Henna

I'll update briefly now because my social life snuck up behind me and grabbed me around the ankles, and I probably won't have time to do it later.

I'm going to have to grow out my henna. I had already decided to do this if I got into a British school (but I didn't mention it because the possibility seemed so remote). I just can't deal with hennaing while living in student housing. If I were going to an American school, I might have hennaed before the semester started and then just done it on breaks, but I probably won't be coming home for breaks in this case unless housing shuts down. I mention this now because I was all set to henna this weekend before the letter came, but I've already got a half inch of roots, so I'll call it a start.

Unfortunately, my natural color does not look good next to my hennaed hair, and it's driving me crazy already. Fortunately, I can do a ponytail since the chop, so I don't have to look at the stripe going up my part. It's going to be ponytails for a long time now.

Formal Offer of a Place

A grad program wants me. And I almost never found out about it, because they sent the acceptance letter in a depressingly tiny envelope, and they sent it three days after they mailed back my transcript with no note. I nearly tossed the envelope without opening it, but the address window was too big, and the words "formal offer of a place which has been reserved for you" were clearly visible under my address and my full name (yes, including middle name, damn those Brits) so I opened it to see how they could have incorporated a phrase like "formal offer of a place which has been reserved for you" into a rejection letter. Apparently, they will house me and feed me and love me for ever and ever for the cost of a single semester at my undergraduate school (even with the dollar being as weak as it is). I keep waiting to wake up, but I have fallen asleep twice since opening the letter, so apparently it isn't going to vanish in a puff of reality.

In retrospect, I suppose I should have stopped to wonder why they hand-addressed the envelope in which they mailed back my transcript.

Mine, Goddamnit!

It's 11 PM and I have to get up at 5:20 AM, but I can't go to bed because I can't find the book I want (To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis). I suppose it's all my fault, because my books are in absolutely no order whatsoever, except that I mostly keep books my parents might "borrow," (Terry Pratchett, Douglas Adams, history) in my room, and books they would never touch (Irvine Welsh, Chuck Palahniuk, Jane Austen) in my other bookcases down the hall. I suppose I could try putting them in some kind of order some time, but the very idea makes me feel faint. It's particularly unfair because Connie Willis is my favorite so I actually put almost all her books on one shelf, but of course the one I want is missing.

On the plus side, my dad finally caved and bought his own copy of To Say Nothing of the Dog after the last time I had to go extract my copy from his clutches, so I can just go steal that one until my own turns up. It serves him right. And, as a bonus, I can hold it hostage until he gives me back Last Chance to See.

Incidentally, I finally found my copy of 1984 in my brother's room when I went in to look for the German dictionary I lent him 5 years ago. He doesn't even read unless he's forced. There must be some sort of hereditary compulsion at work here,