Little Red Shoebox of Teen Clichés

There is something about a cold, rainy night that just begs to mark the start of my blog about travelling to the desert. It is three days before I set off to Abu Dhabi and so far I've only gone through half of my packing. Along the short-sleeved shirts, jeans and soon-to-be obsolete sweaters lie a red shoebox with my most prized possessions and a hollow tube holding my rolled-up lucky shirt.

The story about the latter is simple, it is a red, threadbare, University of Cincinnati, size L T-Shirt which my dad bought a couple of days before I was born. As a kid, I would wear it for luck on test days, as a teen, I wore it on my first date with the girl who became my first real girlfriend. Now I take it along as a prized memory of those times and as a favor to the ever-gullible me.

The shoebox has a bit more of a story, which I will spare you in the interest of keeping at least some of my readers around long enough to read my other posts. Inside it are little relics, mixCDs from friends and crushes, a brick from my old middle school, plane tickets from significant moments in my life (moving back to Chile, New York, Abu Dhabi) and other trinkets, all of which I'd protect with my life. (Beware Air France, lose this bag and face my wrath).

Seeing these prized possessions out of their usual hiding spot in the uppermost, deepest part of my closet is the clearest indication of the journey I am about to take on. My mind is surprisingly far from my classes and the weather, two very important challenges looming over the Atlantic, but rather concentrated on hoping I will meet more people that will fill the small red shoebox till it bursts. What kind of people? Thank you for asking, rhetorical device, its actually the name of the blog.

"The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live mad to talk mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing but burn burn burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes 'awww!' "

-Kerouac's On The Road