Fruition

If you know me, then you know that I have been thinking about moving to England for a while - ever since I started my graduate work, my aunt has been telling me all about the commonwealth schemes to get me to the UK to live and work for a while. And as I moved on with my studies, I kept seeing postings for positions over in the UK - from Scotland to Wales - and I thought, why not? And over the past two years, the idea became a definite probability. I started to talk about things more concretely - when instead of if - and had a time in mind (the Summer of 2007), but for all the talking, to me it still seemed this far away deal and something that was there for the taking, but maybe not mine to take.

But last week, it became a reality. It was a definite. I am moving - I am going to live in England and I am going to work in Britain and I don't think I will be back. Sure, I want to visit since I still have family and friends here, but to live? Not if I can help it (and by god, there are so many options for me to stay in the UK). So I have had these moments through out my day where I suddenly stop and think "I'll be in Britain soon!". Lying awake thinking about all the things I have yet to do or all the timelines (I am hopping all over the US before making it to London, which is fantastic but stressful - three flights in as many weeks!) that are coming up. Add to that the end of semester stresses (you know, grading and finals and wrapping up the overall course grade) and I am not anxious yet, but I do feel like I need every moment and then some to deal with it all (yes, I know, I am blogging but again, blog as therapy - it's my anxiolytic).

And of course, all the applying for jobs. Before, applying for jobs was just a laissez-faire deal - kind of testing the waters to make sure that it truly was as warm as it looked. And now, I am really putting myself out there: I know when I want to start working, I know where (though I have seriously been considering moving to Edinburgh so I can pick up a Scottish accent and see men in skirts - smile! Oh, and there is no Scottish version of Madge), and I know what I would like to be doing. So, I am applying to fun things and keeping the fingers crossed, knowing that Cel can hook me up with the temping aspect for a bit if I don't find what is right for me. More later.......

Packing Up

Okay, so it's official! I am moving to England on August 9th (I get there in the morning after an overnight flight) but of course, I am leaving Chicago much earlier than that - in about two weeks, to be exact, and I have been really busy trying to consolidate my life and get everything organized to get out of here. And I have also been looking into how to ship things over there at a really affordable price (because posting things is way too, too expensive on top of all the things I already have to pay for!)

So, one thing I have noticed, is that while I am packing boxes with my winter wear and books and assorted things, the only reason I am truly shipping anything over there is because - even after winnowing down my shoe collection - I have over forty pairs of shoes that I am not willing to part with, including the Westwood Boots and the Cole Haan Penny Loafers (yes, I am a label whore.....I know, I know). I am not willing to part with any of my beautiful shoes, though I have been warned that the majority are impractical for walking in London (more reason to make sure I look for an apartment that is as central as possible) and I have yet to wear over half of them (yes, the Puma slip-ons are taking a beating, but the Studio 9s are slipped on to be admired and then nestled back into their box), but they have to go.

Why? Because every single one of those shoes represents the person I am. Shoes have always been my friend - no matter what, I can always slip into a store and find a shoe that fits me. Wish I could say the same about clothing stores. And I can find the latest style and the more fabulous finds in a shoe store for myself - not the same with clothing for my size. So, yes, my shoes reflect the person I am and they reflect the personas I can take one - the sexy nine-to-fiver in the platform open toed slingbacks with the sexy crocodile accents or the grownup punkster with the tartan-plaid and leather strapped boots. Every single aspect of my personality you can figure out by looking down - the fact that I often feel short (sure, at 170 cms, I am not short for a girl but in my family, where siblings and dad are over six feet, I am a shrimp), the fact that I groove on forties and fifties styles (I am a peep-toed fanatic!), that I love colour and I love ornamentation (buckles and brocade and baubles, oh my!).

So, because of all that is wrapped up in my shoe collection, I am willing to spend a little under two thousand to ship a couple of boxes and a trunk over to England. Because without the collection, I would probably spend more than that trying to reclaim everything that I had to give up. Hope the Brits can love the fabulousness of it all!

Independence Day

I'm absolutely jazzed today - I got a chance to talk to my brother who had tons of good news to share with me, as well as some pointed jabs about me and my future travels (there is a reason that I am a younger sibling) but at least I still love him! And I talked with my absolutely adorable nephew who told me all about the bad dog that tried to bite him and how she had to go into time out (it was the house pet, Brandy, and she did not actually try to bite him - she was just super excited and jumped up!!!! Guess when you're a shortie even little things can seem that threatening! Smile.....)

