Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes!

If you sung that as you read it, congratulations, it worked.

You can probably tell there's some changes coming up. A few weeks ago I was formally offered another position within my company - one that's a step or two up from where I'm currently at - and I accepted. I have to go get certified for the things I've been doing for the past two years, and then once I come back from Pennsylvania, I'll be out in my new position for the start of the season.

Out in meaning out in Buffalo.

By the end of March/beginning of April, I have to move from Central New York to Western New York. Which, considering my original time frame - as discussed back in December - was end of May/beginning of June...well, I think I'm probably a little overwhelmed.

And trying to find an apartment to move into in little over a month.

So. That's where I'm at. And I'll hopefully do better at keeping an update and just the whole blogging thing in general. Like the trip to Savannah, GA, I took with my parents last week.

-Molly Louise

Something to Be Thankful For

Last week was Thanksgiving. We had, as per usual, a boatload of people in the house. We also had a boatload of people staying in our hours for the week, too. My aunt and uncle from Maine, my two cousins and their dog from South Carolina, stayed at our bed and breakfast (what we jokingly call our house in the summer because it's like a permanently revolving door twenty-four hours a day with who is getting up for work, leaving for work, and coming home from work...but that's a different story for another time) and we had something like sixteen or seventeen people for dinner Thursday.

I had to work. It was an utter madhouse at the hotel: we did 685 for our buffet dinner, ran out of turkey, and had fun with each other so we didn't go absolutely batshit crazy. Well, we went batshit crazy anyway, but the highlight of having to work on a day when we were supposed to be with our families - which people continually thanked us for - was sitting down at the end after all the customers had left and the dishes had been taken back to the kitchen, and having our own sort of family dinner from the left overs. We were all tired and punchy and it was one of those things that I'll hang onto for a long time.

What I'll also hang onto is that a week ago Monday was my twenty-fourth birthday. With all that happened this year - and it's been a rough year - I honestly, at some points, didn't think I would see it. But I did. And to be able to celebrate it, and look forward to another year patched up and ready to take on the world is something that will make this birthday the most special that I will ever have. I will always remember this one. Not because of the food or the presents, but simply because I am still alive.

My family, the jokers they are, have hinted they're going to get me a cow tag - like you can buy at Tractor Supply - with the number 23 on it. I have to say I really like this idea, and I'm hoping to find it in my stocking on Christmas morning. And if anybody asks me about it, well, I have a story that's stranger than fiction. But they say the truth usually is.

Hope you all had a happy holiday, and oh, hey, it's December. When the hell did that happen?

To Those Who Wait

There is the idea that good news comes to those who wait. In a fit of brilliance last Thursday I totally forgot to check my email all day and the result was that, at roughly 9 pm that night, I had 18 new messages in my inbox.

One of them was a conditional acceptance letter to the University of Central Lancashire.

I only applied to three programs, and the one I've been conditionally accepted into is my second choice. Still, I ran through the house (as best one can with a still-healing sternum) and very excitedly told my parents because, well, I've been accepted to grad school!

It was unexpected. It's not that I have that low of an opinion of myself, it's just that my four years of undergrad were rough in places, and my GPA reflects that. I missed finishing with a 3.0 by .13, which, at the time didn't seem like a lot, but when you put it on an application along with your transcripts starts to feel like a chasm.

The other good news is that one of the other universities I applied to - University of Strathclyde, in Glasgow - wants an academic reference. I'm choosing to take this as a very good thing.

In the meantime, I will wait to hear from the other two, as well as the agent currently reading the rest of Two for the Rent. Good vibes and crossed fingers are much appreciated.

The Process

So last blog post, way back when (yeah, I'm good like that, eventually I'll know what the hell I'm doing) I hinted about something that I'd share...soon.

Classify this as soon.

There really hasn't been much available on the job front for me. Which is weird, because I have a bachelors degree in chemistry with a minor in theater. I'm still waiting to hear anything useful from Chicago - or anything at all, I'm not picky - and the other jobs that I've applied for through government agencies have been fails, too.

That being said, I applied for grad schools.

Three, so far, and all of them in the UK. I try not to think too hard about what it means for the future of American education when I can get a masters degree for between $16,000 and $25,000 in a year to fifteen months abroad where doing it in my own country would cost at least double that.

Now it's just a waiting game, and most of you know how much I love waiting. Which isn't a whole hell of a lot. So keep your fingers crossed for me, if you remember. And this will probably make me feel like I've gotten into college all over again. Because, well, technically (hopefully!) I will be in college all over again.

And sometimes second chances are the best thing for a person.

Cowheart

I've thought about how I would start this post. About what I would say. I've made it a point to be honest because I'm a bluntly honest person. And you can't sugarcoat something like this.

So here's the reasoning behind my newest, and most favorite twitter hashtag #cowheart.

I was born twenty-three years ago with an ASD - atrial septum defect - meaning there was a hole in my heart between the top two chambers. (Quick anatomy lesson - you have four chambers, two upper, two lower.) Only we didn't know I was born with this. I played fourteen years of soccer, starting travel when I was eleven. I was a three sport athlete during high school, including when I went to Holland, Belgium, and Germany for a week to play over there. I played my first year and a half of college, too.

And still nobody found it.

The heart palpitations started spring of 2012. They continued periodically for the next year. Doctors like to think that anything that goes wrong with the average college student is stress related. Which, maybe, could have been it. It had been a hell of a last six months or so, what with things going on at home, getting three D's on my transcript, and finding out that I wasn't going to graduate that May. But things like that don't really make me anxious.

But they didn't go away when I finished in December and moved back home to wait the four months to walk across the stage. So we kept at it. My primary care physician referred me to a cardiologist, who, first, hooked me up with an event monitor for a month. That was my wired for sound period, where I wore a monitor for a month straight and only unstuck myself to shower. If I had any palpitations I was to push the button, wait for it to stop screeching at me, and then call the recording in for the medical center to then send to my cardiologist.

There was nothing on the monitor at the end of the month. Still, I kept having palpitations where I thought my heart was just going to up and quit. So he decided on doing an echocardiogram. (An ultrasound, pretty much, for your heart.)

That's when, in March of 2013, they discovered the hole. We just didn't know how big it was, and because there was no baseline for this kind of thing, he decided he would monitor it. I had the instructions to carry on like normal - work, refereeing, whatnot - and did just that. Carrying on like normal involved going down to a soccer tournament in Gettysburg, taking a train to Chicago to take exams, and working 25-35 hours a week as a waitress. It also included getting a second job because my student loans went into repayment this summer.

A few weeks into July it was time for another echo. A few days after I had gone in for the exam I got a phone call from a nurse. One of my valves wasn't...functioning properly. And there was some enlargement. She royally freaked me out completely, and it took a visit with my cardiologist in order to basically be calm again. He did agree that the hole was larger than we had first thought, and that, as it appeared to have grown larger in a short amount of time, wanted me to have it patched. So he sent me to a cardiologist at the University of Rochester Medical Center.

Originally, when we talked with the cardiologist, he was going to use a little device like a double-sided umbrella to patch the hole. He needed a better picture of it, where it was and how big it was, and we scheduled a TEE - they knock you out, put a camera down your throat, and take pictures of your heart from the inside. It would give them what they needed to know. We scheduled that.

After the TEE is when things changed rather drastically. They learned the hole was huge, and couldn't be patched the little device. Using the device would have allowed them to go in through the leg, and involving a minimal hospital stay. And a shorter recovery time.

But you can't do that with a hole in your heart the size of a half dollar.

I had open heart surgery August 29. It's a heady thing, to know that in order to have a longer life expectancy you have to have your sternum cracked, heart stopped, and the hole patched with a piece of cow. Medicine has come a long way since they first started doing this type of repair, but it's still batshit crazy to think about. I was scared. Even when you know it has to happen, it's still terrifying on a certain level.

One of the things I remember from those first post-surgery moments in CVICU is writing "I love you" on my sister's palm with my finger. I stayed in ICU for 24 hours, and was moved a stepdown unit the next day. I was in the hospital three full days following ICU. I've since been back home.

I'm doing really well. We're following the recovery plan - dictates diet and exercise - and while it's driving me nuts to not be able to move my arms above my head or lift over ten pounds, I manage. I've done a bit of reading, some writing, and I've watched a whole lotta episodes of CSI:NY, and Flashpoint on Netflix. But it's also given me a lot of time to think about what I want to do with my life, and what my next steps are after I've taken my 12-14 weeks to heal properly. I've got an idea. But that's a blog post for later.

As for the cowheart? Well, I'm part cow. I joke that I'm Iron Man, and the family jokes that whenever anyone eats steak we're eating my new relatives. Sometimes a little humor goes a long way. And right now I'm just taking it day by day.

Jack of All Trades

College student. Writer. Potential professional baker. Science geek. Theater kid. Aunt. Daughter. Wandering Sagittarius. Dancer.

Dancer?

Back at the beginning of September, one of my FB statuses was that I was doing something so far out of my comfort zone it was practically on another planet, because a zip code didn't seem to cover an out step of this magnitude. My mother was appropriately skeptical when I told her, as was my sister, and I'm pretty sure some of my friends outright laughed when I said, rather brightly, I'm trying out for Koshare.

It was something I'd always wanted to since I saw my first show back in Fall 2008, but...didn't. Didn't in Fall 2009, was living in Wales in Fall 2010, and was absolutely batshit crazy a year ago in Fall 2011. Now it's Fall 2012, and guess who's name is in the program under the dance Miss Demeanors? Mine.

I've got no problems stepping out on stage and facing a packed audience and playing a different character with different words, mannerisms, and - the last time I was on stage - downright scary facial expressions. This is different. This is me, Molly Louise, only with a little bit of hip hop in my body, some heat in my cheeks, and the on-going thought process of don't let me screw this up. I got this.

I guess I hadn't really thought about the magnitude of what I was doing, and how far from the normal me it was until I read part of what my sister had put on FB when a mutual friend of ours had mentioned harassing me - in good fun, more or less - at the performance she's attending this weekend. My sister is always going to have my back, but there...I'll admit, I was rather speechless when I read this.

Just the fact that she is participating in Koshare, something so far outside her comfort zone, makes me incredibly proud of her. So, doing anything to embarrass her or take away from that accomplishment is the LAST thing I would do.

 Tonight is opening night. And this sometimes conflicting Jack of All Trades plans to bring the house down. Which, to be honest, reinforces that nice little phrase I attempt to live by.

Carpe diem.

300 Heart-Shaped Sugar Cookies

A girl can wish, can't she? Apparently the six dozen my dad made for the house and delivered yesterday while they took my car to get it an inspection wasn't enough for the ravenous horde - and I say that with all the love in my heart - I live with. Considering these are also the people who ate their way through 74 homemade meatballs in one meal, I'm really not surprised.

I've had a fairly long day, including a rather awkwardly placed nap (which I really needed), and I've done some thinking. Normally Valentine's Day is a day when I feel more keenly the fact that I don't have a significant other. That I haven't had a date in three, almost four years. A day when it hurts just a little bit more to see girls wandering around with bouquets of flowers or boxes of chocolate-covered strawberries. The idea that they have someone for them in that capacity. And let's be clear, it's not just hetero couples. For those who have someone in that specific capacity, it's hard not to hit this particular day and feel a little left out.

The trick is to say to yourself it's only another day. All day. It's just Tuesday, February 14. Any other day.

There was class this morning. Then roughly two hours spent working on math disguised as chemistry. Looking back on that, my professors are the greatest. Especially for this independent study. They didn't have to take the time - we more or less worked through "lunch" though there was a package of Oreos out in the hallway to snack on - to work through this particular problem, and then work on another to make sure I really understood it, but they did. For that, the faculty in the Chemistry department are incredible.

And playing with little GC machines that used ambient air as the mobile phase? So totally cool. And yes, I will explain that further on down the road at some point, but the gist of it is that it was really cool science and a giant leap away from the monstrosity we had been using last semester.

Bottom line is that when you treat a day you might have problems with like any other day of the year, it gets more bearable. You don't necessarily remember what you think you're missing out on, but you realize more of what you can do. That it's possible to be an independent young lady (in my case) who's had to shuffle and reshuffle priorities and is still, sometimes, shuffling the deck again to find the perfect combination. Only it's probably not going to be perfect; merely workable. And then you work it.

That was for the "Heart-Shaped Sugar Cookies" part of the title. Here's the really fun part for today.

This is the 300th post for the Wandering Sagittarius.

I have this ridiculous smile on my face. I don't know why, but I have this smile on my face that won't seem to go away with the fact that I'm typing the 300th post in a blog that's not-quite three years old yet. That I have somehow managed to find enough in the life of an undergrad to write about for 300 posts. It's a little mind-blowing.

And thank you - a big thank you - to all of my 43 followers. Thank you, essentially, for listening. Ups, downs, those odd movements sideways. Thank you for hearing it all.

On a final note, while I raise my coffee cup to you wonderful people, happy 300th. Here's to looking forward to many, many more.

Instructions Included?

Sometimes I wonder if there's a right way and a wrong way to do this whole college thing. Which is weird, because for a lot of stuff I could give three shits about whether or not I'm playing by the rules.

Let's back up because that opening couple of sentences wasn't entirely....coherent.

College is about academics. Earn a degree in something practical (hopefully) and have some fun along the way. And that's great until your GPA winds up in the toilet from the worst semester of your life and you're left with, well, a really obvious direction and some choices that don't really feel like choices. Well, I've picked a direction, made a plan, and have support for this Plan. And yes, it deserves a capital letter because not only is it that important, I don't want it to get confused with other, lesser plans that happen day to day. This is a sort of life Plan we're talkin' about.

Anyway. So I have a direction and I have a plan, and so far, technically speaking, I've been executing this plan very well. I have yet to procrastinate on work. I've done all my reading for all my classes, and homework and everything else has been handed in one time. This Wednesday will mark three full weeks into the semester, and I think this is the best shape that I've ever been in and I really, really want to keep it going. I know I can keep it going which has become the crucial difference between this semester and others.

It's not a problem to be that focused during the week. Really, it's not. But once I hit Friday and Saturday, that little part of my brain, that part we don't necessarily like to listen to - or the part that shouts at us relentlessly - can't help but start to eke out, Are you sure you're doing this right?

Granted, I'm not big on going out and partying - I never have been, truthfully - but as I look at my housemates spending time getting ready (and all that encompasses), my offer to drive them turns into something halfway between being nice and concerned, and wanting to feel involved.

I haven't gone out one weekend this semester. I'm a senior. Is there something wrong with that picture?

The overwhelming part of me wants absolutely no cause or consideration for a repeat of last semester and last semester's GPA. None at all. It wasn't a happy time. Considering most everyone I talk to comments on how much more relaxed I am, I'll take it that everybody else could see just how destructive the last four months of 2011 were. And I had to just ride it out, and hope to come out on top. But now, with this fresh start - which it has been - I'm more or less content with what I'm doing and what I've currently got.

