Old Soul, Young Heart

I always see pictures from people's weddings on facebook and I get jealous. I feel like I'm still grieving not having the perfect set-up in life by now, but at the same time I know that it's just not me at this point to settle down, put on the wedding dress, throw the big party, buy a house, and be bored afterwards. Can't I still have adventure after I do that? Maybe that's why I'm running from it... because I can't. I do love this dress though. I wouldn't want it to be so poofy and I wouldn't do so much bling up top. I love the vintage look of blusher veils, especially this birdcage one. (Too bad it wouldn't go with this dress!)

Still haven't heard anything from Mr. Harding with the Disability Resource Center. He should've emailed me a week ago and he hasn't responded to my email from the beginning of the week. I'm unsure how long I should let this go before I explore other options. I feel like it's really important that I start making plans. It would be especially nice to have something to tell Pam next weekend when she's here for Adam's birthday and is asking me... I wish I didn't have that added pressure. I can only do so much and the traveling after the work shouldn't be at the forefront of my mind, but I understand how she's wanting to know. I would've liked to know two weeks ago myself. I think definitely by midweek (Wednesday or Thursday) if I haven't heard anything I'm going to do some follow-up emails with other departments and send some to Canterbury Christ Church and University of Kent. This is just so incredibly frustrating!

I totally do not want to write this final paper for Dr. Phyllis' class--writing our own student development theory. For one, I can't think of a good population to write one about. I'm thinking of doing it on transfer students just because I have that experience already and know services for these students lacking and I always felt like at ISU there was just a general dismissal of the existence of transfer students. I'm not really sure how a transfer student's development would be any different, though--maybe it would include transition theory. Hmm... I've have to give that a thought. I just think that I've learned as much as I can learn about student development theory and I'm over it and tired of thinking about it. Eight pages isn't that much and I know it could definitely be worse. I'm just so looking forward to break. Dr. Mo's class, on the other hand, has surprisingly turned more interesting since class has been... over. The two final

I am currently dying of anticipation. I'm checking my email every 5 minutes , but really even less than that; probably more like every 2 minutes. It's ridiculous. "You have 0 unread messages." Grr!

It's now past 5:00 pm in England, so I doubt I will hear anything regarding the internship today, though I was anticipating it. I'm so anxious to know and plan! I will surely die tomorrow if I don't get an email from Mr. Harding and have to suffer through the weekend wanting to know the outcome of his meeting with HR. I'm wondering what type of practicalities are in question if I'm not being paid--perhaps he was just bringing up the possibility of some type of payment and still had to talk with them. I will know shortly, I hope!

I have really got to get over not doing 100% on every single assignment because I find myself getting anxious and upset. I got a 9.5 out of 12 on something and I can't stop thinking about it--what I should have done differently, if the teacher is just being bias or overly critical, etc. It's a 80% on that assignment and in the grand scheme of things, it doesn't really matter that much. I still have a good shot at getting an A in the class and so what if I get a B? I mean, of course I want to shoot for always getting As and doing my best, but it's not the end of the world if it doesn't happen. My only thought now is that I'm trying to be a part of this honors fraternity and I need to maintain a 3.5 GPA to be a part of it, but again, does it really matter that much? Essentially it's just something to put on my resume and I guess if it happens, it happens. But now I've put all of this pressure on myself and it's really just kind of silly. I do good wor

I decided a few days ago to adopt a soldier. Someone on Facebook said that they did it and it was kind of the culmination of a series of things that were going on for me. One afternoon I spent a good 15 minutes looking at the list on Mollie's door of soldiers that have died the past two weeks in Iraq and Afghanistan. She posts a new list every time one is available and it keeps a running total of how many have died since the war started. They are all so young, usually under 22 or 23 years old. I decided to try to find some way that I could be on the listserv that does the same thing (her's is through the Episcopal Church) and while looking I found a website that has the picture of every soldier killed and links to articles in the newspaper about them. I probably spent an hour looking at their faces and learning about them. It is devastating to me that kids that young are being killed--and for what? I have no clue for what, but the whole thing got me thinking. In the past I

Can I put my foot in my mouth any more this week?

Finally some good news! I got an email from John at the Disability Resource Center at Cambridge and he sounds interested, pending some information from HR. He mentioned how they would like to pay me, but may not be able to due to budgetary things. I'm of course fine with that--I wasn't planning on being paid anyway, but if they could give something (like reimbursement for the flight or payment of rent while I'm there), that'd be phenomenal. I'm so super excited and want to know nownownow! The project he's thinking about has to do with benchmarking, which I just learned about a few weeks ago because a second year student talked about doing it during her practicum. It's not my number one choice of project--finding out what other universities are doing for international students with disabilities--but it will be a great experience. I just hope there is an opportunity for me to also work with students face-to-face. If not, I'm cool with it because I realiz

Today would have been Mom and Dad's 29th anniversary. Dad's in a funk--he didn't even look at me when I went out to say hi in the garage. He always gets like that around "dates" and I don't really get it because I don't get that way. On the anniversary of her death and the days leading up to it I generally just become reflective and maybe a little bit reclusive, but I don't ever totally shut down. Maybe it's different when it's your spouse. Poor Dad. He's had a rough go of it the past couple of years.

Increasingly disappointed that I haven't heard anything from Cambridge yet, but I know I just need to settle down a little bit because it's only been a week. Not even a week. I just really hope to have something squared away by the end of the month because I can't handle not knowing. It's all I think about. I feel like I should be thinking of different universities but I just don't want to. I'm set on Cambridge for the distinguished factor and the Heather's-been-there factor and the not-a-huge-town factor and I've really just generally fallen in love with it since doing so much research on it. I could always fall back on working in the Community Relations department where Heather did her internship, but I don't like that idea for several reasons--one, it has nothing to do with students and two, I have very little interest in it, and three, I would hate to do the exact same thing that she did. I'll give it another week, I guess, before exploring o

We've been talking in class for several weeks about the identity development of different races; we're currently learning about Asian American identity development. This week's readings have focused quite exclusively on how White society devalues racial minorities and considers people of color to be aliens and foreigners. One article even went so far to say that racial prejudice is taught to everyone in the United States, including those who are being prejudiced. I shy away from making blanket statements because I realize that it makes me seem like a racist, but can I just say that perhaps the reason that White culture has been institutionalized in this country is because, for heaven's sake, the vast majority of the people here have, until recently, been White? This, of course, does not and never will excuse racism when it exists and I whole-heartedly agree that we should make strides to make every person of every race and creed feel comfortable, safe, and welcome here.