Eleven Days

There are only eleven days left until I leave Idaho!!!! ELEVEN DAYS!!!

No, I have not finished packing.

No, I have not finished all my papers.

Yes, I am behind on my plans, although not as severely as I could be.

I have six work shifts left. I have only six days left with my work family. That is finally beginning to set in and I plan on taking as many selfies with as many people as possible (and will post them if given permission).

Finally, yes, I am freaking out. A lot.

Just a touch of perspective...

So I am incredibly  stressed out right now. I am still trying to limit my paper down to reasonable by the end of the night for starters and then I learned that my car will cost over $500 to repair (it would have been nearly $800 if I had left in the tires). Now the first is merely annoying. The second raised my levels REALLY high because that is a lot of money (I need to point out that my mechanic is great and has reasonable rates and everything but there was a lot more going on than just a coolant leak... of course).

All of that is stressful but what really has gotten me is looking into the future and having the reality of THREE WEEKS LEFT kick me in the teeth. I have three weeks left until I move to Bismarck and I have so much left to do!

So, to deal with my anxiety, I made a list on my ever-growing school excel sheet. here is the gist of my next three weeks:

That is a lot of writing and studying and packing to do while working as well.

Makes me think that I am a little crazy for even considering working full time while in school.

Not so stable and happy right now and not looking forward to how fast these three weeks are going to go.

But I will get through it.

Car in the shop and an important reminder

Today I finally took my car to my mechanic (something that I have been meaning to do for nearly 6 months) because, a) with the trip ahead I want it to run and b) it has had a coolant leak since I bought it and it has become a real problem (see photos below...). So that is an exciting (and probably expensive) development!

Next, I am finally finished with my first grad school essay!!!! *applause and cheering*

I realized several things while writing it that I am going to share as an important reminder here:

1) Writing an essay is a lot different than a blog post or a story, remain professional or you will be re-writing a LOT of paragraphs.

2) Remember to write in small portions or else you can begin rambling and have 2 pages of nonsense that you have to completely scrap and start over.

3) Always re-read what you have already written to maintain the tone of your essay (alright, this one is the same as in a blog).

4) Be succinct or you will be desperately trying to reduce your essay length while preserving your ideas... and it sucks.

5) Always ask clarifying information of the professor before you begin writing and not after you have written 5 pages.


I did my best. Only time will tell if it worked out, I might even update it here!

Update

So I have 28 days left until I move to ND and it is becoming more real every day. I have begun to pack up my belongings (mainly composed of books and sweaters) and have bought a few household items. My furniture cost is frightening as I try and figure out how I can afford to furnish even the two rooms that I will be furnishing at first (bedroom, partial living room, kitchen) and the little items may well bite me once I get there.

Meanwhile, I am still working full time and have started my online class which is going quite well so far, although I am only 3 weeks into it so  I might be a little overly optimistic. I am certainly learning a lot, which is good. As the days count down I find that it is harder to face my co-workers because all they can say is how much they will miss me and I don't really want to leave them. I just know that I will cry on my last day.

Sad and exciting times are coming. I will try to continue my updates as I approach the intense scary day of a new home.