After that, it was out into the eighty degree and rising weather with the chance of thunderstorms (no, not practicing for a job as a weather announcer but want to point out that it was slighlty humid and moist) to walk cam and go get some passport pictures taken. But of course, the hair that took me about an hour to style into a straight, glossy mass of beautiful turned into a voluminous, curly sort-of-fro in about five minutes outside. So, my hair in the pictures is slightly puffy and all wonky (my fav word of the week - some of my students even used it in their stats homework! sucking up to teach, no doubt!) but it should look better than the usual pulled back, un-face framing look I normally sport. After all, if I have to keep travelling, the pictures should at least be semi-decent. You want to have an idea of the possibility, right? Smile.

And now I get to hang out with a friend, find out what has been going on since last I saw him, and catch "Transformers" on the big screen!!!!! I am excited about catching up with my good friend, but I'm not going to lie.....I have been salivating over this movie opening and the only reason I did not go on opening night (yesterday) was because I spent all of my day meeting with students and teaching and running errands and I was so wiped out by five, that I just wanted to crash and watch very very bad telly (or maybe an apt description is "train-wreck telly" - I was watching America's got Talent and as fun as it is to see the good acts, it's the ones that are just too horrible that really make my day!). So now I am off to see it this afternoon and completely psyched. I know it will be good. I, in fact, don't doubt that it will be awesome from all the trailers I have seen and I can't help being completely geeked out about seeing my toys (okay, not mine but my brother's but again, younger child syndrome) brought to life. Long live the eighties, right? If the fashion can come back into style, why not the fun?

White Gurl World

Hi all, well things have been getting crazy as I get closer and closer to my departure date - with all the parcing down and the packing up into boxes, I am tired and hadn't realized how much crap I had collected while living here (the stuff going into boxes is not all crap - it's all the shoes I can't bear to part with!!!!). While I am doing all of this, I am also trying to hang out with all the people I won't be seeing for a while and just catching up in general with all the people I love and know I'll miss

To that end, a friend of mine had extra concert tickets to "Weird" Al and I have to admit, I totally wanted to go. I believe my exact words were "No Way! I wanna go, I wanna go, I wanna go" as I jumped up and down when he told me about it (you get the idea). So, last weekend, we drove to Indiana to see the show. After encountering some horrible weekend traffic (courtesy of the Dan Ryan reconstruction and Saturday afternoon driver laissez-faire), we finally hit the open road and had a pretty decent drive to the venue. When we got there, we had some time to grab a quick dinner (or in my case, breakfast - yummy!!!!) and then went to the theater to park and grab our seats.

As you guys could probably have guessed by now, I was about the only ethnic face I could see looking around and I mentioned it to my friend as we were walking in. Hmm, what is new, right? We went in, sat down, and as my friend scanned the crowd for the next ten minutes, he still could not spot anyone else who was ethnic and said as much. It was a decent sized crowd with about a thousand people there and then the show started.....

First off, you could tell it was not a rock concert because it started promptly at eight o'clock. Then there was the fact that there was no opening band and the fact that as much as there was lots of clapping and hooting and various cat-calling between (and even during) songs, everyone pretty much sat down and jammed out. But for all that, it was still a whole lot of fun. I think any concert like that is all about the spectacle and it certainly lived up to that. Between the numerous costume changes to the running video commentary on the giant screens behind the performance, it was fun and funny and all-around feel happy.

And it certainly did its job. There were songs I knew, songs I did not know - parodies and original jingles and a most marvelous extended compliation of slices of some of his most famous songs. It was too much fun and I am not ashamed to mention that a couple of times I was singing every single lyric (especially to my all time favorite song - "Bedrock Anthem"). The show ended after ten (which is quite great considering there was only one band) and as we headed home, I definitely felt more relaxed and high on a happy vibe!!! I believe the ride back was me being a little bit slap happy and may have included a little ditty about a chicken in a car that could not go and how that all related to Chicago (just ask and I'll explain)........

Well, hope I can write more sooon but since things are getting crazy, I can't make any promises