A note on friends

The response to this endeavor among my friends has wavered between the ecstatic, the nervous, and the jealous. 

Come to think of it, the first and the third could be combined into one solid group. These are the people who are green with envy over the fact that I have a chance to do something so interesting and in a place that many have never been (ha! it's my turn now!). These are the people who clap me on the back and tell me to have a good time and stay safe and do something completely asinine. 

Then there are the other people. The nervous ones. 

These are the people this blog is for... oh who am I kidding, I also want to shove my time overseas in the jealous people's faces (ha! it's my turn now!). 

Allow me to expound. 

There is a belief among a certain contingent of my friends that I do things that are willfully dangerous, and putting me into a could-be-a-war-zone type of situation is like setting  a rabid, starving, ill-tempered wolf with no self control and a sweet tooth loose in the sick ward of an orphanage after dusting all the little children in sugar. 

For those of you new to the world of Brian Roan, yes, I take incredible risks. 

One time while I was hiking in New Mexico we found a rock formation called Lover's Leap. It's basically a huge stone diving board that drops many hundred feet. I'm afraid of heights. So obviously I had to hand my camera to someone and walk all the way to the edge, hanging one foot over the edge while the other balances barely on the lip of the drop. Then, after I got my picture, I walked back with my camera to lean over to prove how far down the drop is.

That was when I was 17. 

Now, at 21, I've had time to compound my lust for madness. So yea, that could be a problem.

However, as a journalist who takes my career seriously and who understands this is a big thing for my future, I won't be running down the street with a gun looking for a fight. Though reenacting that last siege scene from Children of Men sounds awesome...

That's probably not helping my case.

Anyway.

Then there are the people who will miss me terribly. As in "You're going to leave a void in my life." 

As far as I know there are only one or two of these people.

This blog is especially for you. Thanks to this wonderful piece of technology you can imagine that every day I am chilling out with you, drinking whiskey out of a bottle, and telling you every little thing that went wrong/right/insane in my day. Just like I would if I were there.

Sure my physical presence will be missing, and as such so will my wild hand motions, crazy voices, syntax, manic energy... all that rot. And the rants. Oh the rants. How will I ever transcribe them? Still, this is the best I can do, and I do it for you. 

For one of you specifically.

So you better be reading this.

....

Well? Are you reading it?