Almost there...almost ready...

I have been talking about writing this blog for quite awhile now, but it seems about right that I should finally sit down and start it from this LA hotel. It is here that tomorrow I will meet the rest of the Peace Corps Vanuatu: Group 22, and it is with all of them that I will depart for Vanuatu tomorrow night. I have been thinking about this Peace Corps thing for just about 2 years now, and tomorrow is feeling like a pretty good reality. Finally. As to the title of this blog, some readers may already be aware of my obsession with my all-time favorite quote "Celebrate this day!" And as I use it to title the blog for my 27-month adventure with Peace Corps in Vanuatu, I want to share with you (or remind you) where this wonderful phrase comes from. A fabulous professor I had at Oberlin, named Booker Peek, ends every single email he ever writes with these words. He is a pretty rockin' professor, educator, and advocate for every single child in the town of Oberlin, Ohio. I hope he doesn't mind that I have pirated his phrase :). I have always loved it and it feels like the only natural way for me to start this blog. I aim to do just what these words say, every day in Vanuatu: Celebrate this day! (Besides, I'm more or less going to a tropical paradise... who wouldn't celebrate?) Here's my address, as snail mail is pretty much my only guaranteed mode of communication. Laura Dodd, PCV Peace Corps Private Mail Bag 9097 Port Vila

This is why I'm going to Vanuatu: (from Times Square with Emily, who incidentally is teaching in a school district of 1 million students, a population over ten times greater than the entire population of young people in the entire county of Vanuatu)