From Thursday through next Saturday, I will be in: Sacramento, Washington D.C., Charlottesville, Dublin, Ireland; Brussels, Belgium and Glasgo, United Kingdom.

I will wind up at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland, where I will spend the next three months.

There will be five plane flights. Numerous buses and time zones. A couple of trains.

All I really have to do is get to Aberdeen, Scotland in time to start classes.

I could have done it in one flight, but I decided to take a couple detours.

It’s not like I’ve never travelled or transitioned before.

I’ve lived in 13 different places, from the rural South to Southern California.

I’ve been to Japan with my family and to Mexico, New Orleans and Tennessee with different churches.

But I’ve never really done anything like this.

Just the logistics of figuring out the planes, trains and automobiles while trying to spend as little money as possible was a new experience that’s still in process weeks after it began.

I’m apprehensive about what I’m doing.

Will OU be the same when I get back? Moving so frequently tells me that it most certainly will not be, but, often, change is good.

Will I be the same? Do I want to be this person for the rest of my life?

What if I miss my alarm and miss my flight to Ireland?

And who wants to be friends with the kid who’s leaving in three months?

My best friend has been posting pictures of Scotland recently.

From what I see, I don’t know why anyone would want to live anywhere else.

Aberdeen is on the North Sea coast, where, as my dad tells me, tourists sometimes die of exposure, getting caught in the winter storms. Apparently, it gets really cloudy and dark as winter progresses.

I’ve been told to bring a bright light and a brolly (Britspeech for umbrella) so I don’t get depressed and wet.

Will I start using a Scottish accent? Time will tell.

I already slip into a British accent occasionally, and I definitely find myself using British vowels when a Brit comes into the KFC where I work.

Is that normal?

As a confession, I definitely felt my heart skip a beat when I called the Aberdeen airport and the lady who answered had a Scottish accent.

I think it sounds cool, despite the fact I know it’s totally normal and totally uncool to make a big deal about it.

Part of me feels like a little kid about to embark on a grand adventure, a whirlwind of faces, places and conversations, but part of me knows this is just another semester.

Another part of me feels the shadow of graduation looming and the adventure that lies beyond that, which is much more uncertain.

But that can wait. I’ve learned that much this summer.

For today, I pack, repack, and wait.

What waits in store, only God knows.

James Metelak is an OU senior studying at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland this fall and a guest columnist for The Daily.