well then i have been accepted to west chester university for MA number 2.

what does this mean? i have no idea. i mean i'll accpet and all that. but this is starting to look like what i was afraid of intially when coming to england. that jesse and i will be in seperate places. which is not what i wanted at all. so...who knows. he mentioned yesterday he might defer any acceptance he might get and wait a year so we'd only be apart for one year. that would be better. but i can hardly ask him to do that if he wants to start up immediately also some universities don't allow students to defer. so... all i can do now is throw my hands up in the air and wait. the only chance we could still live together is if i get into richard stockton college in new jersey and he gets into princeton or rutgers. either way we'll figure it out i'm not worried about that. i just don't want to live a part.

there is always stress with good news some how.

Dear England,

Dear England,

I wanted to write you a farewell letter because I am leaving in under two weeks after an entire year and it felt appropriate. I wanted to thank you for accepting me with open arms despite any reservations you might have had that I was an American. I want to thank you for only rarely raising your eyebrows at me and for politely correcting me when I pronounced aluminum incorrectly. I want to thank you for the occasional blue skies amid all the grey that made me feel less boxed in and a little closer to home. I also want to thank you for the two thunderstorms which you showed me and suggest you try them more often.

I want to thank you for allowing me, as a full time student, to take advantage of your socialized medical program, because back home I never would have been able to afford my treatment. Though I have been told that it was very likely the cold weather which I was not used to and the stress from my University course that put in my that position in the first place. I may never forgive you for the nightmares I still have from the painkillers you refused to give me during the “simple” procedure, but I thank you for the kindness I received from the overall staff and the treatment that despite its pain and inconvenience made me well again.

England, I also want to thank you for the friends I have made this year. Many of them call you home and you have fostered them and turned them into the shining and warm individuals that they are. They made me feel welcome and sometimes, even if only for a moment, made me feel like I was home. I will miss the poker games and the drunken philosophizing over rules, the probabilities and the life we shared with each other this year. Some of the other friends I made this year were strangers to your shores just like I was, and I thank you for welcoming them with the same open arms you welcomed me with. With them around I was able to make sense of the differences I saw in you and learn about the similarities I share with you and the other countries where my new friends are from.

I want to thank you for a year of good beer and bad wine. England, you will never be able to make a good doughnut or a proper bagel but I will miss lemon curd and “spotted-dick” dessert as well as your near endless supply of quality organic-fair trade-chocolate.

I will miss the old buildings, the old streets, the old monuments and statues which have silently watched generations pass and will remain long after I send this letter to inspire with their ancient stories and remind us of people we otherwise may have forgotten. I will miss London with its buzz and whirl and many other cities which I have visited for to short a time. In short, England I will miss you, but I am glad to be going home.

Good bye for now,
Sarah

almost done

I am finished writing my paper, I hope. Tomorrow I’ll trick Jesse into reading it and he can help me make sure the argument is consistent throughout. I will do this by digging a big pit in the living room and covering it with leaves. Then when he goes to get breakfast he will fall in and be unable to get out. I’ll tell him if he helps me with my paper I’ll lower down a ladder. This normally works anyway. The next day I will check it for grammar. Following which, that means Monday folks I will send it to a couple of doom souls who had consented to read it. One of them is one of my classmates and the other is my cousin the English Professor. The latter teaches composition classes in Georgia so she should be able to help with sentence construction…which I sadly still need assistance with from time to time. But, guys, hey guys…it’s almost over. I’m almost done. I’ll be home in less than two weeks. This whole year went so fast and I promise a more introspective “where has all the time gone” post before I leave. But right now I’m just amazed it’s almost over. I’m carting a load of stuff over to Ellie tomorrow. Candle holders, clothes that I just don’t have room for, things like that. And because of the closeness of Ellie’s house to certain key landmarks I think tomorrow I shall be drinking hot chocolate and feeding squirrels in the cemetery. I’m almost there!

let's see haven't written any more on my paper. i'm afraid too actually. because i only have about 1,500 more words to go and there is a book i'm supposed to read which i have to go to oxford to do and it could result in a line or two or maybe severeal pages. and i'm leaning more towards the pages thing. because if it didn't i don't think tim (my prof) would have insisted i take my happy little butt up there to find out. so i need the space and time.

