"Belly flippin', always illin', bustin' caps."

Today is such a nice change of pace from the past three weeks of ungodly hot weather that Atlanta has been blessed with. Drove to work this afternoon with all four windows down, no AC, blaring some Beastie Boys, and it was a glorious thing. I live for this kind of weather. I wish I lived somewhere where it was like this 24-7. Mississippi is definitely NOT going to be that place.

I've been a little slack with the blog lately; I'm sure all that will change in about a month. I officially peace out of the A on August 5th, then I will be full of newer and way cooler things to write about once I'm in Oxford. Until then...small updates will be the norm.

Textbooks have started arriving, and I registered for orientation. So excited! I have grad school orientation on Thursday, August 20th and then Southern Studies mini-orientation the next day. Classes start on August 24th. So ready to be back in an academic environment! I can only hope my brain is as ready as I am.

About three weeks ago, a close family friend tried to kill herself. Probably the most emotionally shocking thing I've had to deal with in quite some time. She is recovering slowly, and reading her husband's updates on CaringBridge every day just makes me realize how fragile life is, as cliche as that may be. I never want to take my family and their health for granted. I love them so much & cannot imagine where I'd be without them.

On Father's Day, my grandma made me sign a blood pact, Tom Sawyer-style, with her stating I would not get any more tattoos until she left the earth. Then she proceeded to tell me if I did get any more it should be something in Greek (not a bad idea, I might add) and/or I should be smart and get it on my butt. It was awesome. Proof of the blood pact (notarized by my little brother and everything):


Honestly, I still want this on the top of my left foot:


We will see if I follow through. I'm not tryin' to be haunted by my grandma's ghost when that time comes; however, I would love to get one more before I leave, and I've been wanting that one for a while.

OhmyGAW Minute Maid Pomegranate Lemonade, where have you been all my life?!

Course materials for Southern Studies Seminar.

Needless to say, I cannot wait.

Spring 09, thus far.

Not enough has gone on lately to warrant a large post from yours truly...so instead, a bulleted edition of what's been going on.

• Seven-Day Detox: so far, so good. Operation: Beach Bod '09, not so good.
• Mayfield's White Chocolate Raspberry ice cream rules.
• Gaslight Anthem in one week, Alkaline Trio in two weeks.
• Sold Death Cab tickets after realizing they are the kind of band I would want to die of boredom if I saw live.
• Going to Tybee w/Danielle and Laura in the beginning of June, can't wait.
• BT's smoothies are awesome.
• My monthly payments on my graduate loans will be approx. $470/month. WOOHOO. At least I'm living my dream, and it will be worth it one day...right?
  
• T-minus three months till I leave. Bittersweet.
  
• Swine flu: wtf?
• Brother still hasn't left for the Air Force, I am secretly happy.
  
• I think I could live in Chattanooga.
• My culinary prowess continues to grow.
  
• Need to tell my grandma about tattoos before seeing her on Mother's Day. Eek.
• Adam Lambert, ftw.
  

That's all, folks.

Ideal Sunday: Walk Drake up to Belly General Store w/BT. Sit outside, Drake in his own chair, while eating a fresh bagel & delicious OJ. Smile, make small talk with people passing by. Come home, lay askew on the bed with the Ninja Turtle blanket for an hour. Rise, eat a bowl of my latest obsession. Go to Target, get household supplies. Go to Old Navy, get tattoo-hiding-friendly Easter outfit. Run into Cheri & Christy. Go to Publix, get groceries & subs. Eat aforementioned subs, drink grape soda, watch Religulous. Call the family, talk about our week. Shamelessly watch Rock of Love. Sleep.

Today was an ideal Sunday...although it could be a little sunnier and maybe ten degrees warmer. While I truly am happy the drought is "officially" over...this kid wants some 75 degree, not a cloud in the sky, no chance of rain, days.

As far as grad school news go...I haven't registered yet, but it looks like I will be in the following courses:

• Southern Studies Graduate Seminar I (required for first-year students)
• Special Topics: The Global South
• Documentary Photography & Oral History

Um, stoked. Classes Mon, Tue, & Wed only. 1 - 3:30 on Monday, 4 - 6:30 on Tue/Wed. Hopefully I will be able to get a job on campus to soften the blow of the $25,000 of tuition alone for the next two years.

Getting really excited to move. Three and a half months left, roughly. Kind of sad, mainly happy. Ready for change. Don't regret taking a year off, but ready to achieve what I know I was meant to.

Finally! Something worth blogging about.

As I was leaving for work this morning, I checked the mail on a whim. A Victoria's Secret catalog, Brian's Sports Illustrated, some bills, and bam. There it sat. A scarily-thin envelope with a return address from the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at University of Mississippi. I managed to make it down the staircase and into my car where I called Brian and read him aloud the letter:

"I am pleased to inform you that the Southern Studies Graduate Committee has recommended your admission to our master of arts program. You have an outstanding record, and we are pleased to recognize your achievements."

I promptly burst into tears. In a good way, mind you. But yes, it is official. My dream for the past two years just became a reality. I am headed to Oxford, MS in a little over four months. I was just in the town two weeks ago to look at apartments and will be living at Lexington Pointe. Move in day is Friday, July 31st. As of right now, it will just be Drake & I headed westward, but if BT can find a job, he will be joining.

The only shitty thing: the program doesn't have adequate funding for me to have an assistantship. This means I need to cover roughly $6200/semester in tuition & fees on top of off-campus living expenses. Owch. At least I was lucky enough to graduate from college debt-free.

As a result of this as well, the search for my dream car, a Jeep Grand Cherokee, has been thwarted for the moment. No tuition waiver + no living stipend = major loans, which a car payment definitely does not need to be added to. Looks like the Focus will have to be my partner in crime for a couple more years. One day, Laredo, one day.

This day is really what I have been waiting for for a little over two months now. I feel so relieved. Nothing else has seemed to be of any importance, hence the lack of blog-age.

Well, I should probably take that back. I did see Billy Joel & Elton John last weekend with my dad, and it was amazing. I will never get over the way I feel when I hear him play live while sitting next to my dad. It's like being five again, riding around in the Saab in Raleigh. Definitely was worth the money, and I would see them again in a heartbeat. On the other hand, $40 for a shirt was not so amazing. If there was anything I learned that night, it is when one has a prominent Billy Joel tattoo, that much money for a tshirt with his face on it seems ridiculous.

Speaking of ink, I think I may go get my anchor tattoo tomorrow. I wanted to wait until I got my acceptance letter, since the tattoo will serve as my reminder to stay grounded during my time in Mississippi and to not forget where I came from. Just like the horseshoe will be my good luck charm as I go it alone in a new town. And let's be honest, I love traditional tattos.

Since I last blogged, I have...

• Completed & submitted my application to the Master's program of Southern Studies at University of Mississippi.
• Seen both STOMP and Smokey Joe's Cafe.
• Moved the majority of my belongings into my boyfriend's apartment.
• Bought tickets to see Death Cab for Cutie at The Fox in May.
• Made plans to go pick out an apartment in Oxford, MS.
• Had two close friends tell me they are pregnant.
• Done my taxes (all by myself!)
• Turned down my internship at the ATL History Center.
• Loved saying "President Obama".
• Grown increasingly wary of East Atlanta.
• Started saving money AND paying off my credit card.
• Began getting back into yoga & pilates.

Obviously it has been a busy month. A longer update is due soon. Snowboarding in two weeks, Mississippi in a month, and hopefully hearing back from grad school in between!!

I just want to be here. Now.

Longer update when I've finally completed this damn statement of purpose.

Set in motion.

Aah! It really is happening. Application, check. GRE scores, check. Transcript sent, check. Now time for letters of recommendation, writing sample, & 500-word statement of purpose...

This film from Lomography makes me think twice about selling my film Canon EOS. They sell it at Camera Doctor, so this kid might have to be making a little trip post-Christmas.

Chronic back pain rules. Except not.

Almost 2009.

