Since finally kick-assing my way to my BA two years ago, I’ve had some more book learning in mind. But with my immense student loans staring me in the face and the lean couple of years we’ve had, taking on more educational debt has not seemed like the best idea.

And then I got a job at DePaul, which cracked the door on those ambitions a little.

And I got a full-time job at DePaul which kicked the door wide open.

I started browsing the graduate programs and fell smack in love. Check it:

The Master of Arts degree in Media and Cinema Studies at DePaul University provides students with the critical skills, historical grounding, and research methodologies for understanding the cultural and social impact of film, television and digital media in our globalized world.

Um. Yes.

So, I applied to the program a couple of months ago, and as of June 4, 2010, I am officially in.

Oh. My. GOD, kids! OH MY GOD.

For the bulk of the last 15 years, I never thought I’d have a college degree, period, and I never thought I’d have an advanced degree. And then, I changed my life. Holy crap. Here I am, going to graduate school. I start in September.

LulaB is so excited, she did a little dance:

Life is sort of like that.

We are dealing with the recurrence of Lanty’s lymphoma, just when we’d settled into a new “normal” of remission and every-other week chemo.  He’s okay for today.  We’re all okay for the moment.  But life can change in a blink, so for now, we’re just trying to keep the nachos down.

But look at how precious Lanty is:

We keep holding on to that.

We spent yesterday napping, unpacking, and getting D ready for his first day of training (today). And then napping.

Today was my first day on my own and I was adventurous enough to leave the hotel and take a long walk around the neighborhood. I made it to a Circle K (!!) where I bought lemon water and barley tea. All by myself, without D, the miraculous translator man. His college Japanese is serving us very well. But it’s hard not knowing the language. You feel cut off, left out. I’ve been practicing, though. Here is what I know:

ichi
ni
sen
chi
go
rokku
hachi
kyu
ju
…the numbers, 1-10, except 7. I cannot for the life of me remember 7.

Also:
kawaii
domo arigato
gomen nasei

Of course, you all know that next to last one because of a certain 80s song (it’s going to be in your head all day now, I promise). Gomen nasei has proven very, very helpful to me as I’ve fumbled around counting money, stumbled around walking on the wrong side of the sidewalk, and generally bumped into people in my usual way. “I’m very sorry!” I squeak, again and again. I’m getting very good at it.

Kawaii, cute, (say it with lots of enthusiasm and really hold on to that “i-i” sound: Ka-wai-eeeeeeee!) is a good way to refer to almost every product for sale in this country. It is all so cute and a lot of it is pink and much of it folds up tiny or nests into other cute, pink, tiny things. But I haven’t started any serious shopping yet, even though there is a four story department store (Prince Pepe) attached to the hotel. The stationery section alone is enough to keep me occupied for a day or so. You should see the Snoopy notebooks! Kawaii!

So, I’m adjusting, even if I keep falling asleep at weird times of day and I choke up and keep thinking of French numbers instead of Japanese. And today, when I ended up in the sleek, black hotel elevator with two French businessmen, I finally had the perfect opportunity to speak a foreign language I know. So what did I do upon leaving the elevator? I bowed.

New shoes were needed, get a suit jacket altered, where are those travel compression bags, argh there’s a huge hole in my suitcase! Got a haircut, lost the server with my iTunes library, ice packs on my leg, went to work, worked from home, downloaded and ripped a bunch of movies because oh-my-gosh-it’s-October-and-I-need-horror-movies! Went to the doctor, found out I am “reproductively challenged,” as Charlotte York Goldenblatt would say, made roast chicken with mashed potatoes & gravy for comfort, bought new pants, shopped for jeans forever before deciding that the ones I have are fine, got out scarves from Norway to take along, and watched my first horror movie of the month.

All since Monday. I need a drink.

Tomorrow, we leave early for Indiana to take Lanty to his Nonnie’s, and then on to East City to see my nephew’s senior football game. Immediately after, it’s straight home (please don’t let the drive take more than four hours) to sleep for, um, an hour, and then it’s up, final packing and off to O’Hare. I’m hoping the handful of narcotics left in my prescription bottle will get me through this. If not, there’s always melatonin and screwdrivers on the plane. Since I’ll be on it for fourteen hours. But I have the latest issue of Bitch, the latest CD by Matthew Sweet, an iPod crammed with horror movies and three new books. I should be fine.

Did I mention, though, that we got my plane ticket for about $100? I’ve been saving miles with this airline for six years and miraculously had enough to get a round trip flight to Japan. I call this Providential or dumb friggin’ luck or my finally getting a break after a rough month. Whatever it is, we were ecstatic, naturally.

So, we’re nearly ready. Sort of, almost ready. I should really get back to the laundry and my carry-on bag and the packing, but I’m going to miss my computer so I’m spending a little time with it. Aside from the the occasional and English-friendly internet cafe (which is probably a figment of my imagination) I won’t have much internet access for at least a few days. Derek will be working for the first half of the trip and I’ll be on my own a bit. Phone are out, too, so no Twittering or Facebooking or other made-up verbs. Just me and my thoughts. And my bum leg. And my bum ovaries.

