Mum’s been on at me for a long time to start writing again. Occasionally I glance at Student at Large, gathering electronic dust as my life moves on and leaves it behind but the effort to write, edit and proof read always seems too much. In my defense, a lot has happened over the past year and a half that’s affected my entire family and me and made writing difficulty. I’m hoping that I just needed a break from the blog scene while I sorted things out and picked my way through a haphazard first term of University. Now the snow is melting on the common, transforming it from a winter wonderland to something that resembles a ravaged park in downtown Sarajevo. People’s mood seems to reflect the increasingly volatile weather, tempers fray more easily than before and I’m increasingly pressed to provide all the requests of alcohol runs now I’m finally twenty-one. I find myself thinking more and more of El Salvador, waiting for Sunday when I’ll finally be shouldering my backpack once again and boarding a plane heading south. I think it’s this next adventure down south that’s spearheading my renewed attempts to journal again and I’m hoping that this entry isn’t merely a one off.

It’s probably best that for once I actively explain why I’m heading out from America in a flash of hiking boots and backpack instead of having the reader guess from the occasional dropped hint. The trip I’ll be taking next week is different from anything I’ve had the opportunity to do since I left Shackleton. I won’t be doing anything stupid for one thing; chances are there will be no machete strapped to my pack and a severe lack of bizarre Nicaraguans with rifles sharing my bus. In truth I’m not even traveling by public transport, this expedition will be by mini-van, a luxury that fills me with trepidation. Several months I was selected to take part in a Suffolk trip to El Salvador that would follow the footsteps of a Suffolk Law graduate, Joe Moakley. Former congressman Moakley is famous in Central America for his role in uncovering a conspiracy concerning the deaths of El Salvadorian missionaries and their housekeeper. We’re going down, video camera in hand to gain insight into the political events that has left El Salvador one of the most scarred places on earth.

Now preparations are nearing completion, the date of departure nearly upon us. I’ve been growing a slight beard so an El Salvadorian barber will have something to shave off with his close edged razor and thick brush. In the Moakley institute where the aforementioned congressman’s files are stored I checked over piles of equipment and wrote down a list of camera parts I would need. After a great deal of nagging I even managed to persuade my best friend Roy to sign up and join the small group of fifteen though I’m worried slightly at his enthusiasm concerning the machete he hopes to buy the minute we land. Now however the sun is setting in Boston, dinner waiting in sickly heaps in the dormitory cafeteria and Roy and Freddy returning soon from a weekend in Maine. I’ll leave thoughts of Central America behind and return to the mundane task of doing homework, something that never ceases to fill me with dread and is unfortunately never as interesting as procrastination.