Becoming a World Traveler

Kyle and I are going on vacation.  A paid vacation (it's nice).  We decided right after we got our jobs here that we would do something with our vacation time, something big.  So that is what we are doing.

In one week we will be leaving for Europe.  We are flying to London first for a week and then on to Paris for another week. We are so excited. We've been making plans of what to see and where to go and trying to make sure that we'll be able to find vegan food abroad.

We're planning on bike tours of both cities, and day trips out from both cities.  At this point we're thinking about a day trip to Cardiff while we're in Britain because there is some really nice biking around there and we don't want to completely burn ourselves out on museums in the first week.  Though I'm not sure if we shouldn't be going to Bath because those Roman baths are pretty impressive.  

Any advice on what to see, do, or not do while we are in France and Great Britain would be much obliged.  I'm a little overwhelmed actually.  I've never had to plan a trip like this.  Every other time I've gone abroad it's been with a large group so all the details were planned for me (you know, like where to stay and flights and getting Tube passes).  

Anyway, if you need/want anything from across the pond let me know.  Or if you want a postcard (or 2 or 3) let me know that too. 

We just got a new camera so there will be lots and lots of pictures and they should be pretty awesome (if I can learn to use the new camera that is).

love love love,

Court

On Friendship

I would like to apologize.

Truthfully, I haven't been a very good friend lately.

I am terrible at returning phone calls, emails, letters, text messages.  You could probably send smoke signals and I would not return them.

Life in Evansville is pretty unexciting.  I am slowly making friends at work, but they're pretty much just work friends. Kyle has some friends from high school that we hang out with but that's more for Kyle.  The one who has a girlfriend I really get along with we never see anymore and the other had a girlfriend who I think I would have gotten along with, except they broke up.  Oh well.

Making friends as a grown-up is pretty hard and it is reminding me of trying to make friends at St. Charles in third grade.  Did you know I went to the guidance counselor back then because my mom was concerned about my lack of friends?  Obviously, I found all of you back then and I was so blessed by that. But now I have not done well with keeping in touch with you all. I feel terrible.

My job is awesome. I love it.  I get to make crafts and bulletin boards. I get to read and recommend great children's books.  And I get to talk to awesome kids about books.  It's amazing.

But we just found out (or it was clarified for us or whatever) that if Kyle and I both stay with this library, then we most likely will never be able to move up.  I will never be a Children's Librarian because it would make me an Assistant Branch Manager and he will never be a librarian because he would almost have to be a Branch or Department Manager.  The Anti-Nepotism clause of our employee handbook basically says that anyone who is related or lives together cannot be promoted to a supervisory capacity even if it is not over the other person.  So unless it changes soon, we'll have to pick up and move in order to move up in the world.

We were planning that anyway, but in the back of my mind I was hopeful that if we weren't able to find work outside of Evansville that we'd at least be able to move up here while we were looking.

Overall, life is kind of bittersweet.  There are days when I am as content as I could ever hope to be and there are others where I can barely move for wanting something more.

I miss you all.  So much.

love,

Court

Guess What!

I got the job I got the job I got the job I got the job.

Do-diddly-do-do-do.

Insert a silly I-got-the-job dance here and you'll fully understand my mood currently.

I just skipped into the library from the car after I talked with the HR person about accepting the job.

Hooray! I actually had a feeling since my mentor from my internship sent me an email telling me she had spoken to someone from the EVPL as my reference. EEEEEEE!

I start March 23rd (which is 2 days after we arrive in Evansville, luckily I'm not silly enough to have told them I could start on the 22nd).

But currently I am out of minutes on my phone (I guess I should stop letting my mom talk to me for an hour on the phone), so I won't be able to talk about it until after March 2nd. Poo, I know.

Anyway, as you can tell I'm super super super excited. Even though I don't get the title, I get to be a librarian. YAY!

love love love,

Court

Portland has not eaten me

So you may have been wondering where I've gotten to. I haven't posted anything since before we left and I stopped posting on our blog somewhere between Wyoming and California. Oops. I promise that I will start blogging again there soon.

