Study Abroad -- Eiik!!

So basically, I'm nervous, worried, and excited, all at the same time.

I decided the other night that I want to travel abroad and study in England. I'd been tossing the idea around for quite awhile, and I suddenly made up my mind. (This is how it usually happens with me. I take awhile to reach a decision, but once I do, I'm ready to go!) So I e-mailed my advisor (who, by the way, is an amazing professor and advisor, remind me to devote my next blog to him) at like 3:30 in the morning -- he probably thinks I'm crazy but that's OK -- and practically ready to hop on a plane and go. Now I have to make a trip to the Study Abroad Department and find out more info. I will definitely need some scholarships, so I'm hoping that they are easy to obtain.

My mom was the difficult one to convince, obviously, but even with her it didn't take as long or as much effort as I thought. Her initial reaction was what I expected of her: money, grades, job, money, boyfriend, money, cat, money money where will you get the money you will crash and burn and it will all be very tragic and you will end up living in our basement forever because you won't be able to finish school.

Basically, she had a meltdown. We said goodbye, I went back to class, and half an hour later she had stewed about it and apparently had decided that it wasn't the end of the world after all, that if I managed it so that I had some scholarship and didn't have many semesters here left in case I couldn't get my old job back or a new one, it might actually be... almost positive. (Shocker!)

So now I just have to figure out how many semesters I'll have left here so I know when to go... and of course, if I can get any scholarships.

I'm so excited, but so worried it won't work out! One thing's for sure: if I do go, not only will it be an AWESOME time, it'll look *GREAT* on grad school applications. Wish me luck, and I'll keep you posted!!

<3 Laura

Textbooks

I want. An Amazon. Kindle.

Seriously, they are amazing looking. An electronic reader that holds hundreds of books? Magazines? Newspapers? That's so awesome!!

Of course, as an English major, I *LOVE* paper books. Real books, I mean, the printed word. I'm actually really afraid of technology taking over and eliminating them altogether. But a Kindle alongside my mini library would be awesome.

It would make textbooks easier, too. Textbooks aren't something to be held and cherished and whatnot. They are expensive, heavy, and annoying to read and replace. Reading them electronically would be so much more helpful.

Luckily, most of (if not all? I'm not sure) the UW schools have a rental system for their textbooks. I don't know what I would have done if I had chosen one of the 5 private colleges I was accepted into if it had a system where you had to BUY your books. Lame! Imagine buying a few hundred dollars worth of textbooks, especially the ones for your general education classes. Why would I want a $150 biology book when I'm an English major? Exactly. And speaking of English majors... do you know how many books I have this semester? 15 or 16, I believe. If I had to buy those??? NO WAY!!

Renting is definitely the way to go. You have to be super careful to take care of your books (DON'T let ANY water drip onto the things, trust me), but all in all it is good system. A LOT better than the schools that make you buy them, anyway!!

Work Work Work

Working until eleven always gives me super late nights. I'll probably end up going to bed around 3 or 4. I want to wake up early (read: 9 a.m.) tomorrow to go talk to my manager about my schedule. Let's hope that actually happens, eh?

I wish I still had my on-campus jobs. On-campus jobs are amazing. All last year I worked at the Training Center for the Williams Fieldhouse. The Training Center is where athletes go when they are injured, when they are doing stretches or recovering, or just to get ice, etc. It was the most amazing job in the world. I worked... let's see, 9 - 10 hours a week, a set schedule, no weekends, breaks, or holidays. It was AWESOME.

Unfortunately, it didn't pay enough to support my current living situation. Living off campus and owning an adorable orange kitten requires a larger paycheck. I canceled on the Training Center at the last minute though -- big no no. Don't ever make that mistake. I wasn't even thinking. Really, I should e-mail Colleen and apologize to her. Don't you think?

Fall Break!!

So my fall break is going to be just peachy: I have to work the whole weekend! Ugh!

Okay, it's not really that bad. I only work until 9 tonight, and then during the day on Saturday and Sunday. I think I'm going to Dubuque (where all the college kids go for their extended shopping needs) to maybe get some new pants. Woohoo. There's also a Packer game on at some point, I believe. Other than that, it's playing WoW and reading The Faerie Queen for me!!

I know that sounds painful, right? Reading The Faerie Queen? I was supposed to read it for a class a couple of semesters ago but just sort of skimmed it then. I mean I got the gist of it and it was enjoyable, but this time I'm going to really carefully read it. First of all because I'm thinking that if I want to get into grad school I need to start trying a bit harder in classes, and second of all because I can't let Stormy down.

Stormy Stipe is my professor, and she's pretty much the most awesome person you'll ever meet in your life. I've been sick the past two weeks and she gave me orange juice one day and brought me a tomato the next time, for the vitamin C. She always tells me that I'm going to be a politician because we share the same views on politics at the moment, and we are both feminists. So I would really let her down if I didn't read The Faerie Queen, and plus our class only has about 6 people anyway, so it's hard to get away with not reading. But tiny classes are the BEST -- trust me -- because you learn SO much more and it's actually FUN. It's like sitting around with some friends and talking about something intellectual. Trust me, even if you don't really love going to class, small classes are amazingly enjoyable. Especially for someone like me, who loves literature. And in Platteville, small classes are not at all hard to come by; that's one reason I picked this school. Everything is compact -- and most of the people are really nice.

Anyway, I ordered a fancy little copy of The Faerie Queen from Borders the other day, so I'm hoping that it comes today. I want to be able to write notes in the margins. If I do make it to grad school, it'll probably be a good thing to have.

Happy weekend, I'm off to read... and play some WoW in-between. I can't let my paladin down, either. *winks*