Things high school prepared me for...and didn't

God bless Ms. Adkins, my high school Spanish teacher, who blessed me with the strategies to learn foreign languages (in a sense...because technically, I'm only fluent in English. Oh well.) To be honest, I think she was in the Witness Protection Program because she vanished once in the middle of the semester, and then she just up and vanished one summer and never came back. Strange. Anyway, she was the first to introduce the "Flash Card" technique, and I feel very proud to be using it now as I learn Tongan.
Hehe. Did you hear that? I'm learning Tongan. It just SOUNDS cool!
SO: Tongan is a cool language. It has 17 letters in the alaphabet (including the ', which called a faka'ua), and the ng (pronounce like in singing...it's soft).
My favorite word so so far is fakamolemole (sorry), and I also like the sound of pa'anga (money), although I won't have a lot of pa'angas. However, the PC gives me a stipend of the average income sum in the village/city/island where I'll be.
An island! I'm living on an island! AHHHHHHHHH!
Anyway, I've gotten the first load of paperwork/homework done (apply for PC passport, read 3-4 diff. handbooks, contact loan officials--damn student loans,) and now I am giving away half my closet (I mean, I don't want them to sit in my closet two years to collect dust and minor borrow-age from my sister,) researching shoes to buy, painting, etc. Within 1-2 weeks I will receive my traveling information for "Staging", which is the orientation event in a major US city. I'll stay there 2 days and then ship off to meet my new Tongan life! The PC will give me the information--city, hotel, lalala, and then I'll have to make the reservations with this travel agency place.
I thought flying by myself to Belgium was one thing--I felt very grown up and adultish when I did--but NOW I even have to arrange my own transportation from the city airport to the hotel...as in a taxi or something! I know my small town-ness is definitely showing up, and I've even been in a taxi in DC for the inauguration, but my mind is just wobbling with all these small and huge details.
This is also quite shallow of me, but the obesity rate in Tonga is either the 1st or 2nd highest in the world. I'm scared. I'll leave it at that.
BUT I'll also get to eat mangoes and papayas! Now that is flippin cool.