Anyway. We are here! in Portland, Oregon! Come visit!!

Portland's pretty awesome so far. The people are extremely nice and we haven't had one day of rain yet. I know the rain part is going to change once summer ends, but for now we're enjoying the sunshine. Up until about 3 days ago it's been sunny and around 65 to 70 degrees every day. We've just hit a heat wave though and now it's about 90 degrees.

Our apartment is all right for now. It's pretty big and we live on the third floor. Maybe I'll post pictures at some point but it's pretty unexciting as we aren't really settling in at all. We don't want to spend money on making it homey when we plan to move at the end of January. It's low-income housing, which doesn't mean it's bad, but it does mean that I often wonder if the management is trying to get us to move out by ignoring us. The place was in a little bit of disarray when we arrived, not everything was clean and the doors into the laundry were sitting in the middle of the living room. However the carpet was all new and after a little bit of bathroom/kitchen cleaning everything was fine. It did take them 3 days to get to our apartment to put the doors back on and fix the garbage disposal, but whatever it got done. Today we discovered that the dryer makes weird noises and smells smokey when turned on, so now all our clean clothes are lying on towels in the dining room drying. We are however only a block from the light rail station, which makes going into town easy, though it takes us 40 minutes to get to the farmers market and about an hour if we want to go to the west side of town.

We've explored some since coming to Portland. We've found a bar called The Hungry Tiger Too where they serve vegan corndogs and hot wings and other vegany foods and it's not too terribly far by MAX. The farmers market is huge but pretty cool. This week we bought an eggplant and blueberries, but last week it was fabulous peaches and a vegan chocolate cupcake. We've also been to Voodoo Donuts about a half dozen times since we've gotten here. Even I, who hates donuts, loves a good vegan voodoo donut. The place is open 24 hours a day and sometimes the staff give you discounts on donuts. Yum.

The job front is iffy. It looks like Kyle is going to get a part-time position in this small town outside of Portland as a Library Clerk. It's such a small library that he'll be doing practically everything that a librarian normally does. It's only part time though so we'll see if he can get something else to fill in the rest.

I had an interview for an Aid position at a daycare center on the West side of Portland working with Toddlers (18 months to 2 years). The first interview seemed to go really well, then I had to go in for a 2 hour work try where I actually worked in the room that the open position is in. I thought I did really well, but after the work try the director of the daycare center told me that I needed to register with this Oregon state criminal history database thing if I want to work with children and that they would let me know, you know, soon or eventually, about whether I would get the position. Ugh. There's a nanny agency that has a couple of families they are willing to refer me to where I'd be nannying for older children. Mainly I'd be shuttling to and from school and helping with homework and whatnot after school. It wouldn't be terrible but I'm not sure she can give me 40 hours a week and I wouldn't get benefits like the full-time position at the daycare center would offer.

Anyway, things will get better here in Portland once we both have jobs and things start to settle down a bit. For the moment tensions are a little high with all the stress of looking for jobs.

I hope everything is great with you girls. I miss you all bunches. Call me anytime, I'm mostly around all the time, but just don't call early in the morning your time, I'll be sleeping. Late night is great, 'cause that's early evening for me and we're usually in the apartment cooking dinner or watching a movie or something. Anyway, call me.

Much love,

Court

Strange Days, Part II

First, Licia, I am so sorry to hear about your Great Aunt, even not knowing her, I'm sure it is very difficult especially as it was unexpected and so strange.

This morning my lovely boyfriend woke me up at 6:30 saying I needed to put on my shoes and that he had to talk to me. Groggily I did so and as he was walking me outside he informed me that last night a tree fell on my car.

You see yesterday we got stuck at the library during a tornado warning for a half hour and had torrential rain most of the evening. Nothing seemed to be the matter and the tornado-y part of the storm came and went pretty quickly. But I had parked in the parking lot behind Kyle's apartment which is pretty small and surrounded by trees and apparently one of those trees was brought down during the storm. There were four cars parked on that side of the parking lot and only one, mine, was hit by this tree. It completely shatt

ered my back windshield and dented the roof.

Here's a picture:

Needless to say I have spent my day running around getting estimates and trying to be patient waiting to hear from the insurance company. As of now, I am waiting to hear when a claims adjustor can come look at it so we can get it into a shop. Hopefully it's not totaled though we're bracing for that if it happens.

Anyway, it has been a very strange and long day. But for now, Mary Ellen is parked on the street and has weird plastic wrap in place of her back windshield.

Portland

So I'm writing you girls to share a little idea.

Kyle and I have been discussing this and, well, I'm pretty sure that we're moving to Portland, OR. We don't have jobs there and we don't have any family there but, well, we both like the idea of living on the west coast, mainly Portland because it's a young progressive sort of town and the cost of living isn't too high. Also there are a number of suburbs around Portland where either of us (hopefully both) will probably be able to find a library job eventually. We realize that to start out we're probably going to get crappy jobs working at Target or in a grocery store or something, but there's public transit and we're both super flexible so it shouldn't be impossible to find someone to hire us.

We're already saving money and looking in to the cheapest way to get there and to live there. We're fairly certain that we have enough money between the two of us to get us out there and enough to pay a reasonable rent for at best 6 months. Plus, he has discussed this with his mom and she has 1) put her full support behind us and 2) said that if things go completely to hell that she will help pay for us to get back to Indiana.

I figure, you're only young once, right? I've never done anything even a little risky and I don't think I'll ever have a chance to do so again. So why not?

Anyway, I guess I just wanted to know your thoughts.

much love,

Court

Spring Break Blues

Hello there, lovelies,

So my spring break has officially begun and I have no plans. I'm pretty much just planning on working and basically just lounging around, which I guess will be nice. Plus I will also be working on applying for as many jobs as I possibly can as well as hopefully getting in some Americorps applications (there are 3 library positions in St. Paul, MN that are Americorps and I want one of them really badly, now I just have to wait for my references to okay my using them on my Americorps application).

My boyfriend is in Honduras for the week doing service work, and I can't tell you how worried I am. I would appreciate words of encouragement from any of you who have been to Central America or have done service work like this before. He can't really contact me in any way, though he said he would try to email me at some point during the week to let me know he's ok. Anyway. He left Friday evening and won't be back until next Friday and, besides worrying, I'm going to miss having him around this week.

I'm also pretty much working on catching up on reading for my internship, reading some YA novels (right now I'm trying to familiarize myself with the literature), and watching some classic films (last night it was "It Happened One Night" and tomorrow I'll be watching "12 Angry Men", any suggestions are welcome). Also we're cat sitting for one of my roommate's friends, Viola has settled in pretty well but she does like to open doors and walk in on you. Also she really likes to get under my feet when I'm in the kitchen and she has claimed the couch and bathroom as her own personal spaces. I think I'll miss her when she's gone.

Anyway, I'm only 2 days into my Spring Break, and I'm kind of feeling like I wish it weren't spring break. I have way too much to do but no motivation to do any of it.

Finals Week Has Nothing on This

Hello my loves,

So finals week for me is not until next week and yet I'm still feeling the stress. Because for those of us in the silly School of Library and Information Science there really are no finals. All of my final projects (for the most part) are due this week.

I'm trying pretty hard to stay on task and get everything done and I know it all will get done, I'm just nervous about grades and whatnot. So far, I've pretty much completed a reading log of 70 children's books, I'm about half way through compiling an annotated booklist of alternative history mystery novels (I'll post it here if you'd like when it's all done), I have a presentation tomorrow for this program (I wrote all the code to make that sucker run), I still have to start a take home final of Perl code (blech), and I have to write a 3 page paper about cataloging and complete some final cataloging with my cataloging partner. Eek! This semester has been pretty stressful, which considering I was complaining all last semester about how I was not challenged in any way, this has been a nice change. Next semester is going to be intense in a different way though. I have to start looking for a job and I'll be on the job. I'm ridiculously excited about my internship though I really hope I live up to my supervisor's expectations (she seems pretty excited to be working with me). But then there's the whole finding a job or something thing. I will not be moving back to Fort Wayne (so if you happen to hear my mother at any time mention this as a possibility kindly correct her). I'm really hoping to find an Americorps position in a library or at least working with children and literacy; the only problem with that plan is that the Americorps positions won't begin to be posted until March most likely and if I end up needing a real job instead then I should really start applying for those now-ish. I've seen a few job postings that I like the looks of, one in Washington state and one in Wyoming (but I don't think I'd be happy in Wyoming, so I think I'll forgo the application process there).

Anyway, I was really glad I got to see most of you at Thanksgiving, I think we'll have to plan something for while we're all home for Christmas (I personally don't think I'll be home except the week before and maybe a couple of days after). I miss you all.

love love.

Hello loves.

So I updated the playlist over on the side of this page (I don't know how many of you listen to it, but it's there). I put on stuff I am currently enjoying but if you have any requests I can put more songs on it. The first song is by a band called Why? whom I went to see this past Friday at a straight-edge club here in Bloomington called Rhino's. They're hip-hop/rap and I really like them.

Other than that some of the songs are just sweet (like Clementine by the Decembrists or I Found a Reason by Cat Power) and others are from bands I like. The second song on the list is by thenewno2 (the name is a nod to the show The Prisoner) and the lead singer is George Harrison's son, which is kind of cool.

Other than that I present to you two links for your amusement: I'm pretty sure our parents would all fit into this and then this, not FML but MLIA both fun and kind of uplifting in their own ways.

Also, if you ever need a book to read, I'm trying to hone my reader's advisory skills. So just ask me and I'll try to find the perfect book for you.

peace & love.

finally friday

Hello my loves.

Just thought since the week started with a blog post maybe it should end with one too.

Things are going pretty all right around here. Kind of rainy but it finally feels like autumn (which is awesome by the way). Today I am making Molasses cookies, but I was impatient and didn't want to chill them so I put them in a 7 x 10 baking dish and made them into bars instead. I think molasses makes it feel more like autumn.

Let's see. What's new with me? I'm thinking I'm going to be graduating in the spring (May 2010) and then looking for an Americorps position or something like that for a year (I've even considered applying to Teach for America again, but that was so much heartbreak last time I don't think I could take it if they rejected me again). I'm looking for an internship (and actually have been offered one in Mooresville, IN for the upcoming semester) but Mooresville is a 45 minute drive and it's an unpaid internship. The Ellettsville branch of the library here in Monroe County has asked me to come in for an interview, and while that would be unpaid as well, at least I would only be driving around 10 minutes to get there. But yeah, I'd be doing the internship for credit and taking 3 other classes to be able to finish up in the spring.

I'm also starting to do Preschool Storytime at one of the grade schools around here. They let us use the school media center to do storytime for community families and their preschoolers. I'm really excited about it. I'll only be leading about once a month and helping one other time during the month but the SLIS students that volunteer get to completely run the show, which is awesome and great experience.

Things with Kyle are fantastic. If you didn't know, I'm dating someone. It's been about 3 months or so. He's a library student like me. I can't remember if I ever actually came out and told you girls that on here, but it's on facebook I know and I know a few of you have asked about and/or met him.

Tonight I'm heading out to the Kings of Leon concert in Indianapolis with a friend of mine from SLIS and some random guy (also a SLIS student) (It's a long story that involves people backing out on going to the concert at the last minute.)

Anyway, I love you all and you should probably come visit me while I'm still in Bloomington, because I love it here and I love showing it off.

peace & love,

Court

Vegan Cookies & A New Apartment

I have mostly settled in to the new apartment. It's not as nice as the old place, but at the same time it is a million times better. It's smaller so it feels a lot more like a home and my roommate is great so far. It's kind of nice coming home and having someone to hang out with.

I've also discovered that we are only about 3 blocks from Sahara Mart which is a locally owned ethnic food store (really more of a health food store so it has everything I could ever want/need), which is amazing. And the walk to work is no longer than the one I had before. I think I'm going to like it here despite not having a front porch.

My first baking in the new apartment was a complete success. I made lovely chocolate chocolate chip cookies from this recipe and yummy oatmeal raisin cookies from this recipe.

Here is a photo of the chocolate chocolate chip cookies per the request of Monica:

There is no picture of the oatmeal raisin ones because they were kind of a mess. I was in too much of a hurry when I was making them but they taste delicious and actually held up really nicely once they cooled.

peace & love, girlies.

An Account of My Vagrancy

So, as I told you all previously, I am homeless this week. I think I am coming to appreciate how nice it is to have someplace to come home to. Seriously.

Even with friends around to take me in at night, no one can really amuse me all day long (and I wouldn't want them to) but this also means that I have to find things to do which aren't within my usual routine of going home, making a sandwich and watching TV or reading a book or perusing the internet, and then going on with my day from there.

So far this week, I have spent a few hours in couple different coffee shops. I finished a book and am about half way through another (I would highly recommend The Waves by Virginia Woolf if you're looking for something with beautiful prose). I've walked more than I think I have ever walked in my life and thus my feet kind of hurt. I've also found a lovely little park down by my new apartment where there are some shady trees I can read under (which will make for a nice reading spot now that I no longer have a front porch to read on).

I'm also spending a great deal of time loitering in the SLIS computer lab (this is where I am currently stationed); that is the lab for the students in my program in the library. I feel weird just chilling in here, but I know I'm welcome and there aren't very many people around.

The weather has been ridiculous around here, and I feel like it waited just until this week to get this way. If I had been homeless last week or the week before the weather would have been at its hottest in the 70s where this week it's pushing 90 almost everyday.

Also, I just read the book Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs by Judi Barrett. I don't know how I've managed to go this long, loving children's books like I do and having never read this book. You should definitely check it out if you get the chance. The illustrations are hilarious and the story is pretty darn cute as well.

Anyway, I'm cat sitting this weekend, so I'll have a place to crash for the whole weekend and then I'm moving in to my new apartment on Monday! YAY!

But anyway, if you feel the need to call me, I'm pretty much persistently in need of amusement this week, so feel free to call and chat.

peace & love.

Pictures of a few things that amuse me

So I'm supposed to be finishing up packing up my life so I can move out of this fantastic joint I've been living in for the semester. I'm excited about my new roommate but I will sorely miss what I have come to love about this apartment during the time that I've been living here (mainly during this past summer), those being the lovely front porch and swing, the fantastic and large kitchen, washer/dryer right here, and of course the one block proximity from both a campus bus stop and 3 coffee houses (not counting starbucks). But I'm only moving a couple blocks south from here and my new roommate is going to be fantastic I can almost guarantee it.

But if you didn't know I'm actually going to be houseless for a week. This lease is ending but my new one doesn't start until the 17th, so I'm mooching off my friends and sleeping on their floors for the week. I'll probably also be home close to the end of the week so I can see Licia and the rest of your lovelies who will be there.

Anyway. Here is the picture of the new journal:

Almost just like the old one only not red. I'm also posting here the new list/order so we can have it saved someplace that's not an email:

Courtney
Lindsay D.
Alicia
Elyssa
Lindsay K.
Andrea
Shannon
Monica

Also, here is a picture of these beans I just bought at the farmers market. They're called October beans or cranberry beans. I kept referring to them as pink polka dotted beans. You shell them and cook them like lima beans or kidney beans.
I think they look lovely and apparently I am highly swayed by goofy looking and amusing looking vegetables at the farmers market. As well as small children selling vegetables.

peace & love.

Crazy Baking

Hello my loves,

I just wanted thought I'd like to do a little updating on here.

Lyssa, love, I know the perfect teaching position is out there just waiting for you, don't give up hope yet! And Monica, you already know I'm planning on spoiling your child as much as I already spoil my real nieces and nephew, so be prepared. I love kids. Licia, it sounds like El Paso is a great experience for you. I can't wait to hear more about it. Shannon I'm probably going to come to Chi-town to visit you soon, so be prepared. Andrea, I just called you back today, we need to hang out again before the summer ends!! Klinks, I'd love to hear more about what is going on in your life! And Dport, it was great getting to hang out this weekend!

OK, in the life of Courtney -- Warren is turning 5 on Tuesday, very exciting, and it makes me feel old. He's getting so big, he's not a baby anymore, he's going to be a real school-going kid soon which is crazy in my mind. The rest of the little-uns are just as cute as ever.

Currently I am doing basically nothing with my life. I have to move out of this apartment on the 10th of August and in to my new one on the 17th. So I will be homeless for a week (the weekend of the 15-16 might be when I'd be thinking about Chicago if you wouldn't be too busy Shan). My classes start up again on the 31st of August. Until then I'm basically just working in the mornings and baking or reading or both all afternoon. My newest discovery is vegan baking. It's great fun because I'm relearning a lot of the things I already knew about baking. Here is a picture of what I baked today:
These are Blueberry Walnut Scones, and I know it doesn't look it so much in this picture, but they are a lot more blue than anything I've ever baked before. But they taste delicious. And when I say this I am completely serious, if you (any of you) ever want baked goods, seriously let me know and I will bake you things and mail them to you. I am honing my baking skills a little at a time and will willingly send you cookies, scones, muffins, probably not bread because I think it would be stale by the time it got to you, but pretty much anything else. If you notice on facebook I'm pretty much always baking and I really can't eat it all myself.

Anyway, other new things in my life. Nothing much really, I've been much more social lately which is abnormal but fantastic. And there's this boy. But we're trying to take things slowly. So more on that later.

Call me, all of you, I miss you like whoa.

peace & love,

Court

Seriously Anti-Social

Hello loves,

So I have determined that I am officially seriously anti-social. I know it's a shock to you all.

My summer has come and gone (the first part of it anyway). I had about a week off and now classes are starting up again tomorrow. It's going to be ridiculously busy for me as I have class MTWR for 3 hours each day and 3 hours of work on those days too. Oh well, I shouldn't complain especially since Dport's in law school. That's my schedule time infinity.

Anywho. I was thinking that I was going to get the apartment to myself for the summer (Jenna has an internship in Indianapolis for the summer and that's where she's from originally and Walla is going back to New York for the summer). It's looking like that may not be the case and somehow I am very disappointed. Walla really is leaving tomorrow morning but Jenna has come back already from what I thought was going to be an extended stay with her family. Maybe it's just because I don't know my roommates and have chosen to not particularly want to be their friend but the little things really bug me, like how loud Jenna plays her music, how Walla yells at the TV (no matter what she's watching but especially CNN), how Walla sings off-key at the top of her lungs everywhere in the house, how we have one bathroom and Walla takes forever in it pretty much whenever I need to pee, how Jenna is constantly doing laundry (seriously she went home for the weekend and came back to do laundry, what is that!?!). Sorry for the rant, but I want them to not be around for a while. I'm fairly certain they're the reason I've spent so much time over at Ben's this semester and why I don't feel comfortable anywhere but in my own room in this apartment. Ugh.

Anyway, I love you girls and you should come visit me or expect a visit from me (once my classes get over in June). If you need me, just call. I'm around. (if you haven't gotten my new phone number, let me know.)


peace, love, and sequestered nooks,

Court

I've never had a shit-list in my life. But I have officially created one specifically to put law school on.

Law school is on my shit-list for stealing my boyfriend from me for finals.

Finals are lame and so is law school.

also - I'm making Cinnamon Raisin Bread tomorrow, I've decided.

One Week

that's all that's left between me and the end of this semester.

I have complained and complained about how easy it is and now I've left everything to the very last minute. I have a pathfinder due on Tuesday, a podcast presentation on Tuesday evening, and a presentation on my HCI project on Thursday.

Podcast is done. HCI presentation will come together as my group always leaves these things to the last minute, but the paper that accompanies it is really my responsibility and I haven't really started it. But the pathfinder is my real worry. I have to compile a list of sources on a topic (I choose Conversion in the Abrahamic Traditions). It should be interesting but I need to get it all together and I don't want to because, well, I don't.

Also. My phone is dying (ask Dport) and earlier this evening the fire alarm went off in my apartment for like 10 minutes. I'm here alone and the place is not on fire. Weird.

Also, got my haircut and I just don't know about it.

All in all, I'm not digging tonight.

EASTER

I heard a rumor that we might all be in the Fort this coming weekend being that it is Easter. Actually not completely true, Shannon are you coming home? I'm thinking from what I remember you telling me last weekend that even if you are we're going to have a hard time getting together. Anyway, I was wondering if maybe we'd want to get together. Maybe do dinner and coffee? Or just coffee? Those of you who haven't seen it yet need to get to the Grind and check out the swanky new set up (if you hadn't heard it was purchased by one of the regulars when the original owner was going to close it and he seems to be doing really well with it).

Anywho. I'm planning on leaving here late morning to early afternoon-ish on Friday thus getting me home in the early evening area. Maybe we could do Casa's for dinner and then swing over to the Grind?

Let me know thoughts on this, because I obviously have no idea how busy any of you are and my family doesn't even know I'm coming home (I don't think, yet)... so I can basically do whatever I want at this point.

ANYWHO - I want to see all your pretty faces since we never know when the next time we'll all be around is.

Love - Court

PS - ditto what Lyssa said:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY KLINKS!!

dearest loves -

my spring break is starting (right now!) and I'm headed to Minneapolis to see our lovely Lishka for a few days.

I'm coming back to Fort Wayne however (for a couple of days anyway) on Wednesday. I should be rolling in to Fort Wayne on Wednesday afternoon perhaps around 3 or 4, and will potentially be leaving to come back to Bloomington sometime on Friday or early Saturday.

If anyone who dwells in the Fort normally (mainly Klinks and Lyss now I guess, huh?) would like to meet up for coffee or dinner or lunch or something on Wednesday or Thursday evening, let me know, k?

love love- me

through the looking glass

I was feeling kind of like Alice in Wonderland today as I was working on our archives. I want you all to take a look down towards the end of our lovely new blog. You will notice that there are a good number of "new" posts that date from August 2005 through September (it's going to take me a little while to get all of the old xanga posts over here, especially the early years when we were really in to the posting).

You'll notice on the side of the blog that there is a list of "tags". If you click on one it'll take you to all the posts about that topic. I gave each of us our own tag (by name, sorry Monica, I messed yours up so for now you're Korson), our school has a tag, there's one labeled just "relationships" and then relationships that in retrospect are pretty serious ("monica_and_paul, cliff_and_andrea). There are others, just take a look and if when you post you want to put tags on your posts or if you want to suggest tags for the old posts, be my guest, comment here or log in to our shared account and go to the post and click the little yellow pencil to edit.

It's just weird reading posts from almost 4 years ago. We were so different and yet still so the same. And it's weird to read about things that I know have or haven't worked out and to read the hope in your words. It makes me miss you all so much.

Anyway, in the present - I'm starting to really actually settle in here at IU (aka I'm starting to actually like it here). Classes are pretty boring, but I'm hoping for better next semester. I just got a job working as an Accounting Assistant in Technical Services at the Library here (which will be amazing work experience and will probably help me to get a job when I graduate). I just started that today, so I don't have a good feel for it yet, but it seems a lot like the job I had in Genealogy that one summer with slightly more leg work (so not terrible).

I thought I had found a place to live next year and then a friend from undergrad called and asked if I still needed a roommate. Well, I had found a one bedroom but was still a little leary about living alone (and also I was kind of unsure about the cost of rent on a one bedroom). This friend has a friend who is looking for someone to live with, so I'm going to call her and see if she's not a complete psycho, and then I'll probably move in with her in August. Or I'll stick with my original plan and move to the apartment I had found just last week.

After reading all those mushy-gushy posts from yester-year, I desperately want to post something mushy, but I'm afraid some of you will puke. So I will simply say that Ben is fantastic. It is amazing to get to see him pretty much every day and we're going on seven months now. If any of you have noted my previous track record, you will see that this is the longest relationship I've been in, ever. If you want to hear me gush about my boyfriend all you have to do is ask.

Anywho, all of you - call me some time.

peace & love,

Court