Skip to main content
I sort of jumped the gun in the comments of recent posts with this most fabulous of announcements:

I have finished and turned in my dissertation for an MSc in English Literature: Nation, Writing and Culture from Edinburgh University (which noble institution I am presently advertising upon the soft navy hues of my first ever hoodie!!).

My bags are mostly packed for the return home - even though I will not actually be leaving for another week. I needed to see if I would have to mail things or pay an overweight fee. One or the other will be necessary, since it seems that I have an inordinate number of books in my possession. Bother.

Tomorrow, I will be meeting friends for post-dissertation drinks in the evening. Saturday, I am planning a trip to Newcastle and/or Durham with flatmate Jess. and Sunday boasts a most thrilling venture to the cinema for a showing of the Bourne Ultimatum - a film that I have been anticipating with unparalleled eagerness.

Beyond that, my schedule is bare. I will be pulling together last minute necessities, buying unnecessary tourist crap on High Street, and arranging the return of my accomodation deposit. I will be farewelling friends and swiping music off of the internet with mischievous abandon. I will bake lemon bars.

My flight leaves the Edinburgh airport in the early morning of the 30th, a Thursday, and I will be travelling for nearly 24 hours total in order to arrive the same evening in Palm Springs. If anything noteworthy happens between now and then, I will certain post of it. Now that the dissertation is through, 'interesting' just might happen. I am no longer a boring academic sod. er... snob. I am an Everylass.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

window in the sub

Dear Nathaniel, I am microwaving pie that Mom bought up in Oak Glen this week on her way home from the orthodontist. As I put it in the microwave, I was full of sadness that I was not in Oak Glen with her. Why did I not go? I was working. I want to see the trees turn. I want to wander slowly through autumnal gift shops. Under the water, you cannot sense the approach of the seasons. Even here it is difficult because, after all, it's California. But I can still sense it. After three seasons in Illinois and one in Scotland, it must be with me for good. Or at least for a while. Because I am all abuzz with eagerness for fall and winter, for turkeys and dried leaves and Santa. I should start cooking again this fall. Fall foods are my favorite. Baked squash dripping with melted butter and brown sugar, pumpkin soup... this year, if I have enough money, I will put together a holiday dinner for my friends. And we will drink Scandinavian mulled wine, which is the most wonderful thing I have e...

At the close of nine years

I'm moving to Texas in less than two months. I've lived in Long Beach now for nine years. Already I have stacks of books covering my dining room table that I'll be reading for my PhD program in the fall. I've quietly begun the tedious work of sorting and cleaning everything in my little apartment. I'm scheduling all of my last days with friends, moving through my calendar in reverse order from when I expect to slip into my car and drive away. This is the longest I've lived in one place, so I've never really experienced a leaving quite like this before. I remember the day I left Wheaton, closing the bedroom door on my best friend, walking down to Chaeli's car so she could drive me to the airport. (The greatest grace of Texas is that she will be there. Some friends we never lose completely.) I remember leaving California for Scotland—walking away from my mother in the Palm Springs airport. We leave people who have changed us, and we leave places that ha...

wanderlust

I am going home tomorrow morning. This is a strange idea. It will be a stranger reality. I am glad to go home, glad to step away from this world for just a moment, to better see it new and fresh but familiar when I return. More than this, I am glad for my sister's wedding. Glad for the vows, the strange appearance of extended family members, the green skirt. Glad for seeing my brother and my mother and everyone. Glad for the twos-on-twos. On the airplane, I will do my best to blitz through Samuel Richardson's Pamela. I will ignore the assigned readings of Foucault's "The Deployment of Sexuality," in part because I couldn't get it at the library and because I don't want to buy it, but most of all because I simply don't want to read it. I will read the essay by Adorno instead, and the chapter of Adorno and Horkheimer that I couldn't finish last night. I will listed to Rob D on my iPod. I will buy an overpriced sandwich in the airport. One of the airp...