Stay in on weekends. Stay in on nights when there's no soccer. Do homework during free time in afternoons. Go to bed before midnight during week.

All of the above is working. Life is working. College is working.

But am I missing something quintessential to the college life? I'm a senior. Technically I'll still be a senior next year, but shouldn't there be something more to what's going on? Theoretically this is the last hoorah. But it's not, really. Not for me. And maybe that's what's making the difference. I don't really know, which is, honestly, why I'm asking you people.

It's not so much as a case of the grass being greener, but just wondering, sitting here on a Sunday night (early Monday morning, now), if there's something I'm missing.

And Sometimes We Lose

Back when I first started blogging, I made a promise to myself to be honest here, in this space. Not quite to the level of posting my journal entries - mostly because those have far more four-letter words than one would expect - but honest enough about life. Or the parts that are my story to tell, because a lot of what's happened in the past, oh, almost a year now, really, haven't always been mine to completely divulge.

This, however, is.

It's no secret last semester was difficult. In retrospect, it might have been too much. The experience, at times, was great. I'm not Superwoman, and I make no attempt to be on a regular basis, unless it's when I'm spending the day with my niece, and then, yes, Aunt Olly has both X-Ray vision and a little bit of magic up her sleeve. But in this setting, we don't always win.

Sometimes we lose.

This one of those moments when the best laid plans of mice and men and all that more or less falls out. Rather than graduating this upcoming May with my American Chemical Society Bachelor of Science in Chemistry degree, I'll be returning for another semester in the fall as I'm three courses shy for my degree. And three courses is one too many to be able to walk across the stage and then come back to finish. As it stands now, I'll graduate in May 2013 with both my bachelors and my teaching certificate.

There's nothing really easy about this acceptance. It's something you - or rather I - have to come to grips with and I have the support of both my family and my academic adviser. It was a difficult decision, especially when I could have dropped down to a Bachelor of Arts and graduated this year missing only one course. But the BS carries more weight. And, ultimately, for me to do what it is that I want to do - not to mention fulfill what I've been working towards for four years already - I decided to stick with my BS.

I've also come to the decision that, when I find an appropriate replacement, I'll give up being Editor in Chief of a school publication. It was something I enjoyed doing, but, it's not possible, given the circumstances. I will, however, for my sanity, continue to try and play Club Soccer, because that's one of my passions that I have only just gotten back. Not to mention it's not as large a commitment as an every-other-week publication.

Currently, that's where I stand. As for going back to Wales at the end of the semester? With all of this, as it is, and the probability that I'll take a summer course somewhere to help try and ease the load in the fall, it looks like my feet will be planted firmly on this side of the Atlantic for the time being. Which was also a difficult decision to make but one that's for the best.

This is the plan. There might be some developments to change this around a bit, but, in reality, this is what we're going forward with. And for as difficult as it was to sit down and write this, believe me, it's been tough to swallow.

But, as I am assured by multiple people, we will get through this. And, one thing I keep coming back to it, from my own sibling and my cousins, who have been through higher education, it doesn't matter what path you take, just as long as you arrive at your destination.

For All This Life

I've been on this earth twenty-two years. In those subsequent years, the toughest things I've had to do have been walking away from a great relationship with a wonderful person because I was going away to college, getting stuck in an airport for a single night due to a sudden monsoon in Philadelphia, having unexplained belly pain resulting in surgery my first semester of college, leaving my mother in an airport twice, only this time it was her that was leaving and me that was staying (not that it helped), calling my mother a few weeks later to tell her I wasn't coming home and didn't know when I could even think about getting on a plane and getting across the Atlantic, and the following five days of living in the Virgin Atlantic terminal at Heathrow Airport.

It's a toss up of whether all of the previous - collectively - trumps the past four months.

It's been difficult. That could be the understatement of 2011, truthfully, if sitting in my professor's office and, after going over the last exam and talking about where to go from there, fighting on three separate occasions not to cry is any indication. I've done really well since the first month of the semester to not let the center of my brain hijack the rest of it, which is the sort of scientific way of saying I haven't let myself panic as badly as I used to. It's probably not good for my heart, either, the amount of caffeine I ingest on a regular basis.

I don't want to use the word overwhelmed but that's really what it boils down to. Between what's going on up here - no need to insert the laundry list of stuff as that's already been done - and what's going on at home, it's difficult to get the distance required. 45 miles doesn't feel like 45 miles. Even if it were 3,000 I don't think it would work. Sometimes there's just not enough space on the planet to get the distance that feel necessary.

It's also difficult to not let the distance you need hurt the people who need you.

Yeah, that's one I'm still trying to wrap my head around and there are days when I'm successful and days when, well, I'm a giant fail at it. Lately, it seems that my failure days outnumber my non-failure days. It's a struggle, more often than not, to find my motivation and my Focus (slippery little bastard), and to do all I need to do when the only thing I really want to do is curl up in my amazingly comfortable dorm bed and block out the outside world and sleep for a solid eight hours. My beloved sister insists I can sleep when I'm dead, which I think has taken root in the back of my head because it's ten past midnight and I'm working on homework. I'm hoping - more or less planning, actually - to be in bed by three. Which means I have some things to get done right the hell now.

The bright side is that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. There's the fact that spring semester is going to be glorious. There's also the fact that I will be returning to Wales two weeks after graduation for three weeks. Yup, I was accepted into the summer program, and will be returning to a place that grew to be a second (third, maybe?) home.

But there's a lot to do between now and then. A lot to do. Still, there are days when you sit there, think, get a little lost in your head and wonder can I do this? Am I good enough to do this? Have I gotten in over my head? The next thought you think is the true kicker.

Is it really worth it?

There are days when I go cross-eyed looking at my own reflection in the mirror really wondering if the ends justify the means. I've been assured by numerous people they do indeed, but here, right here in this hot as hell corner room, you wonder. You really, really wonder.

Sitting here introspecting isn't getting my lesson plans done. And you know how much I love those damn things.

Focus Meets Train

I made a Facebook status sometime last week that detailed the fact that my Focus, my beloved Murfee, had more or less eaten too many cookies, rolled down the back hill, and was subsequently hit by a train as it passed by the house.

That should give you an accurate picture of how my semester has been going. Between two education seminars, four classes, a minimum of 20 hours community service (which, honestly, is actually 45, due to where I'm living), and three labs a week, I'm impressed that I'm still upright, mildly functioning, and haven't given myself a massive heart attack due to my caffeine consumption. I am, however, out of my meals provided by the Colleges courtesy of my meal plan, which isn't a big deal as I have a house with a kitchen, and thank sweet baby J that I have a coffee maker otherwise life would be more difficult than it already is on some days.

There is, however, a light at the end of the tunnel. That light is next semester's schedule - which I've already registered for - and it is glorious. No class on Mondays and I'm done on Fridays by 10:00 am. Essentially a four-day weekend my senior spring. Which brings me back to this happy fact:

I registered for my last semester of undergraduate classes.

Which prompted a whole string of thoughts, most of them involving four-letter words and something that sounded very similar to I don't give a shit what this semester turns out like as long as I pass everything with the minimum grade required to have it count for my major.

It's kind of sad, really, as I started off the semester really hoping that I'd be able to pull of a solid 3.0. At this point in my life, the more realistic goal, however hard it is to swallow, is that I'll be very lucky if the hard work that I'm putting in this semester results in the minimum grade required to have all this shit count for my degree. It's not like I'm slacking, but having three chemistry courses all over 300 level is, well, not only time-consuming but soul-sucking in a way that you haven't really got a concept of until you actually get there.

I'll be amazed if I have any sanity left at the end of the semester. That's when I'm assuring myself that I'll be able to sleep, while my sister assures me that I can sleep when I'm dead. That's true, too, but I'm hoping to hold out on that for another couple of years, at the very least.

In other news, I was at a Ben Folds concert this past weekend and it was absolutely epic. Truly one of the highlights of my senior year and I'm really glad that I went. He's an amazing musician - and a piano player that words can't adequately describe - and it was an awesome experience.

The fact that my 22nd birthday is coming up in 11 days hasn't really registered, either, because it's not like I'm going to spend it relaxing. I'm most likely going to spend all of Black Friday - my birthday - working on my curriculum project: lesson plans, assessment criteria, rubrics, the whole nine yards and whatnot. It's going to be painful on multiple levels, but it absolutely has to get done because there's only so many weeks of class left.

It's not supposed to go this fast.

So, now that I need to prepare myself for my analytical class (don't get me started), I'm going to spend the next few hours of my life trying not to freak out about the fact that I flat-out forgot I have a lab write-up (thankfully not a formal) due today and the mother of all formal labs due tomorrow. (But maybe we can convince her to change that to Wednesday.) Couple that with an exam tomorrow evening, auditions for the winter and spring shows on Wednesday (with a prepared monologue, too) and this week is going to be fairly busy, culminating in another exam next Sunday and a project for Econ on the Tuesday before break. With all of that is who-knows-what coming down the pipes in the education courses and, really, people are wondering why I drink the amount of caffeine that I do? How else do you expect me to get through a week where my hours of work have bypassed the hours in a week?

But that's more or less what I've been dealing with for three months.

So damn difficult to think through that it's almost over. There is a light at the end of the tunnel. Here's hoping it's not an oncoming train.

Late-Night Coffee Dregs

I'm well aware of what time it is and also aware of the fact that it's probably not a good idea to be consuming coffee at this hour, but I'm not about to let a good cup go to waste. Also, most of you know I do my best ruminations at roughly this time of night, usually when I'm trying to do something else that requires more focus and attention than I particularly want to give it. (It's lab reports this time, not education seminars, for once.)

The last you heard from me was a few weeks ago. I posted this pretty cool video about a flash mob - that I was part of - and said that I'd be back to talk about life in general.

First thing you should know is that I'm not living in a closet this year. I have enough space to have my moon chair and enough sunlight that Henry actually gets to live with me this year, rather than have to relocate back to the kitchen table at home because he's slowly dying of sun deprivation. As it is, he's continually growing and making my fellow floormates with their own plants rather jealous of the fact that he's huge.

Actually, they're really rather impressed that he's still alive. Most of them apparently don't make it past first semester of first year.

Of course Practical Magic is playing in the background and the most pressing thing I have left to do is my analytical chemistry lab report which involves the use of Excel, and we all know that I'm positively Excel stupid. I'll freely and readily admit that I am absolute shit when it comes to using that program.

The long and short of it right now is that the front of my week is more loaded than the back of my week. Monday and Tuesday see me going from very early in the morning until roughly five in the afternoon, and Wednesday is much the same, only with a later start. My saving grace is that I have only one class on Thursday, and Friday just has three. I'm lucky in that regard. That's the way I planned it.

It's not easy. But it's college. It's not supposed to be. However, the homework is getting done, turned in on time, and I'm doing really well with things. I was able to explain a physical chemistry problem to one of my friends (who's also in my class) and was really proud of myself that I could do it. I'm actually looking forward to that first exam in that class, because I think it will be the first time I get a B or higher on a chemistry exam. If that happens, I'm sending it home to mom and dad to be put on the fridge because, well, I'll be that proud of it. And they'll be proud of me for getting it.

But that's later this month. There's quite a few things between then and now. Including lab reports. I'm not getting any younger, and it's not getting an earlier (technically, it is, but that's really semantics at this point) so I'm going to go sit on my bed and work on my carbon-copy sheets and hope for the best when it comes to Excel. I think I'm going to need it.

[Insert Expletive Here]

Some things, no matter how many times you force them to the back of your mind and tell yourself you've dealt with them, don't actually ever leave you alone.

I was out walking with my mom the other night - because we wanted to walk - and my exboyfriend doesn't live very far down the road from me. We had stopped at my grandmother's to talk to my aunt and uncle (who were using their trunk to remove grass and throw it down over the bank, yes my family is like that at times) when I looked up the road and saw a very familiar figure. And wanted to start swearing immediately. It was one of those times that, even though you know deep inside you're glad that things worked out the way they did, that life is funny like that and doesn't give you more than you can handle (though, it really seems like that) it just makes you remember.

You realize then it's quite another to be alright when the subject isn't around, but it's quite another to actually be alright when confronted face to face. Or rather, road to driveway.

Ultimately, it makes me wonder when exactly I'm going to find a Murphy of my own. I've got great friends, an amazing family, and a winding road ahead of me, but in a way, I'm still kind of lonely.

Patience in this aspect is not one of my virtues.

The other thing that's sort of eating at me and has me kind of freaking out is that my aunt's cancer came back. After losing a teammate in March to a lung infection because fighting leukemia for the second time hadn't left her with much left in the tank, this was just a bit much. My aunt will do what she needs to do to fight it, but...It's still cancer.

It's. Still. Cancer.

Like everything else life decides to chuck my way, I'll find a way to get through it. Hopefully intact.

Things to Know XXI

- If I can hear your music through your headphones like you weren't wearing them at all, your music is too loud.

- When the above happens, it makes me want to growl.

- If I'm growling at something, that's not a very productive start to my day.

- My fellow classmate - Do not patronize me about what I did or did not do in response to a slightly irate email by one of our other classmates, and then proceed to make it look like you're "winning" what's actually not a competition, and please remember I was here until 1:45 in the morning, like you were, only I'd started at 9:00 instead.

- Today is not a day to mess with me, thanks so much.

- But, in all seriousness, turn the damn music down or I'll put on YouTube and blast country through my speakers!

- I can't seem to find my Focus.

- Saga coffee is downright disturbing - and one hell of a jolt.

- This is the point in my junior year where I just get sick of dealing with people.

- Luckily, when I was in high school, I phased out of beating up the jackasses when I hit this stage.

- Which, honestly, I really only did that in middle school.

- And, again honestly, I never actually punched anyone.

- Yup. I am going to go YouTube it up.

- My philosophy on that last one is that if you've got your headphones in to the degree in which I can hear lyrics clearly, you can obviously not hear a damn thing coming from my direction and therefore won't mind at all.

- And if you do mind, well, frankly my dear, I don't give a damn.

- I have over 3,000 messages in the deleted folder in my webmail.

- I find that rather interesting.

- No idea what's going to happen in terms of the labs that I have no idea how to do for chemistry.

- They might be a lost cause.

- At this point in my life, I'm okay with that.

- I have eight lesson plans, a written assessment plan, and to tweak my introduction all by 7:30 tomorrow morning.

- Thank [Insert Diety/Whatever You Worship (if anything) Here] that tomorrow is my last education class because it's been driving me up the effing wall all semester.

- I have no phone service in the basement. Which kind of sucks.

- Right. Time to dig out my microscope now that I'm more or less done ranting (for the moment) and get something accomplished so I can feel a bit better about myself.

- At least the screamo song to my left is done.

Wowee

Peeks out from around the bushes.

Hi. Yeah, I know it's been a while. College has been....college. It's winding down which means it's actually doing the opposite, in terms of workload, and that makes life a little interesting. On the bright side, housing for next year isn't an issue and someone, somewhere, decided that I was Orientation Mentor material and now I'm all set up to work with the incoming class of 2015.

Things come full circle, don't they?

I have re-discovered my love of the TV show Numb3rs. It also helps that, considering how many classes I've now taken (one of which I'm currently in is more applied mathematics than anything else) I can actually understand some of Charlie's math a little more. There was a blackboard in the background in one of the episodes, and it was labeled Legendre's Polynomials - I know that. We talked about that in my quantum mechanics class. It's kind of familiar.

Familiar in a way that you've seen it, mentioned it, worked with it once (written it down) and then more or less forgotten about it.

I was at my EiC's house after one of our weekly meetings a couple weeks ago - tired out of my mind - and wearing sweatpants. It was the beginnings of hell week, I think, for the show, and I'm standing there, tired and wearing more make-up than I have in three years, and idly wondering if there was, by any chance, evidence of where I had spilled my beer on my sweatpants. My EiC turns to me, looks me square in the face, and says, "You are so damn comfortable with yourself."

There have been some moments, the past couple of weeks, when I haven't been so damn comfortable with myself. And one of my best guy friends just looked at me and goes, "Be nice to yourself. You deserve it."

Anyway. I guess the point of that is that even those of us who are comfortable with ourselves still have our moments when we're not nice to each other.

Generally speaking, my weeks have consisted of doing college work - six hours yesterday saw the last set of mineral unknowns now in index card form; I have my side of a scene memorized for my Shakespeare class; the book I have on black holes and the general secrets of the universe is quite helpful; my problem set for Geo was done spectacularly early this week.

I'm almost in the mood to start actually writing again. I was going good for a while, working on The Crossing and then, well, academia caught up with me again. What I'd really like is to get some more done on Murphy and Me. Maybe during reading days. Maybe.

Anyway, that's the long and short of what's been going on with me. Hope your end of things has been less hectic.

Irony. Oh, the Effing Irony

Thank. God. It's. Friday.

That was my first thought after I turned on the coffee pot this morning before getting in the shower. Starbucks cinnamon coffee in a travel mug to warm my hands while walking to my first class of three? Absolutely amazing. The rest of my classes today - great. Even the one where physical chemistry II is a synonym for quantum mechanics was great, and my two geoscience courses? They're going to be a nice change of pace. I have my first line of my Shakespeare monologue memorized, and, as Hatch says, if you do a line a day, you'll have that thing memorized in no time.

Academically speaking, life is groovy. As I have a potential goal for after graduation, this, right now, puts me on a great track. I feel confident and I do the reading, and it makes sense - even the chemistry - and it just works.

What's not working so well right now is this complete and total asshattery that's between me and Residential Education. Which, incidentally, also involves the room I moved into upon arrival on campus three days ago.

Let me say, right now, for the record, and as I have said many times to many people of varying importance in the past day and a half, I absolutely love this little room. I was a little leery of it when I first saw it, but after I moved in, got settled, got unpacked, and made it my own - as I have this habit of making home wherever I go - I've made home in this little room in this wonderfully awesome old house.

The Fire Marshall, on the other hand, has deemed this room that was offered to me, that I have moved into, and that I have been living in since I arrived, unlivable.

There is so much wrong with that previous statement in terms of details and cases and things that happened last semester - including someone living in a room that's apparently unlivable - that it just blows my mind.

I feel a little like I'm living on borrowed time. That I'm going to settle further into my routine, into my campus and collegiate life where I'm at, and then they're going to, if they continue like this, uproot me and move me somewhere where I get to start the whole process over again. There are a few things that I've learned while trying to make nice with people, and trying to understand how one thing can work one day, and the next it simply can't function the way it should with nothing broke.

The only good news to come out of this - along with immediately helpfulness and a let's see what we can do to fix this, or make this less frustrating and painful for you attitude from Student Affairs - is that the Fire Marshall and someone else is going to come back on Monday and reevaluate the room. Sadly, I won't be here when they do. Which means, they won't be able to ask the student that lives, works, and generally lives in the space what she feels, how she likes it, and what options she has.

Reminds me of a bunch of aging men trying to decide in Congress what to do in regards to a young woman's body and her decision of what do with it. Last I checked, they didn't have the means to grow another human inside of them and continue to help the species flourish and have never had to have a gynecology appointment. Quack, quack, anyone?

That, however, is a matter for another time.

Ironically, my academics I'm fine with - I have a handle on those. The other side of the coin? Living and socialization? With the exception of this absolute clusterfuck, I'm good.

Maybe someone should ask the student living there what's best for her in terms of keeping her on an even keel so that she can continue to do her studies and achieve what she can hope to achieve. I am, after all, a full-time student paying full-time student fees. Work with me a little bit.

Small Favors

I'm not sure what exactly to write about that doesn't start with the phrase I'm on the edge and thinking too hard makes my already sinus-stuffed head feel like it's going to implode.

So I'll start this by saying I spent two and a half hours of my life with Sir Ian McKellen on the other side of the woman next to me at the play Deathtrap, which was quite good, too. The man nearly stepped on my toes when he got up for intermission. And no, I didn't ask for a photo or an autograph or anything, because the man was more or less just there to see a show with a friend, and I wasn't about to interrupt that. They have lives, too.

On that note, the others ran (almost literally) into Hugh Laurie on Monday. Apparently he lives around where our hotel is. Again, no photographs or autographs.

I'm sitting in a hotel room in central London, trying to find the words to adequately describe what exactly is going on this head of mine. Or, what feels like a swollen melon sitting on top of my shoulders, truthfully. Particularly my forehead and under my eyes. Oh well. It just needs to sit there a bit more.

There's what we want and then there's reality. Ultimately, we have to come to terms with the fact that sometimes they aren't going to match up. I'd like to be home for Christmas, but depending on the weather - something completely outside of my control - that might not happen. You have the optimist on one side, and the realist on the other, and they might not play nice. The saying is best laid plans of mice and men or something to that effect, and it's completely true. I'll recognize there's a big different being stuck in London and stuck someplace completely away from it all. Hell, I even know what it's like to be stuck in the airport for days on end, and I'll tell you, I was pretty damn ripe by the time I got to where I'm currently at on Monday.

Like I said previously, I know both sides now.

It's in no way what I want, but it's what I've got, and what I have to deal with.

A month and a half from now we'll look back at this, look at the pictures, sort through the recent Underground tickets, and we'll laugh. It'll make a great story, when it's not so raw. We'll laugh, we'll make Tom Hanks references, and we'll joke about it as best we know how. That's how, eventually, it will be seen. It's an experience. That much I can't deny. But it's not one that many people willingly choose, honestly.

I would like, very simply, to go home. That is all I ask.

Six and Eleven

I haven't worked on composition book eleven of my six-year-in-progress novel since January. Which translates into Louise hasn't worked on the novel since her grandfather (in every way but actually being my blood grandfather) passed away shortly before I was due back for spring semester last year.

Writing is a way to pull the frayed edges of myself back together. When it serves the purpose, it really helps me to relax, unwind, unload, and remind myself that I'm an optimist when it comes to life and that there is a good side to practically everything. There are certain things that are exceptions to that, but for the most part, there is a bright side. Sometimes it's tarnished and dull. Still, it's there waiting to be found if you've the right mind.

You've got to want to find it to find it when it doesn't want to be found.

I'm not like other writers. I'm not going to force myself to get something out onto paper because I haven't written in a week or two. Hell, I haven't written in ten months other than some Murphy or maybe for the blog. I've written little snippets of stuff that comes to mind, but in terms of working on the novel and progressing and finishing it - it hasn't been there. I know better than to force something that's not there and doesn't want to be. If I've got nothing, there's a good reason for it. Probably more than one, too.

