Having spent a week out east with the best friends god ever put on this earth, I have returned to my home planet of Alderaan feeling somewhat rested and reinvigorated. There is nothing like a few days spent in the company of those people who know us so well that when we cry they do not need to express concern with the thoughtful inquiry, "what's wrong? would you like to talk about it?" because they already know. These are people who finish my sentences (usually better than I would have done), laugh at a glance, and share my deeply held belief that everthing, everything, has value. Actually, these are the people who taught me that, and whose example of perfect friendship has been an inspiration to me for seven years. The only thing wrong with the visit was its brevity.
In addition, while in Chassamusetts i received a phone call from a delightful Mancunian responding to my inquiry regarding my questionable status as a postgraduate student. She inormed me that i "definately passed." her words. One ulcer-inducing worry down, four to go.* I loaded up all the crap that I had left behing in my friends' basement for the year I was in Manchester (an entire apartment's worth of furnishings from my previous life as a plant pathologist and manager in one of Boston's largest interior-landscaping firms) into a rental truck, and hit the open road.
It takes about 16 hours to drive from Massachusetts to Michigan, and I loved every minute of it. There is a strong accompanying sensation of liberation to living like a turtle with all your worldly possessions in the back of the truck you're driving. I queued up Queen and the Beatles on the pod and drove til i was too tired to see straight, enjoying the sight of the many raptors, deer, wild turkeys (poor bastards; it's a bad week to be a turkey) and bison along the way. When I arrived home, ulcer-inducing worry no. 2 had been aleviated. My final grades showed that I got a perfectly respectable 68 on my diss**. Enough for an upper-second (the best I could hope for after Ruble screwed me out of my Latin grade), and hopefully admission to York. 2 down, 3 to go.
Today is a good day. My bro and his fiance' are coming in to celebrate Thanksgiving. They'll arrive sometime tonight. Mom, dad and i have spent the day cooking, cleaning, and cooing over the big, fluffy, wet flakes that began coming down after lunch.
Tomorrow will be good. Stay tuned for the pitfully predictable Turkey Day blog, "Things I'm Grateful For."
*the other four are as follows:
1. By how much did I pass? Did i scrape through by the metaphorical skin of my teeth, or did I get the nice, cushy 75 that I hoped for?
2. If I get a sufficiently high grade on my diss, will I be accepted to the University of York for my Ph.D.?
3. If I get accepted at York, will I be able to conjure up the dough to pay for it?
4. Will anyone ever fall in love with me?
**Not too shabby, especially when you consider that my advisor didn't respond to a single email the last 3 weeks before the thing was due, and neither she nor anyone else ever proof-read a single paragraph of my paper. Entirely my own work. (I have this stupid, juvenlie neurosis about permitting people to read my work before I've decided it's done. I can't do it.)
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