Relationships

A Home for the Scamp

Posted on by erranteditor

Today I got my official letter of acceptance for accommodation on campus. This both frightens and relieves me. I’m relieved to know that I have a place to live, but I am stressing out about paying the high cost of renting a room. The Lee House, a subsection of Pollack Halls, is right next to the pool, near a park, and the building next to the dining commons. If nothing else I will be able to buy breakfast on my way to class every morning. I have no idea where the dorm is in relation to my classes, but I have a feeling it is not very close. I don’t think I will mind walking though. I could use the exercise. It will be more than I am getting now.

The fact that now I have an official home makes my journey a little more real. I am leaving in three months, and I have yet to finish some the important things, like secure funding, and fill out my visa. The visa is on hold so that I can go to Ireland for ten days, but the funding part still has me stressing. I have started the paperwork for a loan, and the staggering amount of $30,000 is looming over my head. I’m starting a college fund for the kids I don’t have yet so that I can send them to college. Hopefully by the time I have babies and they are ready to go to college I will be a college professor somewhere nice and they can go to that school for free. Tuition remission is such a good idea. Too bad that can’t work for me in Scotland.

On the brightside, somewhere between me worrying about money, and me fighting with the manager of the apartment I used to live in, the boy told me he loved me. Weeks ago I called him an idiot and told him I was in love with him when he questioned what I thought of him as a boyfriend, and after he got over the initial shock of what I said, he told me that he had been having those feelings for awhile, but wasn’t quite ready to verbalize them. He did start to talk about doing long distance, and what the next year would be like for the two of us, and I started to see a little bit of hope for the future. He looked shocked when he actually said the words out loud, and he told me he didn’t know how or when it happened, but he did. Every time he said it, he seemed to believe it a little more. It was very strange, but kinda awesome at the same time. I’m the first person he has ever said it to, and while that makes me a wee bit nervous, I am very competitive so I like the idea of being first. Now he tells me all the time, and I feel a little bit better about everything,

If only I could find the money fairy, and convince the boy to go with me, life would be so much easier.

A Scamp Conflicted

Posted on by erranteditor

Lately I have been having dreams that I have become irrelevant. There is nothing worse than feeling like you no longer matter. In the dreams my friends and family stop talking to me, stop inviting me places, and generally disappear from my life. Now, I am not dumb enough to think that the world is going to stop turning just because I have decided to move to the UK, but I can’t seem to shake the feeling of “out of sight, out of mind”. This lingering feeling is making what time I do have left here difficult. I am definitely moody and suspicious of the motives of people around me. I act like a sullen teenager when someone says, “Oh, but you are moving to Scotland” when they mention a concert, trip, or some other event that will take place when I have left. It’s as if their efforts are wasted on me because I won’t be around much longer.

I have only shared this fear with a couple of people. While two of them told me I was crazy and all would be fine, the only comment I can seem to focus on is the one asshole who told me that fear is completely justified. He went on to tell me that I should not expect to stay in contact with anyone other than my immediate family because I made it virtually impossible for people to want to emotionally connect to me and show me any type of affection. I realize that I am not the easiest person in the world, but I had no idea I was that difficult. For some reason that is the comment that is stuck in my head, and that is making me question all of my choices. While there is nothing short of a health crisis that is going to keep me from going, it does make me question whether or not I should come home. Once I finish my degree I will be more than qualified to work in the UK, and I could see myself staying there and deciding not to come home at all.

At the end of the day I know that I could never be that far from my family, but if I don’t find a way to snap myself out of this mindset, it is going to put a real big damper on the excitement of the upcoming adventure.

Little Lost Scamp

Posted on by erranteditor

8 months ago I decided that I no longer wanted to live in San Diego. I had finished my master’s degree and was ready to move on and put  this place behind me. Thanks to the economy, and my desire to work in a field where English teachers are a dime a dozen, I was forced into taking a full-time gig in San Diego and abandoning my escape plans. I had put the idea of a PhD. on hold and settled for a crappy night job in hopes of having the time to hunt down permanent teaching gigs and working my way out of San Diego. The longer I was out of school though, the more I itched to be back in the classroom. For the first 23 years of my life I had staked my entire identity on being a student. It was the only thing that I knew how to do really well (besides sarcasm) and I found myself getting lost in a world of routine schedules and lonely night shifts. Five months into the new job working nights and I felt like a zombie. I didn’t get to see my friends, I wasn’t learning anything new, and I slowly losing my sense of self. When it became clear to me that a full-time teaching gig was not on my horizon, I decided that the only way I was going to become a better candidate for jobs was to get another degree.

My family likes to joke that I am a perpetual student, and if I could be one, I would, but I honestly felt like adding another skill set to my bag of tricks would make me stand out in a job interview. I began to hunt for programs that I could complete onlline, and in a short amount of time, so that I could teach a wider variety of classes and make myself more marketable. At first I wasn’t looking for PhD. programs, I was just looking at certificate programs and classes that would allow my to teach reading or ESL classes. None of the programs I found seemed that interesting, and as people around me settled down to get married, have kids, or start their careers, the only thing I found myself wanting to do was run as far away from here as possible. I started looking into teaching English abroad, and possibly going to school. The first place I looked at was New Zealand. It is a well known fact to those who love me that I have a thing for sheep farmers, and New Zealand seemed like the perfect place to go to find a hot sheep farmer to sweep me off my feet. While I was thinking about school, I was also thinking about the upcoming family vacation to Ireland. They have sheep farmers there too, so I figured applying to school there wouldn’t be so bad either. Further research into the schools there and the types of programs they have led me to believe that I wouldn’t be a good fit, so I googled “Colleges and universities in the U.K.” University of Edinburgh was one of the returns, and once I saw that they had a literacy program, and that the application process was free, I figured that I didn’t have anything to lose by applying. I didn’t really know anything about the school, and I had never been to Scotland, but I figured it wasn’t costing me anything more than 500 words to apply, so I would have nothing to lose.

I submitted the application at Thanksgiving, and didn’t give it another thought. I applied for a handful of full-time teaching jobs in Orange County and I started working with my mom on a new way to teach developmental writing. It wasn’t until the end of February when U of E emailed and asked for some more details that I even thought about the application. The only thing that I said when they emailed me offering me a place in the program was “I got in” The first person I called was my mom, and when she didn’t answer, I left her a rambling message that made no sense, and then I called Kelly. After that I text everyone I could think of telling them I got in. I could not sit still. Work no longer seemed important. I got in. I had my escape route.

When I finally did talk to my mom, she immediately started talking about all of the things that practical people think of when applying to school. How was I going to pay for it? What was the cost? Where was I going to live? When did I have to give an answer? How did I know I could live there? I didn’t have any answers beyond “I got in” and at that moment, I didn’t care. All I knew was that I had gotten into the University of Edinburgh and I hadn’t been that happy or excited about anything in years. I knew that there was no way I was going to turn down the offer, so, despite my mom’s misgivings, I accepted the offer, site unseen.

So now I have six months to nail down a place to live, find funding, get a job, and make a list of the all of the places that I want to visit and all of the things I want to see while I am living in the U.K.