I get on a plane (along with about fifty pounds of assorted stuff) to go farther away than I have ever been from home for longer than I have ever been from home. I leave to go to a place where no one speaks my language, where the culture runs at a different pace and to different patterns, where they drive about a million miles an hour and brake for nothing. Strange foods, strange customs, strange people. 

And you know what? I can't wait.

I'll see you in December.

-Frank