Carolina on my mind...

Hello all! With June quickly drawing to a close (in fact, it officially closed as I was writing this post...) my brain is turning less and less to the thought of "oh my god, WHAT am I going to do this summer??" and more and more to "oh my god, I leave for Durham way too soon..." So here I am, floundering in a pool of endless, somewhat random thoughts about how I'm not so prepared, how I have a million little things I need to do before leaving, how I have a million not-so-little things I have to do before leaving, how I'm going to miss so much while I'm gone.... and how I absolutely cannot wait for this new adventure.

I decided to start a blog since, as those of you who know me can attest, I'm absolutely terrible at keeping in touch with people. I'm not one of those people who will sit down and hand-write letters to my friends and family, or my penpal in England (although I'm pretty sure I had one of those at some point.... sorry, whoever you are!). I don't write long, involved e-mails to people unless I'm trying to make a good impression, or secure an interview. I HATE calling people (which is not a good quality in a journalist), many of my friends aren't on msn, and texting only allows a limited number of words (and costs far too much if I go over my limit). I will send the occasional post card, but only if it's funny or random. My e-mails are generally only a line or two, unless I feel that it's been far too long since I told you what was going on in my life and I feel like I owe you an explanation. Have I made my point? Get it? Got it? Good. So, as I was saying, I decided to start a blog as a way to keep people updated on what's going on with me, since I'll be living over 1,300 km (or about 820 miles) away, and from past experience I know people don't like to spend millions in long-distance bills to hear first-hand the stories of my life. And, let's face it, Facebook is fun, but it just doesn't cut it. My hope is that I'll be better at blogging than I am at all the other methods of communication, since I've had many MANY people tell me I have to keep them up to date on my "interesting" lifestyle. The updates may be pretty irregular (especially since I don't know my class schedule or anything yet, so I can't even predict when/if I'll have time for regular updates), but feel free to yell at me via comments or e-mail if you think I'm slacking off.

Ok, enough of the disclaimer.... on to the real post.

As many of you probably know, this hasn't been the easiest winter/spring/summer. In fact, it's been pretty damn hard... The last few weeks being the hardest of them all. But I'll get to that later. I moved back from Boston at Christmas, back into my old highschool bedroom in my parents' house in Almonte. Which was an adjustment in itself, seeing as I hadn't really lived there in about 3 years and had gotten used to my independence and my queen-sized bed. (Sidenote: twin beds are not as big as they used to seem...) Right from the moment I got home, I started worrying about grad schools and scholarships and grants and writing the GREs... and finding a job that actually paid something. Well, I guess technically that's not when I started worrying about these things... I had been studying for the GREs for a couple of months, had already applied to and been rejected by NSERC for grant money (which I'm still FURIOUS about.... damn Animal Biology for putting my grades 0.1% below the cutoff, and screw you Carleton for not bothering to even look at my incredible/incredibly time-consuming application because of it! No, I'm not bitter. I swear.), had contacted probably hundreds of potential masters advisors (very VERY few of whom actually had the decency to reply), and had realized that I probably wouldn't get into any Canadian schools (once again, because of NSERC... *shakes fist*). Yes, that was all very frustrating, but at that point I was still working with whales in New England, which made it all seem unimportant. Anyways, quick run-down of my January: studied my ass off and wrote the GREs (and did pretty decent on them, too!), put in all my applications for schools in the states and Canada (each one requiring its own "personal essay", which couldn't just be copied and pasted because they all asked for different things and different formats), and frantically searched for any jobs in the Ottawa/Kingston/Pembroke areas (places where I knew I could find at least a couch to crash on). The job search extended into February.... and March.... and April.... and May... and June... do you see where I'm going with this? Ya, it was pretty much fruitless. I DID get a few job interviews for community newspapers, as well as for a couple of research positions and a job working for an environmental hotline, but all potential employers wanted somebody with "more experience". So, in the meantime, I started doing online courses to try and make up some of the possible pre-requisites I was missing, covering algebra, calculus and microeconomics (all required for different schools... I was covering all my bases). So, somehow the months between February and May flew by. In this time, I got rejected from almost every grad program I applied to, got put on a waiting list for my first-choice program (one based out of Northeastern University in Boston that would have me traveling the world and walking out of what could have been the best 2 years of my life with a job), and got my one-and-only acceptance to the Masters of Coastal Environmental Management program at Duke University (my second-last choice, if I'm being honest). Yeah, it was all pretty disappointing. Especially since I had been saying all along that I wanted to go to either Dalhousie or UNB. Apparently they just couldn't afford me. Anyways, I was more than a little disappointed in all of this, as I was saying. That is, until I went down to Duke for the students visitation weekend. The campus is BEAUTIFUL, the people are friendly, the program is apparently recognized world-wide, and I felt a little better about it all. Even though it wasn't my first choice school, Duke wasn't looking so bad.

