Transition

I just got back from our week long class field trip to Sicily--it was awesome! Beautiful weather, lots of hanging out on the beach and hiking around mountains, and now and then some class time and learning, too:-) Oh, and one of the cities we visited was Syracuse, where lots of famous people have spent time--a few notable ones being Archimedes, Plato, and even St. Paul for a few days! That was one of my favorite fun facts from the trip.

Anyway, our flight arrived back in Rome tonight at 8 pm, and I'm leaving tomorrow for Greece from that same airport at 3 pm. So tonight has been filled with unpacking and repacking, reorganizing things in my hotel room and in studio, etc, etc...finishing one thing and getting ready for another; what's generally known as a transition. I was thinking about that earlier, and thinking how transitions are usually difficult times for me. Moving back and forth between home and school always took a few days to get used to. This year, though, I spend quite a bit of time in transitions--basically all the time we're traveling could be considered that, since we're living out of backpacks and never stay in the same place for more than a few nights. But somehow, none of those transitions seem very hard. And even the craziness of getting back from Sicily one night and leaving for Greece less than 24 hours later doesn't seem that bad. So it raised the question in my mind, am I getting better about transitioning? Or is there just something about these particular sorts of transitions that make them easier? It's probably a little bit of both. I'm pretty sure that my traveling this year is made easier by the fact that I'm almost always with the same set of people when I do it. It takes away half the transition, I guess. Places change, but the people stay the same, whereas when I move back and forth from St. Louis to South Bend, the place AND the people change. And as for whether or not I'm better at transitioning in general...well maybe I'll find out at the end of April, when I come back to the U.S. It's starting to seem like that's approaching rather quickly, especially since our last field trip is now over. And I'm pretty sure that will NOT be an easy transition. I don't want to think about it quite yet, though. For now, I'll focus on having a blast in Greece! And getting some sleep before then, which should help make the transition a LITTLE easier:-)