i have been typing things for tim again. there are lots of them and some about sherlock holmes which was novel at first but i don't see how it has anything to do with the city (which is what the stuff i'm tying is supposed to have to do with) so it's annoying me.

anyway. robbie is gone. back to london. i liked robbie he reminded me of my brother. jesse liked him too. so we went out and had a few drinks and ended up in rileys playing pool and eventually drinking hot chocolate (bar closed) and talking about surfing and england and school and... well.... we'll miss him.

only a fewmore days to go. i'm almost packed. i'll write more later. need to type up some stuff real quick like.

-sarah

leigh hunt and i had a long talk last night. resulting in i now have 13, 500 words on my paper. only 1, 500 more to go...and a hellish amount of editing. he seems to be shaping up well. there is a book i must read which ILL will not bring to the library because it is old. so i am bound for the copyright library in Oxford. the...spelling...bodelian... train tickets are not what i wanted to spend my money on right now BUT ...mmm...Oxford. it is supposed to be a beautiful city. and damnit we'd be in OXFORD. ya'know Oxford! well i'm excited but anyway.

joe (my hayden-look-a-like and act-a-like-a-bit) classmate read my paper the other day and said it was really good and well researched and just needed some reworking in the grammar and sentence construction arena. which is good to hear. i have problems with that stuff but i can get other people to help me there. if the ideas and arguments are solid then everything should be fine. i just have to calm myself down so i don't add to much more before i get my hands on that book in oxford. which could need a paragraph or a few pages to talk about. or i might actually have to weave that info throughout the whole paper. the book i am seeking is the one he wrote before he wrote the book i am writing about. it was published in 1820 33 years before the one i am reading and it's worth it to see how his opinions change in those 33 years. at least that's my profs view and he's the one sending me to oxford with a letter saying "oh please oh please let her use the library". so difficult to get into the academic libraries around here. i assume it's the same everywhere though.

miss you all

*kisses*

sorry, more complaining

we have the house. we will (probably) be living in ocala. i know not living with my parents is the better option but it also makes me a little sad. i like 'em i suppose. i'm suddenly feeling increasingly nostolgic about the whole thing and wondering if this is really what i want to do. we are pretty committed now though.

the job thing is another problem. a friend of jesse's mother is trying to get me a job. he won't give any details because it is apparently a very good job and it's not certain and he is not sure he can get it for me. the problem is i would have to start in mid-september. i had planned to spend 2 to 3 weeks with my parents. cleaning out my room (painting some of the furniture i will be taking with me) and helping them make my old kids-bedroom into an office for my father. if i get this job and decided to take it i would not be able to visit jude, i might not be able to go the wedding at all (if i did i would have to buy new tickets and go later because the ones i bought are non-refundable online crap tickets) part of going to the wedding was getting to see my grandfather who is very old and this would probably be the last time i would see him, jacque's visit while still entirely possible would not be as much fun for me because i would have to go to work and only get to hang out with my special-ohio-girl at night, and i probably wouldn't be able to get to st. aug when i wanted because all my free time would be spent going between largo and ocala still moving stuff in because a week is not long enough to do that in. it just seems like i'm giving up a hell of a lot to make some money. i may never get to see my grandfather again...

and yet jesse is pressing me to do it. and telling me it's my decision and what not but also that this would be very good for us blah blah. and i had already decided to do all these things and i decided that because i wanted to do them and these things are important to me. but i will feel like i am being impratical if i do not accept this job. hopefully this will be a non-issue and i will not even have to make this choice. that's what i'm going for. jesse really wants me to do this but i don't want to. this is not the sort of stress i need right now. i have enough to deal with i've only got a little more time to work on this paper. blah.

i feel like this is mirroring samantha's post in a few cursory plot sorta ways and that makes me think the universe is much odder than i generally give it credit for.

i got a call from my mother yesterday. she has this tone of voice she uses to tell me (and i assume every one else) bad news. it's this really odd tone which i think she thinks is compassionate but really sounds like she means "but don't worry about it becauase if i hadn't told you then you wouldn't know" one of the men from the church i grew up in died on my birthday. she waited a few days to tell me...which i thank her for.