In a lot of ways ending this novel will be like ending a part of myself. Never do I mean in a self-harm kind of way - I don't do that, I never have, and I never will - but I mean in a sense of a stage of my life coming to a close. We know that we're different people when we're children. There are things we grow out of to grow into, and things that stick with us through those times into the young adulthood that we all face. And there was a time six years ago, that I traded a part of myself - a part of my innocence - and I couldn't get it back. The following two years were not the easiest. Freshman year of high school, this big damned secret, the shame, the fear, and me being one of the best internalizers that I know, kept everything bottled shut.

Except for when I would write. I wouldn't write about what happened, but I figured that if I was in such a shambles - and trust me, there were days when I would sit in class and think about what had happened and half expect him to come through the damn doorway into the classroom, and then just cry - then someone else's life didn't have to be. I needed something to do, something to take my mind off of reality when it got a little too heavy. And then it just went from there, growing into something bigger and more than I had originally intended it to. I couldn't stop its growth because in a way, I was growing with it. I grew a lot in two years. In ways that most people wouldn't expect.

And I realized that maybe I'm pretty good at this whole writing thing. I used to, when I was little, stand outside with a soccer ball on a string (I cannot for the life of me remember what exactly it's called, but that's the main idea), look at the gnarled apple tree against the little runoff creek, and think what would happen if it was a house. Who would the people who lived there be. What were their names. What were they like.

A boy and his grandmother. Sometimes he had a dog. At one point he had a dragon.

Ralurick lives with his grandmother for most of The Crossing. There are mentions in the beginning - though brief - of the time when he lives with both his parents and everything is quite hunky dory. For the rest of the book, when he's not wandering with Jack through foreign countryside running from some magical creature or the villain of the book, he lives with his grandmother.

There are similarities. There have to be. I'm not good enough to keep every little bit of myself out of my own writing. The times when Ral can't really handle being emotional? Been there done that. Jack trying to figure out why exactly he was on Typrien and what he was going to do with his life, once he reached a certain age? Been there as well.

In some ways, their story is my story. And my story is theirs. It's been six years. And while part of me is quite anxious to get this over with, to end this remarkable journey that these three have come on, part of me isn't quite ready to be completely at ease with shutting the door on a part of my life that's so largely influenced who I am overall.

Maybe it's not so much shutting a door but turning to a blank page. Some of my toughest days were hashed out in those pages. The days I stayed home from school because of whooping cough are in those pages as well. My own broken love affair is scattered through Anna and Richard, Jack and Kayley, and Ralurick and Bella.

It's a lot. That's an understatement.

I've had people tell me - through the Inkpop message boards, actually, which I haven't visited in months - that the fact that I see the story I want to write as a movie in my head isn't real writing. It's copying. That I'm not creating anything. Yet I have something real and tangible in my hands. I have composition books with writing, with characters, faces, places, words, and meaning. You have this drive to have your project be number one in the lists, to be on a publisher's desk. I've got that, too. That's what I want as well. When I think it's ready.

When I've finished it.

I'm pretty decent when I've got something half-assed written. The finished product? I want you to remember me for the stories that I can tell. For the depth that I have as a writer and as a person. For what I can create.

Writing is personal for me. It's not mechanics and sentence structure. Well, it is, but it isn't. It's no the main focus. It's me taking you somewhere and you going on a ride through a bit of life that, while in places, might not be grand, but still real. Life can be glorious and big, or it can be simple. Easy and difficult.

Most important is that you don't get to decide - you get to deal.

I only get serious and slightly insightful when I've got good reason. Paying a visit to Dylan Thomas's writing shed and the boathouse where he used to live would be what spawned that because for the first time in months I wanted to write when I got back on the bus. Actually, I wanted to break the lock on the door of the shed, sit at the same desk as he did - which is still exactly how he left it - and start writing. I probably would have gotten arrested and it would have been bad manners, and I would probably be packing for New York instead of writing this, but it made me want to continue. It really made me want to finish what I had started. To continue and to gather the spread threads of this long story and weave them together. To finish the tapestry.

To finish a part of me.

Livin' Large

There are a lot of times that I second guess myself. Or, I have this really thought out plan that works perfectly for me, and I forget to inform everyone else that I need to of what I'm doing. There is sometimes a distinct lack of communication between me and those that really need it, otherwise they worry what exactly their favorite wanderer has gotten into.

I'm not afraid to say that I screw up more than I should when it comes to keeping my mother and my sister in the loop with what I'm doing. Especially when this includes taking a few days and going up into mid-Wales - the southern tip of the Snowdonia National Park - and seeing the mountains. Huw had assured me that they were beautiful, and that I would possibly regret it if I didn't see them. Which, I can say that he's right. They were beautiful. It took the natural beauty of the gorge, multiplied it by ten, and put it to shame.

Seriously, when you're coming down the mountain and you can look into the cockpit of a fighter jet as it's weaving its way through the valleys for practice, while it made me want to piss myself with fright, it was also pretty damn cool. The sights - being able to practically see Ireland when the cloud bank shifted with the wind from the summit - that was awesome.

Another really cool thing that I've done this week? Been 300 feet in the earth in a coal mine. Seriously. It's a place called Big Pit, and it used to be a fully functioning coal mine before it stopped production in the late '90's. It's now a museum. They do tours in the coal mine every day.

I'm not kidding. They take you into this area, take all of your stuff that might have a dry cell battery in it (watch, phone, mp3 player, and you leave your bag, too), they kit you out in a helmet with a real light (wet cell battery) and this other little pouch attached to the belt (which turns out to be a gas mask because there could possibly, though it's checked every day, somehow be a build up of methane gas) and pile you into this rickety-looking lift. Then your mind kind of goes all Phantom of the Opera because the only thing I could think of was "down once more to the dungeon of my black descent/Down we plunge to the prison of my mind/Down this path into darkness deep as hell" and I've told you before that I have this thing for doing great worst-case scenarios.

Another thing to note is that I wasn't really sure prior to getting into that lift whether or not I was going to be really okay with the idea of being 300 feet below daylight. In an enclosed space. With no way for me to get the hell out of there if I really needed or wanted to.

But once you're down there and your ears stop popping (mine have been doing that a lot lately, though I think it's because there's a cold sitting in my sinuses), it's really cool. Of course, every now and then someone forgets that they have to "mind your head" and you hear a thunk followed by some sort of curse and look back in time to watch somebody more or less stagger away.

In a way, you start to feel like a miner. And you really can't let yourself think about the fact that there's so much earth between you and sunlight. Or that people died in those mines because, well, when you have something flammable in that small of a space - and you don't have a canary (they have a better sense of smell than a human, so if you're carrying a canary and it keels over, get the hell out of there before you do the same) - or something goes really wrong and the pony freaks out because it's in the dark (yes, they used ponies to carry up the coal all the way almost up to the eighties, and these ponies lived in stables in the mine) and tramples somebody...well, you really can't think about that or you're going to make yourself sick.

Now, you might think that you've seen darkness. That you've experienced the utter, utter blackness that comes with a space that light can't reach. A darkened room, maybe. On a new moon night? That has nothing on what the darkness is in a coal mine.

Yes, we at one point all turned out our lights and while my hand was approximately six inches in front of my face, there was no way that I was going to be able to see it. I didn't. This darkness, this blackness...take the most black thing that you know, the darkest that you've experienced and multiply it by one hundred. This was just ridiculous. And also so, so cool. You get a real feel for what those twelve-year-old boys waiting by those doors for the pit ponies must have felt because the only way they were going to be able to find the door was by a rope. And they had to listen for the pony. But just because you hear the pony coming doesn't mean that it's going normal speed - it could have freaked and be running. And the boy doesn't know it.

What also really impressed me is the closeness and fraternity between the miners. If there was an accident - and you had to get out in a hurry - you don't run (because, well, it's dark and you're going to beam yourself in the face, more or less) but if you passed someone who had beamed himself in the head and knocked himself out, you grabbed whatever part of him you could and you dragged him out. Miners never left another miner in the mine. Just. Not. Done.

For some reason all I could think while I was down there was this voice going, "My cousin Balin would give us a royal welcome" in reference to the mines of Moria in The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. Heh. Wonder why.

So, for those of you in the audience that know me but don't quite know me enough to have access to my Facebook page but still want to see all the photos from the time that I've been across the pond, just check out this link, which takes you to my Photobucket. And feel free to browse around through the pictures.

Across The Pond II

Hello from Carmarthenshire!

I know that it's been almost a week since you've seen or heard from me - well, heard, since you're not actually looking at me, or maybe it's seeing, because you're reading - anyway, there's been quite a bit happening within the last five or so days.

At least, I think it's been five. A little difficult to keep track of time when you hop timezones.

So, to start off this bright new chapter for your favorite - I hope - Wandering Sagittarius let's just kind of go through what that first day - the travel day - was like.

I didn't want to say goodbye to my parents at our little airport and have that be that and not see them again for three months. We got up in the morning on Sunday and left the house at about 7:55, arriving in the city - JFK to be exact - roughly six hours later. We found the terminal with the airline that I was flying and parked in the lot and I felt more like a baggage mule than an actual human since I was toting a giant backpack, two messenger bags, and the rolling suitcase. Quite impressive. We ate lunch in the terminal at McDonald's, and for the record, raspberry tea is absolutely nawful. Just plain gross. Which is why I and everyone else I'm related to drink unsweetened tea. And then we just sat around and people watched and tried not to think about the fact that I was going to be leaving both of my parents outside security and then sitting on a plane and ultimately ending up in a foreign country.

Yeah. Even though you know it's going to be one of the best experiences of your life, you still end up crying because you don't want to not have mom and dad forty-five minutes down the road. You don't want to have to figure out a way to call them so that they can hear your voice maybe once a week. So they know you're okay. You hesitate because you're heading into something that you've never seen before, a culture and a people you haven't really read anything about and to a university that you have no idea how the academic side of things really works.

You're stepping off that edge I talked about earlier and it's damned scary. Exciting. But scary.

I did cry. I'm the baby of the family and I know that mom had Empty Nest-like issues when I first went away to college, and this was probably hard for her. And it's not like it's a picnic on my end, either.

I made it through security with flying colors. Either they didn't want to question me about stuff in my bag or there was nothing to question. The laptop was with me, and of course I had to take that out and have it go through on its own, and you feel really awkward in your socks walking through a metal detector, but it's all good. I got some coffee at this place called Peet's on the way to the gate and then just sort of sat there. Tried to read a little. I brought a couple of books with me - Stardust by Neil Gaiman (yes, they made a movie out of it and yes, I own the movie and absolutely love it) and A Battle Won by S. Thomas Russell, which is another age of sail novel. I really like those, if you couldn't tell. I did some writing in my journal and tried not to think about what I was leaving behind. It was difficult, it really was. There's this certain Mayhem Maker, she's about three foot tall and is loved to pieces by her aunt, and I thought about her. And my sister, whom I love very, very much. So it kind of went back and forth between thinking about the possibilities and then thinking about everything else.

Story of my life when it comes to flying, the plane was delayed. It had been fairly craptastic weather all day - drizzly and rainy and foggy - and the plane was late getting to the gate from wherever it had come from. So, naturally, they need time to flip it and load everything on board for us, and it took time. We were supposed to be leaving at 7:30 and we didn't start boarding until about 8:20. Then once we were on the plane we sat at the gate for at least forty-five minutes. There was a moment when we thought, Alright, here we go, when the plane backed up away from the gate and that was short-lived because we wound up sitting on the tarmac. I traded one of the guys from my college for his window seat and watched many other planes go before we could - which was appropriately frustrating - and then we sat on the actual tarmac out where all the planes are for a little while longer. The girl next to me - also from my college - had taken Ambien and was looking suitably drugged at this point and none of the three of us wanted to sleep until we were in the air in case we had to change planes.

We took off, finally, and for the record I really don't like double-decker planes. I never feel like they have enough oomph to actually get up and go, which, when you're not a big a fan of flying as you probably should be, makes you a little nervous. Either way, once we got in the air, the flight went really fast.

As in, I woke up three times on the way to London: Once to eat dinner (which wasn't very good, though the wheat roll was excellent); once to go Where the hell am I?; and then again when the captain was telling us that we would be landing shortly and the stewardess was simultaneously trying to get my sleep-lagged brain to Please put up your window shade, and then holy sunlight. The view, however, was beautiful.

That, I believe, is the only reason I like flying.

Wonder of wonders we had to circle a little before we landed at Heathrow, but not for long. Then we were off the plane and into the terminal. It was actually a very long walk from the gate to Customs. Very long and windy. And when you got to Customs you were separated into lines and then you really felt like you were a farm animal being herded toward something. Didn't have any issues clearing Customs and then we practically ran to the baggage claim. And there on the rolling thingy was my beloved, beat-up suitcase that didn't look like it was bursting at the seams (a damn good indicator that nobody had been it and thereby upping the risk of a space-bag malfunction).

After you get your bag you walk down this hallway and ramp out into the arrivals hall. Heathrow has these foldable metal gates that you're more likely to see at concert backstages than in airports, and everybody has signs. There were all sorts of business-men looking for other business-men and near the end - which I didn't see, but Olivia did - was a sign for Trinity. And we went over and this guy with a clipboard looks at us and goes, "Ah, our three wayward Hobart students, yeah?" We hadn't realized we were wayward, but okay. The man was actually Gruff (which, even though it looks like gruff is pronounced griff - his full name is actually Gruffydd, where the dd on the end sounds like th instead) and he pointed us in the direction of the other HWS students and our fellow internationals.

And it was at that moment that I realized I was not only a foreigner, but I was also an international student. We form a group that is, appropriately named and short-hand, The Internationals.

We had to wait for everyone to arrive from their various planes and when that was done we went out into the parking lot and got on a bus.

One of the first things that you need to really pay attention to is that they drive on the left hand side of the road in the United Kingdom. Meaning when you cross a street, you sure as shit better look right before you look left or you might get seriously hurt. And it's really strange to be getting on a bus on the opposite side that you normally would. Like, really strange.

That's when you found out that it was another four hours to Carmarthen.

I'd slept on the plane. I'd slept across the whole damn Atlantic Ocean and I wanted to sleep somewhat normally tonight. So I wanted to stay awake. And that was a fail of epic proportions. I made it a little bit and then fell asleep about an hour, hour and a half from London. We stopped at a rest stop - which would put the ones on the NYS Thruway to shame - for a bit of something to eat and then it was back on the bus. I did much better this time, staying awake. I was awake for when we crossed the bridge from England to Wales. And one of the ways that you know you're in Wales? All the signs are in both Welsh and English. This is because Wales is a bilingual country. Children most often - a good ninety percent or higher - grow up speaking Welsh before they learn English.

At this point I'm pretty sure I fell asleep and the next time I woke up we were approaching Carmarthen. I tell you, I first saw it, and I fell instantly in love with it. The winding streets and the row houses, that old world feel to it and this sense of...magic, I guess, is the only way that I can really describe it. It has an air of magic to it.

