the sleeper must awaken... or maybe i should go to sleep.

hello! i'm sleepy, and that's a weird way to introduce myself, but it might represent my current place pretty well. you see, if i were on campus at Western Kentucky University right now, just seven minutes shy of midnight, i would either be tiredly feeding my illicit hamster, Jackson, a carrot before allowing myself to flop onto my elevated dorm bed, or i would be gearing myself up for a late-nighter with coffee and self-encouraging maxims. however, as a recent graduate, i am lying on my parent's couch without an exhilarating and exhausting day of classes, studying, and bumming around Bowling Green to tucker me out or any legitimate reason to stay awake. (i am also acknowledging to myself that, even as an English major, i will have to look up the "lay" vs. "lie" rule EVERY time i use one of them.)

it has been WONDERFUL to spend more time with my family and take the days a little bit slower, but i feel sort of like a confused sleepwalker in this adjustment period without the friends, professors, coffee shops, dive bars, and breathtaking southern Kentucky sunsets that i've taken for granted during the last four years. (sort of like Dustin Hoffman in The Graduate when he's wearing his new diving suit in the swimming pool...)

but it's time to wake up! cue the source of this entry's title: "Without new experiences, something inside of us sleeps. The sleeper must awaken." – Frank Herbert, Dune

the thing is, i'm leaving for Korea in 36 days, and that's the reason i'm starting this blog - and the reason i need to get my butt in gear... i will spend the next year living with a host family and teaching high school English. topping off my to-do list are learning some (or a lot of!!) Korean and, of course, TRAVELING! i have so much to do before i leave, and only so much time to soak up with family and friends.

so, welcome to my blog! feel free to keep up with my eye-opening journeys and experiences or to ignore my existence altogether! as the aforementioned English major, i have to excuse myself in advance, for there is a 100% chance that i will include horrible punctuation, sentence fragments, entirely unnecessary parentheticals, and many other grammatical atrocities in this blog. as a journalism major also, i hang my head ashamedly to acknowledge that i probably won't have a consistent and focused theme in this blog. but, it's just for fun, or, to quote the adorable Freddie Highmore in his role as Peter Llewelyn Davies in the movie Finding Neverland, "This is just a bit of silliness, really." enjoy!