now church is an odd place for me. because i have to be very careful about the things i say. there are even a few people i can't admit i like the harry potter movies to... and that feels wierd to me. but i grew up with lots of these people acting as extra aunts and uncles and they still support and look after me, i got tons of cards and emails when i was in the hospital here. and despite my feelings about god and not being sure about much else than i think he probably does exist i feel the need to go. at least to that church when i am in town. other churches in other cities i feel less of a commitment to.

one of these couples that was always around when i was a kid were these two. he was a super nice guy with a great sense of humor. she was wonderful, caring, and amazing in the way she loved him. you could see it in her eyes. anyway he has been sick for years and finally had a heart attack which he couldn't recover from. she took him to the hospital. my mother as her minister was called to go down there. mom says when they told her he wasn't going to recover she was hysterical. but she got a few hours with him before he died. he couldn't talk. but he would hold her hand and when she let go he would search for it again. he seems to have been able to hear her as well.

i am sorry he is gone. i cried. i will miss him. but in the long run i didn't know him extemely well. i am worried about her. she'll be alright sure...for the most part we all tend to press on despite the circumstances. but she will be very sad for a long time. she loved him so much. i am glad they were able to share the sort of relationship they did. but this will leave her empty and alone and it will take a long time before she can think of him with happiness because of the memories rather than with an aching that feels like it will never stop. i am thinking of her and praying for her.

relationships are painful. they always end in one form or another. often one person is left mourning the other. whether because of death or just a break-up because there can be real mourning in that too. i believe this pain is worth it...but it's been a long time since i have lost someone close to me. and i was just a kid then. maybe i wouldn't know.

short note

a short note now...as i really should sleep soon. had a meeting with my prof today...and he gave me a nice long list of all that needs to be done to my paper. he seemed confident that i would be able to finish on time. (less than a month) i have no idea where to find out that answers to some of these things! but with this new insight i have a feeling that i might (in less than a month) have a paper that it is fairly decent and something to be called a thesis. that makes me all sorts of nervous. because now i can't just give up...now i actually have to do well because i think it is in my power to do so and if i screw this up i will be seriously upset.

in other news...went into a store today that had all sorts of things i wanted (including stout little tea cups with dachsunds on them) and did not buy anything. i normally just avoid these stores all together.

tomorrow i have a test in the expirimental pysch building which is suppose to take an hour and after which they will give me 8 pounds. rock! i love doing this stuff. it's something about which hand i use to write with.

poker tomorrow night. which is great and awful. i don't have time for it...but i need to relax. i can feel everything creeping up behind me. it sorta looks like a big black smokey cloud and its getting bigger and bigger and i can feel it cold and wet on the back of my neck it's made up of all the things i have to do to finish this paper and if it gets too much bigger it's going to push it's way in front of me and then i'm going to need goggles or something to see the computer screen.

wish me luck.

-sarah

i was such a wreck most of yesterday...but i am feeling so much better today. ahh...hormones...aren't they a bitch? we got some news yesterday. there is a house in ocala which we might be able to stay in for the cost of utilities. which would be excellent. we don't have any job prospects in tampa/largo yet. so staying in ocala is just as fesible as staying in largo. i will let you know about the house and if we can get it. it is a two story victorian. we would mainly stay in a front apartment but still...wow... so then. things are looking a bit up there.

no news about schools obviously. though one good thing we realized is if jesse got in to rutgers or princton and i got in to west chester we could live in one place and get to the other. i think it was west chester. so there's another option there. i have decided not to think about it unless i have to. but part of me is thinking it would be better if it didn't get accepted at all. blah...

anyway...tonight i am going out for birthday sushi which always tastes better than non-birthday sushi. and there will be relaxing and drinking and lots and lots of not thinking about schools.

a whole lot of bitching

yesterday jesse and i ignored our papers to do job and uni searches. as for the job thing? not a whole lot of luck yet. some of the most promising jobs are at the moffit cancer centre in tampa. with only one car having one of us working in tampa and one of us working in say...st.pete... is going to be irritating. but there's no telling at this point. i'm not really sure when to apply to places because i won't be avaible until after my cousins' wedding in mid october. blah.

