aroraborealis

In my recent longing for warmer weather, I've also found myself experiencing the deep nostalgia for Guatemala in general and Xela in particular that I get from time to time. It's nearly three years since I've been there, and though I've vaguely kept up on the news from the school by way of Claudia, my friend and former teacher, and who I see whenever I get to San Francisco, it's a far cry from being there. Mango season starts in a couple of weeks, and how much would I love to walk up to the market and buy myself a handful of Rosita mangoes (an actual variety) and sit on the crazy tall curb to eat them in the sunshine?

Maybe it's because I feel like so much is up in the air and the temptation to flee the country again is awfully strong. It worked so well last time as a way to change my life, and as a big project, it was great. Of course, a good argument could be made that grad school is certainly a great, big project, and there's a strong possibility that in a few years, I'll look back on it, too, as a life-changing event, if somewhat less dramatic. But that doesn't change my desire now to dash off to a more immediate and viscerally exotic locale.

Day to day things there were really hard. One of the things I remember when I got back to the US is going out to run errands and finding myself practicing the things I'd need to say for various interactions at the bank, post office and grocery store, before realizing that they would all be in English, and, you know, I didn't need to make sure before going in that I knew all the right words. It's a little weird to say I want things to be hard in that way for a while, in part because the ways things are actually hard for me these days are so very differently hard. But, really, I think it's just that running away right now sounds pretty nice.

I am going to grad school next year.

Due to more or less not sleeping last night, I'm more or less worthless for work today, which is unfortunate, since I'm getting ready for a busy work trip. On the bright side, most of today's tasks have been organizational rather than analytical. I took a nap from 11-1 that only served to make me more groggy than I'd been when I started it. Though perhaps slightly better rested, so it might have been a win.

But! There's a definite up-side to today! I finally girded my loins and contacted one of my old professors from college -- the one who I would call "my professor", even though I worked with many, obviously -- about writing me a recommendation for grad school. I'd been kind of putting that off because I haven't talked to him in almost 9 years and I felt kind of silly about it, and how do you approach that sort of thing and what if he doesn't remember me enough to write for me and etc, etc?

He wrote me back within 30 minutes to say he'd be "delighted to write on [my] behalf" and we should find some time for me to catch him up on what I've been doing. YAY!

Dear self: don't put things off, silly.

Now that my crazy January is over (it was so crazy, it had to take up part of February), I'm back on track for my grad school applications. I'm in that state where it's a bunch of gathering annoying little details -- transcripts, resume, etc -- and working on interesting pieces that are easy to put off -- personal statements, practicing for the MAT -- so I may go so far as to write myself a timeline with, geez, goals for getting each thing done. And maybe rewards once I've done so.

My earliest deadline is April 30 (yes, really. I know that's late), but UMB says that if I get my materials in by April 15, I can be considered for a graduate assistantship, which I'm certain would be a good thing, so my goal is to be done by then. Hm, April 15. Isn't that an important date for some other big paperwork thingy, too?

I've been kind of in a holding pattern thinking about all this, but as I said to kcatalyst the other night, looking at the programs' web pages would probably reinvigorate me, and that's true. I take that as a sign I'm looking at a couple of programs that are, in fact, right for me.