So much has been going on lately that I haven't had much time to write in here. I'll just give a quick rundown of what's been up:

• Took the GRE, did well enough to be eligible for an Honors Fellowship at Ole Miss. $1,000 a semester for Master's students - awesome!
• Have an interview with the Atlanta History Center in December for the internship. Crossing fingers I can work in the archival program.
• Biked 12 miles on the Silver Comet Trail up near Rockmart with BT this past Sunday. Froze to death & couldn't walk for a couple of hours afterwards, but it felt great.
• Read Twilight just to see what it was all about and by page 250, found myself thoroughly underwhelmed. I still want to see the movie simply because I find Robert Pattison beautiful.
• Money is tight, as the economy is affecting my place of employment, resulting in hours being cut, on top of a somewhat disappointing annual raise. Applied at a couple bookstores for a part-time seasonal position, so we will see how that plays out.
• I am full-blown, head over heels in love with one of the best men I have ever met. This is what an adult relationship should be. Giving and taking equally, all with respect and love and caring. Finally. Thank you.
  

Even though it is still eight months away, I'm getting really excited for grad school. According to the graduate catalog, a sampling of courses I could take in one semester would be Great American Writers: Cormac McCarthy, Readings in US History: Civil War to Present, and a basic Studies in Southern Literature course. To some, this is torture, but to me...paradise. On top of just getting back to school, I can't wait to move to Oxford. While I will miss Atlanta a whole helluva lot, I think a new environment will be exciting & a nice change of scenery. Plus, nice apartments rent for a fraction of the cost of living in the Atl.

After doing some research, I think I am going to qualify for more financial aid than I thought. According to the Ole Miss grad school website, "Graduate students who receive a minimum of $1800 per semester as either an assistantship or fellowship are eligible for a partial tuition scholarship (75 percent of tuition for the minimum, ¼ time stipend, increasing to a 100 percent tuition scholarship for a ½ time stipend)." I don't intend on working outside of being on campus my first year there, so if I can do a 1/2 time assistantship, I can get a 100% tuition scholarship AND a somewhat generous stipend, significantly reducing how much I would need to take out in loans. I would absolutely love it if I was lucky enough to not put myself into thousands of dollars.

Hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving! I will be in Panama City with my family from Tuesday through Friday, relaxing and enjoying somewhat warmer weather (even if the tattoos will all have to be hidden).

Countdown to grad school...

I just registered for the GRE! It was my goal to take it by the end of this month, but that isn't happening. I procrastinated, as usual, and the only available October dates were sometime next week. So, I registered for a November 13th appointment at 1:00 at a GSU testing facility, leaving me exactly a month to study. I've been working through The Princeton Review's Cracking the GRE workbook all morning. So far, my verbal skills are fine, which is really no surprise. I mean, I have a degree in English; I would be pretty upset if they weren't fine. Now, my math skills are a different story. They definitely need some fine tuning. The format of the analytical writing questions seems a little tricky, so I'll have to practice those a lot as well. At least I'll have a full month to study and work through all the practice tests. It's my goal to go to the Decatur library in the afternoon for a couple of hours three times a week until test time.

On a whim last week, just to say what was out there for future post-grad jobs, I googled "Atlanta History Center, employment" and discovered they were accepting applications for interns this upcoming spring and summer. I'm going to send my application in and hope the internship I want (manuscripts assistant) is available. The description states it would expose me to "processing collections of unique, one-of-a-kind documents relating to history, including...business records, photographs, architectural collections, maps, diaries, private papers, etc..."How awesome would that be?! That is definitely the kind of thing I want to do when I get out of grad school. It's a little late in the game for me to be doing an internship, and I would still be working full-time at The Wag; it would only be for 10 weeks though, and I think I could handle that. Also, in thinking of the absolute worst case scenario, if I weren't to get into grad school for the fall, it would be great to add the AHC to my resume. The head of their internship program already gave me the A-OK to apply even though I've already graduated, so hopefully I will be given the same consideration as undergrad/grad students. The deadline is November 1st, so hopefully I'll hear back from them sometime before Christmas.

I've got one of my letters of recommendation in line already; I'm going to use Dr.Wood aka the man who got me into Southern literature. The son of a friend of my grandparents went to Ole Miss and apparently has donated a lot of money there; for a school like that (ie: lotsa good old boys as rich alumni), I think using him as my second letter will be a great asset. After the GRE, my application & statement of purpose will be the only things to assemble and turn in before the February 15th deadline. It's my mission to have everything postmarked by February 1st. It seems far away, but I know the next three months are probably going to fly by; I just want everything to go as easy and stress-free as possible. I can't believe this is really happening. Registering for the GRE just made it feel so real.

I would really appreciate it if the temperature could drop about ten degrees...

Fall is here!

A whole lot of nothing seems to be going on lately, hence the lack of blog updates.

Financially, I'm wrecked, but let's be honest, who isn't? I can't wait for my taxpayer dollars to pay off that $700 billion government bail out; I bet my children are super excited about that too. Woohoo. I'm trying to finish paying off the credit card AND save for next year...it's just not happening right now though. And seriously, what is up with gas in Atlanta being impossible to find?! You either have to go at 6 in the morning or midnight for there to be gas - it is insane!

Anything regarding technology in my life is basically on the fritz. My phone has been dead because my Nokia charger that came with the phone started acting a fool...and that was before Drake ate it. I bought one offline a week ago, and it has yet to come. Four to fourteen business days is a large time window to be waiting...hm. My laptop's hard drive is totally fried for whatever reason. I brought it into work and chatted with tech support yesterday trying to figure it out; apparently, it is "corrupt". I wish Dell would just come out and fix the damn thing, but I know I'll have to troubleshoot over the phone before that can happen. What a pain in the ass. At least it is under warranty until 2010. I kind of want to break down and buy a Mac before I go to grad school...but then I would have to go back on everything I've ever said about Mac...even though technically it was really criticism for the iPhone (and the people that have them)...we'll see...

I'm really excited for Asheville this weekend; I need to get out of Atlanta, even if it is just for two days. Plus, the mountains & fall weather are always so comforting and peaceful. Saturday we are visiting Looking Glass Falls, horseback riding at Wolf Laurel Stables, and then exploring downtown Asheville and Grove Park Inn. Sunday we are going to explore Asheville some more then drive up to Grandfather Mountain to hike. Hopefully I'll come back with some decent pictures. I'm bringing the Canon and the Holga, so it should be a productive weekend.

NY Times wrote this article about Ole Miss hosting the first presidential debate this upcoming Friday (tune in - 9:00 ET - CNN). I'll be honest, I'm pretty glad I'm not going to be living there. When I visited back in July, my tour guide told me that the university only designated about 100 tickets to university staff, none for students. Oxford is going to be a media circus, I can imagine. Either way, I'll be at home watching it. The Times article makes me a little stressed out about the race situation at the school. It reminds me of an extreme version of my high school (Harrison), which, needless to say, I hated. My middle school in Raleigh (Ligon GT) was so diverse; moving to Georgia was a huge culture shock. I can imagine moving from Decatur to Oxford is kind of going to be the same way. Georgia State was my Ligon; now Ole Miss will be my Harrison.

I spent this past weekend with my mom, and it was so much fun. Saturday night we ate dinner at Mellow Mushroom in Decatur and then came back to my house to eat ice cream sandwiches. In true mom fashion, she fell asleep at 10 o'clock ha. Sunday we woke up and had a small breakfast, showered & got dressed, and headed to Mary Mac's Tea Room. God, I love that place. I wish I could bottle that sweet tea and keep a steady supply in my fridge at all times. After lunch, we walked up to The Fox & got seated for Les Miserables. Our seats weren't terrible; we were pretty high up in the balcony, but we had a great view of the stage. The production was really good. I had seen it about 10 years ago when we still were in North Carolina and didn't really understand it, but it made so much more sense this time around. After the play, we went to Piedmont Park, and BT took some portraits since we don't have any recent mother-daughter shots. She left for Kennesaw shortly thereafter; it was really good to spend time with her away from my dad and brother.

In closing, I leave you with this picture of me and my mom - probably the best we have ever taken. She loves me, hates the tatts...although she did say she wouldn't care if I was covered in them, as long as I wasn't a drug addict.

A third of the way through September - seriously?

I'm finally feeling back to my old, healthy self. Last Wednesday, I went to the doctor with horrible fatigue and body aches, 103-degree fever, and a 124 heart rate; I had a gross virus that had mutated and spread throughout my body and was pretty dehydrated. I was hooked up to an IV and got a sodium chloride drip then was put on antibiotics for 14 days. I am feeling much better, and according to my blood test results, I don't appear to have the flu or mono. Very happy with that, and very happy to be feeling not like a blob.

BT and I took Drake to Bark in the Park at Turner Field on Sunday. It was the first time I have actually gone to the event, rather than working it. We were on the jumbotron (aka Braves Vision) - a first for us all! As you can see, Drake (and his human counterparts) had a blast.


Other than being sick and going to Bark in the Park, not much has been going on in this kid's life lately. I am settled into my new place, and it feels like home. Work is slowing down, now that kids are back in school, and the holiday season is over. I'm still planning on taking the GRE next month, although I need to get my brain back into shape. I haven't had school in almost four months; I'm pretty sure that is the longest time I have gone without it. I am trying to enjoy my year off before heading to Ole Miss, but I just feel restless; somehow working at a dog daycare still just isn't cutting it. At least Drake benefits from it.

The fact that women are "flocking" to Sarah Palin just because she has a damn uterus makes me sick. And as for people referring to her as a feminist icon, she most certainly is not. Not only as a Democrat, but as a woman, I would never even consider voting for her, or voting for McCain just because he picked a woman as his VP running mate. When asked if her own daughter was impregnated by a rapist, what she would encourage her daughter to do, she replied "I would choose life." First off, it should not be her decision. Second of all, everything about that sentence makes me sick. Not to make this blog a forum on abortion, but it is my strong opinion that nobody should have control over a woman's body except for herself, not even her mother. Aside from that, she fired a librarian because she wouldn't ban or censor books that Palin found offensive or objectionable. Let's see; so far, she doesn't believe women have the right to chose what happens to their bodies and apparently doesn't believe in freedom of speech either. That's who I want in charge of my country should John McCain die. I really hope after the initial media frenzy around her dies down that people, women and men alike, will wake up and see her for what she really is.

While on the subject of womanly issues that disgust me, read this article, and tell me this isn't prostitution. Capitalizing off of your sexuality? Yea, I'm pretty sure that is considered prostitution (strippers aside). And seriously, selling your virginity to pay for college tuition? I want to get my Master's without taking out loans just as much as the next person, but there are things called financial aid and scholarships I intend on looking into. Not auctioning off my body. Oh, people of America, you never let me down.

A few exciting things going on in the next few weeks...Brandy is about to have her baby...going to see Les Miserables with my mom next weekend (probably should warn her of my latest tattoo first)...taking a weekend trip to Asheville with BT at the end of the month...and fall is just around the corner (although I'm sure it will continue to be 80 degrees until mid-October).

Also, Drake and I have a shared love of Yuengling:

"Mississippi moon, won't you keep on shinin' on me..."

Feelin' much better after getting out of Atlanta for a couple of days, even if it did come with a lot of questions and lecturing from -who else- my mom and grandma. Oh well, I think that will always be a part of being female AND the first-born to a Southern family.

The trip to Oxford was awesome. Up until this weekend, it existed as a fictional little plot of land in my head - something I had read about and researched but never actually knew what it was like. Well, I got to know it, and I loved it. The drive there took FOREVER (seven hours - my mom was driving). Plus, the scenery on US 78 is lackluster, needless to say; I was getting more and more skeptical about the town with every cow pasture we saw, and believe me, there were a lot. We finally got into town around 7 or so, but we all were pretty tired so we just ate at the Applebee's across the street from our hotel (exciting) and crashed out.

The next morning we woke up pretty early, ate a good breakfast, and then headed to Ole Miss campus for my tour at 11am with the graduate school. We had a guide named Aaron who was also a student in the Southern Studies Master's program, which was awesome. He was super nice and really informative. He drove us all around campus in a golf cart, pointing out the main buildings & the likes; the campus is so incredibly gorgeous. I mean, coming from Georgia State, anything with more than four or five rundown buildings and a library is going to blow my mind, but the campus really was exceptional; huge Greek Revival buildings and perfectly manicured lawns. I loved it.

After our general Ole Miss tour, our guide took us to the Barnard Observatory which is where the Center for Southern Studies is housed. I met a woman who is a student advisor, and she gave me a ton of literature about the program, lots of Faulkner-Yoknapatawpha Conference and Oxford Conference for the Book posters, and a ton of back copies of The Southern Register. I talked to her about my fear of taking the GRE, and she assured me I would be fine because of my GPA; the program is so small that it isn't as competitive as others, and they admit people more on the letters of recommendation and statement of purposes than the test scores. That eased my mind in a big way. Overall, the tour was great, and it was awesome to finally put an image and a feel to the place I've been pining after for about a year now.

After our tour, we all went to Downtown Oxford to eat and scope out the stores. Our first stop, upon recommendation from our guide, was Ajax Diner. All I have to say is: holy shit. I think I had the best sandwich of my life there. It was called The Big Easy, and it was country fried steak, mashed potatoes & gravy, and butter beans all on a delicious big bun. I thought I had died and gone to heaven. Plus, their sweet tea was perfect; not too sweet but sweet enough to be delicious. After lunch, we went to the infamous Square Books to look around. I bought a magazine called Oxford American, Faulkner's Light in August, and The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty. We walked around some more, saw Faulkner's statue in front of City Hall, and bought some Rebels gear. We left the square, went back to Ole Miss campus to drive around some more and take pictures, and drove down some side streets to look at houses which were all really cute, for lack of a better word. After that, we found St. Peter's Cemetery and went to Faulkner's grave. It's a pretty plain looking grave, and he is buried next to his wife. Apparently, locals put whiskey bottles and pennies on his headstone on a regular basis which I find hilarious. He was an alcoholic after all so he probably loves it. My mom also took it upon herself to take a wreath someone had put on his grave and move it to the other side because it was "hideous"; I hope he haunts her now. After all the sightseeing, we finally went back to the hotel to chill for a little bit. My mom and grandma ended up going out to dinner later on that night, and I just stayed in, ordered pizza, looked over all my information, and watched a lot of Cesar Milan before passing out at 10:30.

The next morning we woke up early, ate breakfast, packed up, and shipped out to Rowan Oak, Faulkner's house from 1930 - 1962. Seriously, I can't even describe what it meant to me going there; it's like my mecca. I've been wanting to go for so long and to finally get there was amazing. Rowan Oak itself is a surprisingly quaint house; it's a pretty basic Greek Revival style house, nothing too extravagant. It's private and on a good sized plot of land. I guess what I'm getting at is it's my kind of house. The University owns it, but if I win the lottery one day, I wonder if they'll let me buy it and be its curator it for a living. One can hope! Anyways, we walked around the house and the grounds for about an hour; I finally got to see where he wrote the outline for "A Fable" on the walls of his office. I had asked the guy that was at the front desk where he kept his phone because I had seen pictures of a little alcove where he kept his phone and behind it had written tons of numbers down. He told me it was blocked off because so many people want to see it and it gets super crowded, so I was pretty bummed. As we were leaving though, he came outside and told me he could bring me back to go see it because the house was pretty empty. Seriously, I was so stoked; that guy doesn't even know, but he made my day. I got to go back into the pantry where it was and take a couple pictures of it. Come to think of it, I should have asked him if I could have seen his Underwood typewriter because it too is blocked off...

After Rowan Oak, we shipped out. Luckily, I drove us home instead of my mom, and we made it in six hours, even with two separate stops. I'll be honest; if I had been driving the Focus, not the Escalade, I definitely would have made it in five and a half, ha. Either way, I was glad to get home and see Drake. Plus, Madison and his girlfriend got my spare key and went into my apartment and put Ole Miss stuff on my breakfast bar! I have a license plate holder, a beer mug, and a shot glass in addition to the shirt and car sticker I bought. I can't help it; it's going to be my first "real" college experience (sorry, GSU), and even at 23, I'll show some school pride!

In conclusion, it was a very successful trip. I'm so glad I have a feel for the town, and it eased my nerves about a lot of things. The shitty part is going to be waiting another year! Oh well, it will give me time to save some money and get my brain back in school mode.