5 Days Left...Time to get down to business

So, there's less than a week left. Thankfully, I've been hanging out with a neighbor all week, so I've had plenty of distractions to keep me from freaking out...unfortunately that also means I've had plenty of distractions to keep me from being properly productive...

So now, it's time to pack! Thankfully, mom's a HUGE help with stuff like that. She's been making me bags to organize my stuff within my back pack, so I can just grab pjs, or underwear and socks, or whatever. However, I haven't actually started packing or figuring out what I want to go in each bag...so I need to do that...

Mom also made me a geology field bag that's big enough for my computer, a notebook, pencils, my testing kit, a water bottle, and whatever else I want/need with me in the field (technically including my rock hammer, but that's not coming to Europe with me) and fits on me just the way I like! It's awesome! I love it! And it's tough enough to withstand being brought into the field with me!

She also managed to find the perfect size of ziplock baggies for me for collecting samples! They're the PERFECT size! My boyfriend, Dustin (also a geology major at UWRF), and I simply freaked over them, because they're hard to find! At least for us. Mom makes it sound really easy and says it is...but not for us!

But, as of now, I've also had my first full-blown meltdown over being gone for a whole semester and being away from all my friends and family. So, I'm definitely nervous about that now. But I can do it! This semester's going to be amazing!

The Countdown Has Begun

I leave in 10 days, practically 9 now. The countdown has begun.

Now it's time for all of the last minute stuff, including packing. Mom and I are both feeling the pressure. We went shopping today...and only got maybe half of the things on my shopping list...and added lots of new items to the list, of course. We have a laundry bin full of things to be brought, or to potentially be brought.

I have lots of scanning to do, so I don't need to bring the heavy binders full of all my notes for semester abroad and on volcanoes in general. I'm doing lots of research still. And then I need to scan those notes onto my computer.

I have bookings to make. I have reading to do. I have packing to do. None of which alone are too difficult. But all of them together is a terrifyingly HUGE list of things to be accomplished. And this week, I'm hanging out with an old neighbor of mine, so she isn't home alone. I'm so excited for that...but at times it seems impossible for me to be able to accomplish everything!

Thankfully, I at least feel like I'm actually learning stuff while reading. And I'm actually managing to accomplish things, however slowly that may be.

So, some interesting things about the volcanoes I'll be studying...

• The typical eruption style of Vesuvius is the Plinian style, which is named after Pliny the Younger, who wrote about the first recorded eruption of Vesuvius. The Plinian eruption style is a voluminous eruption of large clouds of "fire-broken", or pyroclastic, material in a column shape that usually collapse into a flow, like a river,  of the same material. 
• When Vesuvius erupted in 79 AD, the eruption that makes Vesuvius famous, there were two pyroclastic flows. The first was when the column of ash, rock, and gas, or the pyroclastic material, originally collapsed. Then, it actually destroyed the town of Herculaneum, before the second flow destroyed the famous city of Pompeii. 

Sadly, that is all I feel up to sharing at this particular moment, and that is some of the most interesting stuff I have learned so far. But I will keep posting and sharing more interesting tidbits that I learn!

In the meantime, thank you for reading and finding my blog interesting! Keep safe! And wish me luck with getting ready in time for my flight to Paris on September 5th!