happy christmas!

Over Christmas, I got to have my own little week-long slice of Peachtree City when my family came to visit. We stayed around Oxford for four days before heading to London for the rest of the week. In Oxford we went to museums and landmarks and colleges and libraries and all the lovely touristy things. We especially had fun at the Pitt-Rivers museum, which is absolutely my favourite museum ever. And, of course, we ate lots of lovely fattening English food like pies and fish & chips and scones.

We did all the touristy stuff in London, too: we rode the London Eye and went to the National Gallery and marvelled at Piccadilly Circus and chased pigeons in Trafalgar square. Check out my sweet arm's-length-photo-taking skills, above. Actually, don't look too closely; Henry's face is really terrifying and I've only just noticed.

We actually managed to cook in my teeny-tiny kitchen for Christmas, a feat with which I am still rather impressed. We played board games and lots of hearts (I won!). They all went home for New Years, which I spent rather quietly in Oxford playing board games and things.

It was nice to have pieces of home with me over Christmas, and now I'm fully stocked on Velveeta Shells & Cheese for the next few weeks, as well. And, of course, we got to spend the whole week torturing one another with the clothespin game (for the unaware, it's quite simple: embarrass your friends and family by placing clothepins upon their persons--like my unwitting father, above). Ah, home. 

The libraries open tomorrow, and I'm not sure how I feel about that. One the one hand, it means a return to days spent in the library, but on the other hand I'm not getting anything done without it. 

I hope everyone had a merry Christmas and a happy New Year! 

all of my life, packed away in a bag

In one day exactly, the time will be 2:30PM. I will quite possibly be lost, because I will have been in Oxford for perhaps two hours. I'd have a photo to accompany this post--perhaps of my larger-than-should-be-legal suitcase sitting on the scale in the foyer--but my camera is in one bag and my photo-uploader is in another, so you'll have to survive sans picture for a little while longer. 


This past week has been busy, busy, busy. Packing and cleaning, cleaning and packing--and then on Saturday I got to head to Macon for a ridiculously awesome going-away party, the likes of which only Matt Roche could provide. There was a piñata. And did you know that they make alcohol-infused dark chocolate whipped cream? It was pretty much the best party ever.


Then Corbs and I drove separately to Savannah--yuck!--so that we could leave his car there. After just a day in Savannah, we drove all the way back to Peachtree on Monday, and we've been here since Monday evening, packing our carry-ons and weighing our gigantic suitcases. Last night we went out to Thai Spice with my family, and I got to see both Russell and Savi for brief stints. Oh, and we watched the Glee season premier, which wasn't as unrelentingly brilliant as I'd hoped but was still good. 


Today is go time. Our flight's at 5:45, and I have a few things to do between now and then. And by that I mean that, every time I was on the verge of falling asleep last night, I thought of some other small thing that hadn't yet made its way to my suitcase, so I had to turn on the light and write it down. So now I get to follow my list! And then, before I know it, we'll be on our way to Hartsfield, paralyzed with that particular fear of having forgotten something absolutely crucial. Here's to hoping I didn't.

cupcakes & packing

You see before you a celebration, in sucrose form, of my having successfully obtained a visa. That's right: it's a visa cupcake. My mommy brought home three of these little guys yesterday and we had a mini visa-related party; if you've read my previous post, you may have some inkling as to why this even deserves such celebration.

Six days from right now, I will be on a plane that is somewhere over the Atlantic ocean. I still can't quite fathom leaving so soon. All summer, people have asked me when I was leaving and I've said, "Oh, not until September 22nd" in a flippant sort of and-isn't-that-ages-away? sort of tone.

Earlier this month, I had to emend the way I said it. Because suddenly I realized, hey, that's only three weeks away! Well looky there. And now I'm here to tell you: there's nothing that makes you realize how soon you're leaving the country than having to pack a gigantic suitcase full of everything you plan on owning for the next year. I have a running anal-retentive-type list on MS Word for exactly what's in my suitcase, what it's packed with (as I have a bunch of 2.5 gallon Ziploc bags with the air pushed out of them), and what it will match. I know, it's crazy, but I only have fifty pounds for it all, and that includes several anthology textbooks.

At any rate, we can safely say that freakout mode is engaged. But at the moment, I'm getting through it by slowly working through my packing regimen, leaving the house at strategic points so I don't go stir crazy, and liberally adding TotalFark Discussion into the mix. And cupcakes. Can't forget the cupcakes.

american mysteries

As much as I'm not the most patriotic person alive, I love the fourth of July. It amazes me that, year after year, entire sleepy towns wake up to parades and fireworks and cookouts and general jubilation at being in and of this country, at the fact that, over three hundred years ago, men whose names they can't remember liberated us from a government whose faults they can't quite name. Mild sarcasm aside, it's really spectacular. A city full of golf carts comes alive this one day a year for this one parade.

Anyway, Robby and Savi and parents and I had fun at the parade. And then Savi and I paddled our kayaks out to the middle of Lake Peachtree for the fireworks. It's pretty neat to be right in the lake, to hear the blast ricochet off the trees before it gets to us. And, of course, to dip our toes in the water. Nothing, after all, is quite so American as a good, old-fashioned, wastefully expensive display of pyrotechnics.

All in all, a good Fourth (well, third, but a good party today too). I know that I'll quite probably be back in the country by this time next year, but it doesn't feel like it. I'll miss crazy American celebrations that arise from nothing more than the fact that we're American.

work and other monotonies.

I work at Artrageous Potter in Peachtree City, which is down by the Wal-Mart. It's one of those make-and-paint-your-own-pottery studios, and I like my job--even if my manager is a little intense sometimes!--and I'm grateful for it. I also work as a tutor, which is kind of stressful (lots of driving. children. math. you get the picture), but I get paid well.

All of this sort of just feels like waiting around, though. Once I made my decisions about what I'm doing next year I sort of hoped that it would just fast-forward to there. It feels strange having three months and nothing of real significance to fill them with. It's frustrating to know your next step but simultaneously be unable to take it.

That being said, lots of Bean Game and shooting the moon and Waffle House will be happening. Are already happening. So I can't complain too much. I'll miss Waffle House...even though I'll have Posh Nosh next year. (: