Woot woot!

Oh yeah, baby! I've got my plane tickets and I'm flying out on Saturday!

Somehow it doesn't seem real until the flight is booked.
Would you believe that I just got the tickets this evening?
And that's only because I wouldn't stop harassing the recruiter to book them.
He kept telling me, "Oh, it's no problem, there are plenty of seats. We've got time." In fact, I think those are exactly the words he said to me over the phone last night.

My response was, "Yes, I understand. But I would like to know when I'm flying out..." So he finally gave in and called the travel agent to book my flight. Lo and behold, there weren't any seats available for Friday night.
Hmmm...maybe it would have been wise to book the tickets more than four days in advance? So he said he would book them for Saturday. He told me that he would book them the next day (today) and send me the itinerary.

And he did! I fly out Saturday afternoon. They've booked me nonstop to Seoul (flying time is just under 12 hours), so I will arrive Sunday evening.

Yes, I know. Saturday afternoon + 12 hours does not Sunday evening make.
But Seoul is 17 hours ahead of PST, so we're talking Saturday afternoon + 12 hours + 17 hours. AKA Sunday evening.
Kinda trippy.
It'll be cool on the way back, though. I'll leave Seoul, fly for 12 hours, and get to Seattle 5 hours before I left.
hehehe

I'm going to get back to packing - I'm actually way ahead of the game and may not end up scrambling around the night before, hurling things haphazardly into suitcases.

Hmm..that'd be nice.

Tomorrow I'm going up to Seattle for my visa interview.
They'd better accept me, cuz hey - I've got plane tickets.
It seems to be more of a formality than anything else. I just have to try my best to not act crazy, and they should give me a nice shiny little stamp in my passport.

Of course, the shiny little stamp takes 24 hours to process, so unless I can sweet-talk the interviewing officer into speeding things up and returning my visa'd passport to me tomorrow, I'll be schlepping back up to Seattle on Friday to retrieve my little blue book.

Including the trip to the airport, that would make three trips to Seattle in as many days. For anyone who hasn't noticed the price of gas recently - it ain't cheap.
Here's hoping I can charm the folks at the Korean consulate...

I know that I have been woefully remiss in my blogging lately.
I would apologize, but it's my blog - I do what I want.
Also, I haven't seen you folk commenting recently, so... yeah.

There seems to be something about coming home that sucks the blogginess right out of me.
Call it catching up with family and friends.
Call it slow internet access.
Call it laziness.
Call it what you will.
But I can tell you right now, that new adventures breed blogginess.

Well, new adventures and comments.

So the new adventure are coming, now it's up to you, citizens of Townsville! Comment away and watch the blogs of new adventures pour in like...
like...
blogs...

Errr... right...

Onward!!

Book rate

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.

Baggage claim

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.

Jerk face

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.

Ouch

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!