Ok. I kept one skirt, a thick polyester orange and pink diamond-patterned vintage beauty that I found in a Goodwill shop more than ten years ago and couldn’t let go. But the rest…gone. All of the sexy tops and stylish skirts and all of the size 14 and 16 dresses that I cross trained and puked my way into are gone. I gave it all to a women’s shelter, and thanked the women who took the five big bags and one box profusely for turning them into hope for someone else.

I am a size 22. I am not going to get any smaller. That’s that. I have dieted and starved and thrown up and run and lifted weights and taken this miracle pill and that one, and the only permanent change I have ever made is in my resolve to love my imperfection. My weight has gone down, and then back up, and down a little more and then back up – and past – where I was before. It is a losing game, kids.

So, along with my thick thighs and big arms, I have accepted the fact that I will never wear those things again. Holding on to them was like keeping some long-dead ghost on life support. I know it is not popular in the Size or Fat Acceptance communities to say this, but every time I saw those bags of size fourteens, I felt terrible. Sometimes I look at my big round face and still feel terrible. I don’t always love how I look or the size pants I wear or the meager variety of stores I am limited to at the mall.

But I do love me. I do. I couldn’t be happier with who I am right here, right now. And if a big stomach is part of the deal, so be it. The one thing I refuse to do is allow my sometime dissatisfaction with my outwardness to hold me back from doing one single thing I want. I like to swim. And shoot hoops. And dance. And ride a bike. And eat sweets. And exist. Size twenty-twos do all of that.

So, I made a lot of room in my closet for some clothes that actually fit and represent who I am now. Today. Tomorrow. For realz.

In other news, I heart this video so much. Apparently, Stephen Colbert leveled some kind of challenge at his viewers to “make John McCain exciting.” This is one entry:

I’m not surprised, though, that McCain missed the 5000 point jump on the flag. It’s just his way to miss the mark.

I’ve updated the software running this place, along with all of the little programs that power the fun stuff, like the feed from my Netflix queue in the sidebar there. Getting them all to behave and play nicely together was a lot easier than I expected, but I did have to say goodbye to my Now Reading library, at least for now. Compatibility issues make it unstable with the latest installation of the blogging software, plus my php skillz are lame so I’m not up to the task of fixing it myself.

To console myself, and only myself I’m sure, since I can’t imagine any of you reading this even noticed that I had a library, I’ve added a widget that displays the latest additions to my Librarything catalog. I feel a little better now.

Other changes are mostly stylistic. Font stuff. The new banner. Sidebar hijinks. I haven’t tested the changes on IE; only Firefox and Safari, so forgive me it looks wonky in your browser and do let me know if it’s really bad. I know, I could have fired up Parallels and opened the dev site in IE there, but I didn’t and I forgive myself.

But it’s fun being a little geeky again. I may even learn some of this darn php this summer. I may. Or I may just go to the Frontier Festival today and eat deep fried dough ’til I’m sick. What would you chose?

I hope to have the place up and running within a day or so. I hope hope hope. Because we’re going to New York soon, and the blogging there has got to be better than San Antonio. I hear the wax is better, at least.

Rolling Waves

Tweek

Sticky Peach Margaritas.

What more do you need, really?

Can. Not. Comprehend.

Then, I got a phone call from an instructor at Local College, where I took a course last fall for transfer credit. Seems a paper I wrote for her class has been selected to be included in a journal of the year’s best writing. Can I say that I find this super cool?

And then, I got two emails in quick succession from my academic committee ladies. They are my Faculty Mentor (basically, my counselor and advisor at the University) and Professional Advisor (someone working in my field of study – in this case media and culture studies) and a couple of very cool women. I’ve been biting my nails and doing deep breathing exercises waiting to hear back about my Advanced Project, which I submitted to them on the 29th, as you may recall.

First from my Professional Advisor:

Well you did it. Words can’t describe – it’s a rare combination of high scholarship + readability. I think you should submit it for publication before you even get to graduate school. I know Renee is putting the paper up for honors. Wow – I just loved it.
Kate

And then from my Faculty Mentor:

As for your Advanced Project both Kate and I loved it. I am in the midst of writing it up as a nomination for the Excellence Award. As soon as it is finished I will send it to you. Whether or not you get the award you can list your work as having been nominated for it! Congratulations on your excellent work.

I guess this means I’m maybe going to graduate?

[insert manic sobbing here]

If I could, I would stay up all night and finish, but I have a dog to walk at 6:30 tomorrow morning, so it’s to bed with me.

But I thought you’d like to know that I made Snoopy waffles this morning:

This is for you, Weegiewench. Kiss!

Also, I got Easter roses:

Pretty in Pink.

And, I’m currently crushing on Matthew Sweet:

That is all.