as for uni? well things look not so good. i told jesse a few months ago that it would be easier to get references from our profs who we know in the states from here than from our profs who we do not know so well here from in the states. so it was a good idea to apply from here. and so i did. i researched i found the few uni/colleges that specialized in what i wanted to do and sent them off. as i went i told jesse where they were and he just sorta nodded. he couldn't be bothered to send off apps himself at the time. he comes to bed last night, i'm half asleep and he says, "looks like the places you've applied to are pretty far from the places i need to go." and fell asleep. i managed to get out of him that rutgers which is about an hour from the place in NJ that i want to go is a great school for him. unfortunatly it's the 2nd best school in the states for what he wants to do and the chances of him getting in are slim. while my chances of getting into a tiny little place that no one has heard of but has a great holocaust and genocide program is pretty high. there does not appear to be anywhere in penn for him. and the only place in massachuttes is harvard. which he doesn't think he'll get into. and lets face it boston is made up of colleges and bagel shops and churches. there are colleges everywhere! he's just not looking hard enough i think. the place he does want to go is arizona. which (by the way) is not in the northeast where all of my schools are. living apart would suck but the truth of the matter is (especially with me in the northeast) we do not have enough money to live apart. living together is cheaper. and honestly (unless one of us lands a bitchin job this year) our only option.
long story short i don't have any idea what's going on. and i'm not about to go through the whole grueling process of applying AGAIN! i would feel crap about asking my profs for more letters and applying to places seriously makes me feel like i'd rather jump out a window. it is an activity i will do once a year not more. i just can't handle it.
in general i feel like everything is caving in. i can't write fast enought to finish my thesis. i don't know if i will find a job. i just feel like my entire life is spinning away from me and i can't catch it. i really feel like i can't handle any of this. which makes me unproductive and then i get more upset. he has less than a month to get his shit together so he can get letters from people here and then go back to flagler and bug klein (who refuses to return emails) and get letters from her. he's got the time to apply but he has to make these decisions now. because the letters need to be personally addressed to each school. he can't just get three random letters from the profs here.
i just feel like it's going to come down to me giving up what i want to do so he can go do what he wants to do. and that makes me sad. and it makes me feel worthless. and i don't know what the fuck is going on anymore.

my mother's advice

lately i have been chaining myself to the computer for large blocks of time. i'm getting to the point i could build a wall with all these coffee mugs and i know i could creat impressionist art from all the book stick-y tabs. the only problem with that is i think when i backed away it would be a picture of leigh hunt. and that would frighten me.
called my mother last night to bitch about car stuff. jesse and i have a few options with the car situation and we're trying to weigh and figure them out. i guess what i wanted her to say was "yeah, but don't worry you'll make the right decision" what she actually said was (i'm not kidding) "one day you'll be able to make your own financial decisions" after which i quickly got off the phone with her to avoid screaming at her. now for those of you who have not spent lots of time with my mother...she did not mean that the way it sounds...because my mother was a pre-school teacher before she was a minister. translation = she used to explain the art of marble painting to three year olds now she explains the mystery of god and universe as if you are a three year old. the funny thing is i've seen her preach and i've seen her consel people and that's exactly what they want. she has no idea how absolutely patronizing she is on a daily basis to someone who can think for themselves. she really isn't mean or even trying to be mean she was trying to say something that she thought would make me feel better. it made me feel like she was saying that my marble and paint picture was finished and i needed to wash my hands for snack time.
i love my mother i really do. but living with her for 11 months (i have now decided i don't want to call it a year) is going to be a challange. she really does mean well...but she consistently drives me crazy.

pilates

so i've started doing pilates. which might mean that most of my body is really pissed at me most of the time. i have a cd which walks me through all the stuff. it's actually really great, the cd. and there are times when i feel really great afterwards. but mostly it's quite a bit of me lying on the floor and refusing to move until i can feel my stomach again. so i'm doing it everyother day. i've had the cd for awhile but i have recently run out of excuses to not use it. possibly because the imaginative part of my brain which was thinking up the excuses is being completely devoted to my thesis right now. so maybe when this paper is done (eEp! in 5 weeks) i'll get creative again and thus...lazy...but for now i am doing pilates.