Fast forward to June, when I'm finally accepting that come August I'll be back in the States, back in school, and trying to settle in to a new life (once again). I found a townhouse that I'll be sharing with a civil engineer named Victoria who's going into the same program as me, and it sounds BEAUTIFUL. It was built in 2003, her parents own it and just redecorated, it's fully furnished (even my bedroom, so I don't have to buy ANYTHING!), we have all new appliances, a washer/dryer, a dishwasher (luxury!), and we each get our own bathroom (double-luxury!!). So I'm set with housing... next step is the student visa (which I've already run into problems with. Let's hope I get it on time, otherwise they won't let me in the country), figuring out classes, figuring out exactly WHEN I'll be leaving (for an International student, orientation starts on August 13th. Yes, I'm an International student. Weird), and trying to get everything done that needs to get done before I leave (including courses, all sorts of appointments, visiting with friends and family, etc etc etc).

Truthfully, I thought I'd be a lot more nervous about all of these changes. I used to be the typed of girl who detested change, and would take forever to adjust if anything was significantly different. Point in fact: last year before moving to Boston, I was a complete wreck. Ask anyone. I was freaking out. But I got there, realized it wasn't as scary as I thought it would be, and had the time of my life. Now I just can't wait to start new again, in a place where I can be somebody new and different, while being more myself than I've ever been before. Or maybe simply find myself again, get to know the person I'm becoming. So yeah, I'm excited. And it doesn't hurt that although I'm moving to a state I've only ever visited for 3 days this past spring, I already have friends there. As it turns out, a few of the friends I made in Boston are also at Duke, and I cannot wait to see them again! Plus the Great Roommate Search 2008 yielded a few coffee/beer dates, that I'm fully planning on cashing in on. Hey, maybe the new me will be a social butterfly... stranger things have happened!

So as June turns into July (as it is as I'm posting this) I'm frantically trying to finish my calculus and microeconomics courses, trying to start getting myself prepared for the Big Move, trying to figure out how/if I can make it home at Canadian Thanksgiving to meet my new nephew (who's due in September... a month after I leave :( ), and trying to deal with the very recent and brief illness and loss of my Nana. (Like I said, not the easiest of summers). But whenever things seem like too much I take a few minutes to daydream about what my life will be like in a month and a half, and maybe even entertain the idea of getting my very own kitten (right now I have my heart set on a little orange one, to be named Riley... here's hoping my roomie's not allergic to cats!). While it may seem like I've become a bit of an anti-social hermit (or even "lame", as a couple people have pointed out to me), I'm just trying to get everything done on time. But I'm ALWAYS looking for a distraction, so if any of you fine people are in/around Ottawa and want to fit in some hangout time before I leave, drop me a line! All old and new friends welcome :) And for those of you I may not see before I head off into the wild blue yonder, I hope you all keep in touch, and I hope you're a lot better at it than I am! I'll answer all e-mails/phone-calls/texts/whatever... it just may take me awhile to initiate them.

And on that note, I'm going to end this novel.... let the adventure begin!