All the Pretty Words

My move to Vermont is almost complete. My parents and I left home last Tuesday and drove three days to get here on Thursday morning. Google maps says that the trip was 1300 miles, so you can see that it was more of a marathon than a road trip.

Anyway, we got here and met the realtor I had talked to about an apartment, only to find that he was contradicting himself by telling us different things than he had told me last week. We decided that we should look elsewhere, and lucked out by finding an apartment that’s right next to the campus, the general store, two laundromats, and the post office. It’s not the greatest apartment (photos here), but it will do. I could use some air conditioning and ceiling lights, though. I have a serious lack of both.

I’ve had quite the day.

This morning, I woke up to the noises of a strong thunderstorm. I was rolling over to fall back to sleep when, mid-roll, I happened to look out of the window behind my bed. Right at that time, I heard a noise sort of like “ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-BOOOOOOM!”, saw a bright flash of light, and felt something that I think was the entire house shuddering. I jumped quite a bit and yelled something in my shock, then tried to figure out whether or not the house itself had been struck by the lightening. I saw that my radio clock was still displaying a time of 3:35, so I decided that it hadn’t been hit after all, got up to unplug the PowerBook in case of another close call, and tried to go back to sleep. I ended up getting maybe another hour of sleep because the storm was so loud, and got up at 6:20 or so for work.

Work was pretty average, and then I ran some errands, namely getting my driver’s license renewed. The new photo looks horrible. Really, truly, horrible. I want to bury it somewhere and never see it again, but of course this new license is good for another six years. Grrrr.

After that, I went home and tried to check my email before going out for the evening, only to find that the phone lines were only partially operational. We could only get a dial tone by disconnecting the computers from the phone jacks in the wall. Lovely.

Brenda and I saw

Must Love Dogs

, which actually wasn’t too bad for a sappy love story. We wandered around and talked for a while, and generally had a good time on our last night out on the town before I leave.

I got home to find that my PowerBook still won’t connect to the Internet, but my old Windows/Linux lappy will, so I have both of them sitting on my bed in front of me. I’m using the old one for the Internet, the PowerBook for everything else, and I’m realizing just how much I prefer OS X to Windows, and my PowerBook to this old Dell.

So, it was quite the day!

I don’t normally post these things, but I couldn’t resist:

Today I decided to accept the offer of admission into Castleton State College in Vermont, so I’ll be moving there in a couple of weeks. It’s a Master’s of Arts in forensic psychology program, and will take roughly two years to complete. I had wanted to go to a school in the Bay Area in California, but they have been taking ages to decide whether or not to admit me, and it’s well past time to be making plans for my living arrangements, classes, and the like. I’ll also get a lot more financial aid, which is always good. Living expenses will be cheaper, the program is more of what I need, and so on and so forth. It’s just not as exciting as the Bay Area, though, and I’ll miss the SFlickr meetings I’ve heard so much about. It’s colder, too. Brrrr! However, I think Castleton is a better choice for the long run, and that is what I need for my life. Wish me luck!