I just mailed 37 pounds of books to myself for the low, low price of $14.
Woot woot.
It was kind of funny - I put my name and my parents' address as the mailing address, but when I got to the post office, they said that it had to have a return address. So I wrote my name and my current address as the return address.
I literally mailed the books to myself.
I've got new luggage.
I'm very excited.
It's actually a little bit ridiculous how excited I am.
Over the past couple of months I have made several online purchases, including (but not limited to) a new digital camera, a memory card for said digital camera, books, and clothing. I always track my packages online and eagerly await their arrival.
But my new 3-piece luggage set was scheduled to arrive yesterday. Typically, this would cause me to compulsively refresh my browser to look for status updates any time I walk by my laptop. Yesterday, however, I was also checking the garage every fifteen minutes or so to see if the goods had been dropped off. Naturally, and in accordance with the Principle of the Watched Kettle,* there was an "exception" that occurred with my shipment. Shortly after 7:00 last night, I refreshed my browser to find out what had gone wrong (I checked delivery hours earlier in the day and discovered that they ended at 7:00). When I saw that my shipment status had changed from "Scheduled for 10/5" to "Exception," I screamed, "I MAKE NO EXCEPTIONS!!!"
This, however, had no apparent effect.
The only details I had were that due to circumstances beyond the control of UPS, my shipment had been delayed and rescheduled. As of 1:30 today, I still had no news as to what the problem was or if my big box of happiness would even arrive today.
So I broke down and called UPS.
Evidently, the UPS truck bearing my precious cargo got stuck in the middle of an icy road and had to be towed.** But it would be delivered today.
And delivered it was.
YAY.
Did I mention that my luggage is very cool? It's a shimmery metallic brown and the material is ballistic nylon. So if, during the course of my travels, I find myself in the middle of a gunfight, all I have to do is duck behind my suitcase.
But that's not all - the ballistic nylon is coated with Teflon. So in the absence of a gunfight, I can make scrambled eggs.
*As it turns out, just as the watched kettle never boils, the watched driveway never produces a UPS truck.
**It's still not clear how the truck got stuck in the middle of an icy road. The side of an icy road? Sure. A ditch? I buy that. The middle? Ummm..no. But whatev.
I can't believe how close I am to leaving. I'm so excited for the future, but I'm also starting to pay more attention to all of things I'll miss. And by "things," I mostly mean "people." I have just one Sunday left at Liquid. I'm going to miss my church and my church family the most.
I'm not a big fan of Jersey. It won't be hard to say goodbye to the bad drivers, traffic, bad drivers, ridiculous highways which redefine the purpose of a U-turn, and bad drivers.* In case my opinion of New Jersey drivers isn't clear, check out this blog.
But I have some great friends out here and I will miss them a lot.
I know I'm going to miss the family that I work for, too. But it's still work. So for now, I'm just excited to be done with it.
And then sometimes I feel guilty for being ecstatic that I only have 9 days of work left.
Nikki made this for me at school today in "Writer's Workshop."
When she first found out that I was leaving, she seemed to handle it really well.
I was quite surprised, and thought that maybe she wasn't as attached to me as I thought she was. It was a relief, though, to think that she wouldn't really be that upset to see me go and she was adapting to the fact that she would have a new nanny.
I think it had more to do with her grasp of time and how soon I would be leaving.
I read this today and felt like I'd been punched in the gut. I'm a big jerk.
*I always thought that U-turns were maneuvers utilized by drivers who have discovered that they are going the wrong way. Not so in New Jersey - on some highways, one can only get to most businesses if they are heading in the right direction - thus necessitating U-turns.
I got my score breakdown for the Foreign Service Officer Test. The passing score was 154. And my score was....
151.6
From what I can tell, if I had gotten one more right answer, I would have passed.
But that's just for the multiple choice. As I mentioned before, I froze on the essay portion, so I'm pretty sure I would have failed anyway.
While it's painful to have missed it by such a small amount, it's also encouraging. As I mentioned before, only about 15% of test-takers pass.
I've got 10 more months to study before I can test again and I think my own personal odds will be pretty good.
Also, please forgive the delayed continuation of the Blog-o-Rama. I promise to finish it!
