...think that I'm crazy... or so the song goes.

Actually most people I know are really excited for us as we embark on this exchange. People at work are really excited and positive. A few have some reservations about worse case scenarios that might occur if I'm not there. What happens if the network falls over? What happens if the reporting software crashes? What happens if the student database needs updating? and so on. But by and large, people seem to be pretty pleased for us. Our friends keep saying that they wish they were going too, or that they'd always thought about doing something like it too.

The phrase "opportunity of a lifetime" keeps getting mentioned, but I don't particularly like the term myself. It implies that this is something that can happen only once, or that it will be some experience that can never be matched. As much as I'm looking forward to the exchange, I'm not keen to see any event as "the peak" of my life. So I think I'd prefer to think of the exchange as "a great opportunity" rather than an "opportunity of a lifetime".

I'm not sure my mum is so keen on the idea. I suspect she thinks we are being a bit crazy, and that we will find Canada too cold, or too lonely, or too big, or too... something. I think she worries about how much money it will cost, or how much it might set us back financially. She probably worries about our levels of debt, or our health, or our safety, or a million other things that could go wrong. I guess it's only natural that she feels these things, cause after all she is my mum, and mums never really stop worrying about such things.

We'll be ok mum. Honest.