An ever-expanding to-do list

I firmly believe one of life's great pleasures is the creation of task lists and the subsequent crossing off of items. It is both cathartic and productive, the two factors by which I measure almost everything in my life.

The pre-departure list for the Peace Corps, as one may imagine, is lengthy and prone to additions. I just found out today that among my extremely-specific list of 20 or so things (besides the obvious ones like moving out of my apartment), I have to get a H1N1 vaccine before showing up/"reporting for duty" (the terminology of which freaks me out) in Philadelphia. I thought I was like the lone holdout on this vaccine, and darn it(!), I was successful for so long. I mean, I'm all for vaccines if it's something that could prevent irreparable damage (who could argue against the polio booster we had to get?) but flu-shmu. Whatever, though.

In any case, here are a few lists I've been pondering:

Things I most look forward to:
1. gaining a new family in the PC and in my community in Niger
2. this experience as an all-encompassing personal challenge
3. a slower pace of life with less technology and more focus on people
4. silence (the presence of which is pure conjecture and dependent upon my site placement, but a girl can hope)
5. letter-writing - with my best friend especially. We have a long history of written communication. It's very Austen-esque.
6. learning about plants and animals native to Niger/West Africa and somehow obtaining a friendly stray dog

Things I really, really dread:
1. saying goodbye to said best friend and her partner
2. driving to the airport with my parents. I'm tearing up thinking about it.
3. missing David Gray's Fall tour. I'm sorry, Dave, but if you could tone down your creative juices for the next two years, that'd be most advantageous.
4. No Sunday NY Times. I don't even care how pretentious that makes me sound.
Not sure what else to say, other than onward and upward, which seems like a good way to end any kind of list at all.