I'm here. Yay. Tired of travelling, but it looks like more is in the works.

Finally though I'm back in Parakou. I'm looking forward to a day of sitting at home and catching up on my projects. Of course it should be interesting, as I'm now poorer than the poorest of the poor. I have 0 CFA. I spent every last penny going up to see the animals at Park Pendjari (which was really cool, although we did not see elephants sadly).

Even so, I'm trading pepperoni tonight for a pizza dinner. Hooray for a barter based economy where pepperoni is king!

Well, that's it. I graduated college (provided I passed all my classes).

It seems sort of anti-climactic to be sitting here on the couch in my living room alone. Yet, here I am. In honesty it hasn't really hit me quite yet that it's all over. I won't be going to work on Monday, I won't be going to class on Monday. Life changes are really odd, and things have been so busy I guess I haven't really come to terms with what is going on.

I'm leaving the country in 3 weeks...

I am leaving the country in THREE weeks.

Holy crap.

Perhaps this is an odd ending, but it's quite an odd begninning as well. But, you know what? I'm okay with that.

Goodbye college life, goodbye San Luis Obispo, goodbye omphaloskepsis.org.

Hello to being lost in Benin.

Ho ho, you doubting thomases out there who thought I would miss my deadline on lostinbenin.com HA! I beat it. The site is roughly 90% live now. I could delay it until tomorrow, but I want to hang out with my friends tomorrow and not have to remember to launch at midnight. So bah!

I present to you Lost in Benin.

Woo, officially finished my last final last night. No more finals ever (provided my performance was adequate... *gulp*). I proceeded downtown to where I was supposed to meet my friends at Grapollo's (aka the sweetest bar in SLO). No one came *sob*. I had fun anyway though. We've been going there for like 2 years, so we know the bartender pretty well and he was making sure I didn't see the bottom of my glass. Then, at one point he poured me a triple shot of Jameson. *shudder* I'm not a huge fan of the Jameson, but I couldn't be rude... Actually I was surprised, this was some sort of top-shelf high class Jameson that went down really smooth. Finally around 8 (and a phone call) Shane came down and we had another round. Total for the evening: 5 Guinness, triple shot of Jameson: $13. Can't beat that! (Going rate for a Guinness at any other bar downtown is >$4, Jameson per shot would be at least $4)

Tonight though the real work begins. I've got to finish up an extra credit assignment, pack crap, finish lostinbenin.com and some other miscellaneous stuff. It has to get done tonight, because tomorrow is our Graduation Wine and Cheese party! Ah!

Departing Monday July 4, 2005

United Airlines Flight Number: 6578 Coach Class Y
Depart: SANTA BARBARA,CA 07:38AM July 4, 2005
Arrive: LOS ANGELES,CA 08:18AM July 4, 2005
Total Flight Time: 40 Minutes Non-Stop

United Airlines Flight Number: 92 Coach Class Y
Depart: LOS ANGELES,CA 09:00AM July 4, 2005
Arrive: PHILADELPHIA,PA 05:20PM July 4, 2005
Total Flight Time: 5 Hours 20 Minutes Non-Stop

I'll be in Philadelphia until the 8th, at which point I fly to New York, Paris, and finally Porto Novo, Benin. Things are now officialy official.

For those of you with the obsessive type relationship with me, feel free to continue your stalking activities at the new Benin Crew Shared Blog. It's not too exciting in content for outsiders, but it's cool that I'll know like 9 people before I even get to training!

Whew, it's Saturday. The eye of the storm. I actually don't have anything to do today, which is novel to say the least. Yesterday was nice. First, I passed my EE class, don't have to take the final... schweet. AND, I got my new guitar! Hooray! It's sweet, it's smaller than my other guitar and I got a new back-pack case for it. I'm quite happy with it.

A couple of days ago I got contacted via the comment board by a certain "Theresa". Somehow, through the magic of google, she found my site and invited me to take part in e-mail based conversations with 7 others who are leaving for Benin with me! That's totally freakin' sweet! It's cool having contact with people before we leave, it'll make the whole staging thing go a lot smoother I anticipate since we'll have already as much as been introduced. Very cool indeed.

Man, only 1 more week from today until Cal Poly becomes a memory. That is absolutely insane.