We pulled into the college and right across the road is a field. A field which then rolls into a giant rolling hill - much like the ones we have back home - and the white dots are sheep. Actually, I've seen more sheep in five days than I have in the last five years, but that's besides the point.

They start calling us off the bus in groups because an International Buddy has the keys to where we'll be staying.

This is probably the time to point out that I am not living with any other international student. My seven floor mates - I've heard mixed messages about the term flat mates, and I'm just going to go with what's familiar - are people that I've never met before, that I didn't meet on that bus ride from Heathrow, and that are native Welsh. That is both absolutely awesome and terrifyingly nervewracking at the same time. So, for the time being, it was just going to be me living all by myself in this flat in a foreign country.

We had time to drop our baggage and then head over to the International Office where we could place a phone call home to let our parents know that we had arrived alright. This time we weren't even mindful of the time difference - which is five hours - so I wasn't even really aware that I was more than likely waking my mother out of sleep at about three in the morning. But she said that she and dad had gotten back from the airport - it had taken a really long time - and that everything was okay. And I told her that I was on campus and that I was okay. Then I went back to my empty flat to more or less sit on my bed and stare at the new walls.

And I'm going to try and do some pictures - maybe a picture series - or a video or something to really let you guys see what exactly it looks like where I'm staying, but you come through the main door to the building, and you go up a little half-flight of stairs. You go through another door and then you're in a little bit of an open space. To the left is Flat 6 and on the right is Flat 4. Through the Flat 4 door there is a skinny hallway that has eight rooms off of it - four on either side before you get to another fire door. They're listed by letter, A through H. On the other side of the far fire door is a little bit of a space and you can either go right or left, through another fire door. Right takes you into the kitchen, and left takes you into the common space. The common space has some chairs and three or four little tables, and that's about it. The kitchen has a little stove, a microwave, a toaster (that doesn't work) and a single-basin sink. There's two tables pushed together so that eight people can sit around, but there's only seven chairs. In my room I have a three-shelf bookshelf, a desk that has eight drawers, a bedside table that has four drawers, a wardrobe, and a bed.

I also have my own bathroom. Stand up shower, sink, and toilet. As someone who's had to walk out into the hallway in the morning to shower and let everyone see her in a towel carrying a bathroom bucket, having my own bathroom is quite nice. It's small, of course, but that's just fine. And the only curtains in the flat are the ones in the bedroom. My window - which doesn't have a screen, though I was assured that's how they normally are - overlooks the front walkway into the building. So it's kind of like living where I was the first year in college when I looked out over the parking lot, but not quite as easy to lay in bed and watch people on their walk of shame. Namely because the bed is on the other side of the room from the window. And that's really the only wall that it fits on. Then again, it's not like I could move the wardrobe as it's bolted to the wall.

The mattress isn't bad and I'm insanely glad that I brought my own sheets. I'm not going to go into details, but I'm just really glad that I brought my own sheets and pillowcase. The comforter-like blanket (about half as thick as a comforter) does just fine, but the sheets....eh.

That first night I unpacked a little bit and then found out that some of them were going out into the town, maybe to grab a pint. We found this place called the Rose and Crown Hotel, had a pint, and got to know some of the internationals that we didn't really know - though it was a smaller group and kind of more intimate, and that was nice, in its own way - and had a fairly early evening.

Tuesday was more or less the start of a few days worth of info-dump and orientation. It started with a bit of a who's who and carried on through paperwork, the cultural program, student services, careers, police service, IT Orientation (which was not what you would think it was and is a very complicated, pain in the ass process to get wireless), a brief introduction to the Student Union, tour of campus, meeting the Chaplain, taking a photograph, touring the town (doing the first round of shopping) and then finishing with an evening out on the town with the International Buddies. And a few of their friends.

That was an awesome night.

Wednesday started bright and early since we needed to meet with Jo (the International Officer) to talk about our internships. Then there was a bit on banking from one of the local banks, followed by information on extra curricular activities. Then we registered.

After registration was when things got a little hairy. Abroad tuition kind of comes intermingled or substituted on the tuition bill to mom and dad - I can't exactly remember which - but when you get over here, you have to pay for your housing. Okay. Not a big deal. Mom and I worked that out before I left the states. The only issue arose when the lady behind the glass couldn't take the details I was handing her because she couldn't verify that I wasn't using someone else's card to pay for it. Well, long frustrating story short, she wound up calling my mother at work and having mom do the exact same thing I was trying to do. I understand why the lady was doing it, but...really? That was frustration that I really didn't need.

One library tour later and I was done for the day.

Thursday was a free morning followed by a trip to Llansteffan. Llansteffan is this cool little village that also has a castle. And it's only eight miles down the road. Llansteffan is Welsh for "Church of Stephen" and the castle was built by Norman conquerors in the early 12th century. The view from the top was absolutely amazing. I fell up the stairs, as usual, instead of down them trying to go up the winding staircase.

That night we went out on the town. That was much fun - there was much dancing, loud music, and I'm impressed that I'm not permanently deaf. Absolutely impressed.

Friday was a bit of a chill day. There was some stuff that we had to take of, registration wise, and then we were free to go. Friday is when some of my flat-mates moved in. Matthew (commonly known as Math) moved in, and he's really, really nice. Lurch also moved in. Yes, Lurch. His real name is Chris but he goes by Lurch. Don't ask me why, because I really don't know. Later on that night Kyrian moved in. He plays rugby and he's a big dude.

All of them though are incredibly nice people.

Saturday was a day trip to Whitesands and St. Davids. Have you seen the movie Robin Hood? Yes? Remember that last battle scene? The one filmed on the beach? Yeah, I was there. It was filmed on Whitesands beach. When we left the beach and went back to the village of St. Davids, it was a bit of a walk to the cathedral. Worth it, though. It was even worth it to pay the one pound fee to take in the gatehouse exhibition that told about he history of Saint David, his cathedral, and his town. The cathedral itself was absolutely awesome. But what was really worth it was paying the three pounds to wander through Bishop's Palace. It's the awesome palace that's in ruins that you can wander through and up into the towers and see some of the rooms that they've kind of recreated. Part of it, over the kitchen, is partially underground and partially just under the floor above it. And you can literally feel the history oozing out of it. You also definitely get the feel that the people who had originally lived there are still wandering around, especially in the darker parts and after the sun sets. Absolutely gorgeous.

The only non-gorgeous part was when I went to turn around after going up a staircase and I bent the ever-loving shit out of my right ankle. Thankfully it was the right and not the left (otherwise I might have done some serious damage) but the lady on the other side of the window as I was coming down definitely didn't expect me to be swearing a blue streak.

Sunday was the day that I'd really been waiting for. Everybody moved in on Sunday. There were doors banging and everything, people moving around and stamping, parents moving kids in. I'm not going to lie, it kind of made me sad because I expected my own mother to kind of appear in the door, berate me on the state of my room, and then be like, Come help me unload the car, if you please. My mother, however, is three thousand miles away on the other side of the Atlantic. So having to unload the car of groceries isn't going to happen until I move back across that large body of water.

Anyway. With everybody moving it, there was this sense of happy that happened because I was no longer alone in a strange country, in an empty flat, and now I could get over this idea that, Holy shit, I've got to make friends with people.

It was way easier than I expected. The people that I'm living with are absolutely awesome. Our favorite hang out is currently the kitchen (where I'm actually finishing typing this). So, where I'll leave this, I'm still in the process of getting to know my flat-mates, figuring out how to live with seven other people, and generally just having a go of it.

And so far, so good.