I'm not dead.

I'm home for two weeks so I can do my loan counseling, work on my visa application, and have myself a nice internet orgy before I go back to the coast house. Then I stay there for another two weeks, then come back here so I can do my biometric data for my visa (does it sound all weird and Orwellian to anyone else?) After that, I'm not sure. It's tempting to go back to the coast house and skulk there from the beginning of August to the end of September, but alas, there is no internet there. There is also no telescope and no bed without metal bars under a paper-thin mattress. It does have an ongoing library booksale within walking distance, which is good, (although $15 buys me about three books more than I can comfortably carry home, and no, self-control is not an option there) but it also has a plague of spiders and a corn snake living in the front garden. What to do?

Anyway, Things I Have Accomplished:

Most of my visa application. I still have to send in all the accompanying paperwork, but I can't do that until August. And actually, my mother had to do most of it over the phone, because while I could go to the library and do it with their internet, I couldn't print it out afterwards. I felt bad, but it was probably better for her to do it anyway, because she has spent years developing her tact, and my father kindly describes me as "abrasive". For the "why do you want to come to this school?" question, she put down something about its good reputation, which was true, but not what would have occurred to me. I would have simply told the truth - that it was the only one that took me, I was desperate, and tuition was cheap. Also, upon reading the printed application back through, I found the "have you ever done anything else that would indicate you are not a person of good character?" question simply irresistible. It's fortunate I was never allowed anywhere near that one.

Also, apparently, while I was away, NYU, which rejected me so fast I was almost offended, sent me another letter telling me I should reapply for their newest department. I would, except that I've gotten into my first choice and so I don't care, and also the thought of paying their tuition makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up, and for that reason I wasn't actually offended when they rejected me because I was too busy being relieved.

Loan applications. All I can really say is "blech", and I hope some government or another will pay for my PhD.

Languages. Before I left, I bought myself an Ancient Greek textbook, because my mother has been hurting my pride. (The Master's of Library Science is such a painfully boring degree that she took Latin and Ancient Greek just to keep her brain from shutting down.) Anyway, she keeps telling me, "Oh, no, I think Ancient Greek would be too hard for you," which I know perfectly well is her devious way of making me study it, but of course I fell for it anyway. It was painful. As a result of that, I spent about 40% of my time working on my French and Latin and the other 60% "working on my German," which means "sprawling on the couch reading Harry Potter und der Gefangene von Askaban." My grandmother was the child of German immigrants who fled here from the Weimar Republic after WWI, and so what I probably should have been doing was translating all the letters her relatives wrote in German, but the Ancient Greek thoroughly stomped my language center, and I didn't feel up to reading anything in German I didn't already know the plot of. I think I should be recovered in a few weeks.

Also, I got new lenses in my glasses. I should explain that I hate glasses, and so I leave them to moulder in my desk drawer for years at a time and go around in contacts. But my new optometrist sensibly pointed out that getting an eye infection in England and having no glasses would be epically bad, so I had to dig them out and have the lenses updated. But I hate them. I hate them because before I got contacts I had to wear big round owl glasses with obnoxious brightly-colored plastic frames, which tried to occupy the same space as my cheekbones, so I was always walking around with angry red streaks on my face. Not cool. My new ones are pretty little oval affairs that suit my face and have skinny little hematite frames and are basically completely inoffensive, but I hate them anyway. And yet, if I don't bring them along, I will get an eye infection and be trapped in my dorm because I basically can't see well enough to cross the street without corrective lenses of some kind. And my mother's paranoia is rubbing off on me; does it show?

And finally, I learned that my last tetanus shot was so long ago no one even remembers when I had it. Of course, I only learned this after I've spent the past year volunteering at the dig and scrabbling around in the dirt with no gloves and cleaning jagged pieces of metal. I'm guessing that going to archaeology school without a tetanus shot would also be epically bad. So, I will have to grit my teeth and try going to the doctor again and get my tetanus and meningitis shots. Lovely.

In case you're actually wondering what I've done during the past five weeks - I read booksale books, I tried to work on my languages, I pulled weeds, I painted bits of the house, and I went running a lot. It's been thrilling.