my grand day out

after not leaving my house (and barely even leaving my couch) for nearly a week, i returned to the glamorous worlds of work and school today. it was hard. not that i wasn't thrilled to be out of the damn house. the spirit was willing but the flesh, as they say, was weak.

still, i am declaring victory. having rigorously narrowed my list of target graduate schools down to six (berkeley, oregon, boulder, chicago, cornell, buffalo) and prepared a first statement of purpose draft which i am comfortable handing to people for comments, this morning i marched right into my historical linguistics professor's office (well, okay, i actually stood around waiting in the hall for like 20 minutes until some other girl from class finished talking to him, but then...then i marched) and asked him if he would feel comfortable writing me a letter of recommendation for graduate school.

now...this is funny on a couple of levels. mainly, i first met this guy this summer when seeking feedback from last year's failed app to berkeley. i don't think he really took me seriously or cared to engage with me beyond the basic obligatory pleasantries. it was a short and awkward meeting, and when i shook his hand and thanked him, my thoughts did not match my words. when i got home i cried 'cause i'm dumb like that. and now i'm taking his class and i find myself in his office hours somewhat regularly, talking about sanskrit orthography, or why the conventionalizing of pragmatic implicatures in english evidentials is probably not a case of metaphorical extension.

yeah, i'm really that much of a nerd.

but anyway, he said yes. and somehow that was like pushing over the first domino, now i feel like i've passed some critical momentum, where the process will just sort of carry itself along. which is a great feeling. and which is a horrible feeling, in a way. i can't explain it very well but if you're like me and you worry about things a lot, maybe you understand. that these huge lifechanging things are just scary. and how lonely it can feel to be standing here, staring it down. and i know, i know this is when i'm the most alive and all that. but when i really think about packing up my life and moving away from this place where almost everyone and everything i love exist...well, i simply have to stop thinking about it. or i'll give up on the whole thing.

sometimes at night the raccoons walk around on my roof.
i can hear them trying to get in the skylights.
they're up there right now, and it makes me smile.