According to the Outer Banks Wedding Guide that I picked up yesterday, I am waaaay behind on the standard wedding “to do” check list. (I say this, of course, with my tongue firmly wedged into my cheek.) I didn’t start shaping my eyebrows, fixing my cuticles, or practicing make-up six months ago. Fiancé-friend has not scheduled his “boykini” wax.

So yes, any advice?

And also, check out our engagement photos (and read my honest recap of the experience) on the Wedding Victory Tour blog.

We arrived here mid-week to join this annual family/friends beach trip. It has been a great to relax and enjoy “beach time” (though I have diligently gotten out every morning for a four-miler on the sand. That kind of sucks, I have to say).

The wild horses up here in the 4×5 area of the Outer Banks are always on beach time, I suppose.

This horse is rolling in the sand. It’s not dead.

Michelle rescued this whelk, which was stranded by the receding tide. For awhile, he was a hospice welk, and I was pretty sure that his demise was imminent. (We may have been scoping out his real estate for post-mortem seizure.) However, newly named “Lawrence Whelk” rallied against all odds and was released with great ceremony (overhand fling) into the Atlantic last night. Bye, Lawrence!

Mostly, though, we’ve been doing a lot of this:

Brett and I took an afternoon trip to Manteo on Roanoke Island. Isn’t its [reproduction] lighthouse adorable?

It was so nice we schemed ways to move there full-time.

In addition to finding six sand dollars (!!!), I am also a masterful mac & cheese cook. Maybe they need my unique set of skills down here….

One week until we are married. Guess what! It’s a 17-year cicada year!

Fiancé-friend is now a Doctor [of Philosophy]!

Oscar and Bodger did some open-mouth bro-kissing!

Brian was goofy at dinner last night….

I mean, really goofy!

We left town today. I’m currently writing from Charleston, WV, where we’re staying overnight on the way to the Outer Banks to meet my family for our annual DuneMaker beach week.

On the way, we hit up the Kentucky State Capitol building. I was impressed.

Bye-bye, Midwest! See you soon, on Wedding Victory Tour!

]]> http://micapie.com/2013/05/pictures-from-the-last-few-days.html/feed 2 http://micapie.com/2013/05/rants-from-the-past-week-or-so.html http://micapie.com/2013/05/rants-from-the-past-week-or-so.html#comments Mon, 13 May 2013 02:22:21 +0000 Mica http://micapie.com/?p=3854 Continue reading →]]> To say that the past two weeks have been stressful would be an understatement. Going on a whirlwind (but somehow relaxing) trip to Jackson, WY for Jessica’s wedding and then immediately packing up and moving was a real crunch of time and resources.

Currently, I’m writing this email from Brian and Kya’s house. They are letting us crash here for the weekend because we officially moved out of our townhouse this week. As of yesterday when we turned in our keys, we are officially homeless. For the next two months, we will basically be drifters. Actually, this period of drift may extend past two months because HAHAHAHA WE DON’T HAVE JOBS YET.

…except the Commencement speaker today told us that those of us graduating without a job lined up are truly the lucky ones. He had some ridiculous, platitude-based logic for this, but I have a hard time taking advice from a self-important bajillionaire who owns an NFL team.

So in no particular order, here are some things that happened recently:

I purchased one of the remaining card catalogs from the University, and I am SA-HOOO proud of it. Unfortunately, I had to put it into our storage unit with the rest of our stuff for the summer, and I don’t have a picture. I literally checked on it three times when we were moving out just to make sure someone hadn’t taken it. I mean, from what I read on the Internet, these are the new quirky furniture item, and they are in high demand. And I GOTS ME ONE!!!!
Moving was a terrible three-day ordeal that tested my patience and the strength of my relationship with Fiancé-friend. It rained. We were not prepared to put things in the truck. Everything was disorganized, and I had no semblance of control. I couldn’t even make my very helpful itemized spreadsheet to organize the move. I broke down several times. Seriously, at one point, I broke down in tears in the car and wailed things like, “DO YOU EVEN WANT TO MARRY ME ANYMORE?!? HOW WILL YOU NOT RESENT ME WHEN I ACT LIKE THIS?!?”
I sold, donated, or gave away most of the stuff we own. It felt like a punishment from the universe, being forced to interact with some of the ridiculously flakey people who frequent Craig’s List. At one point, some morally reprehensible lady tried to get me to drop the price on our already discounted table set because I had mentioned that if she didn’t want it, I would donate it to charity. While this was probably good “business sense” on her end, I was not in the mood to deal with it. I held firm and yelled vehemently into the air to vent my rage: “CALL MY BLUFF, YOU *&#&$&#(@))!! CALL IT! I WILL ANNIHILATE YOU!!!!” (She ended up paying full price.)

So now, everything we own fits in a 10′x10′ storage unit and our four-door sedan. I look forward to spending the next few months wondering if I (a) stored, (b) shipped, (c) packed, or (d) donated/sold my ____. I may or may not need to buy an entirely new wardrobe because I gave away so many of my clothes (which were basically tee-shirts).

I thought about going back to a real bed until I realized the delight and joy of being able to shove your entire “bed” (Japanese futon mattress) into the trunk of a Mazda3. Box springs? I laugh at you!

Our Convocation speeches sucked yesterday. I was given some really lame and defensive logic for why humanities degrees are worthwhile. If I am to believe this “wisdom” imparted upon me, it appears that all other degrees are for illiterate, uncommunicative vegetables who don’t know how to use words. Thanks for that patently false information, professors!

I think that’s all for now. I’m slowly regaining control of some elements of my life, namely the use of my time. While I will still be bouncing around from place to place and from event to event for the foreseeable future, I hope that these will be happy, fun weeks!

So, today, I donned academic regalia–including a strangulation hood–to walk for Convocation.

I wasn’t that excited about graduating because I didn’t walk for my first MA and because the ceremony came at the end of a real moving shitstorm. Putting on ceremonial [polyester] garb to receive a degree that I might not use didn’t seem that important. Plus, my diploma is going to be mailed to me this summer anyway.

I’m glad I did it though. It’s not exactly a rite of passage at this point, but I was proud to wear my MA hood and celebrate with some of the friends I’ve made over the past five years.

[Despite meticulous head measuring, my mortarboard was too small. Fortunately, Tracy's was too big, so we switched.]

Graduation weekend is a nightmare is a small Midwestern college town, so I discouraged my parents from coming and paying for an overpriced hotel room. Fiancé-friend came to support me though:

And Ester came, too! She’s a great officemate, and I will miss her next year.

And, of course, it was great to celebrate with Kayla! Her parents even took us out to dinner afterwards!

So that’s it. Five years of grad school and nine consecutive years of higher education. That’s a long time to be in school! It’s time to leave, and it will not be a tearful good-bye.

Do I regret going to grad school? Sometimes. I wish I had forced myself to take a less “safe” route and challenge myself in the professional world.

Do I think this was wasted time? No, not really. I have two advanced degrees and perhaps more importantly, the confidence of having made the conscious and well-reasoned decision not to pursue a PhD. I look forward to joining the professional realm and hope that it will be, in many ways, a positive change.

But now, bed. And tomorrow, watching Fiancé-friend get hooded for his doctorate. And Tuesday: Beach. Last summer of free time!

My arms hurt.

Our brief sojourn in Jackson Hole, WY at Amangani was far too short. So many thanks to Jessica and Matt for including us in their wedding celebration and to their families for making our trip possible!

The wedding was really beautiful–casual and laid-back, but also intimate and meaningful. I cried twice (Okay, um, three times), especially during Jessica’s parents’ speeches.

Congratulations, Jessica and Matt! I’m so happy for you both!

Now, back to reality.

This was sadly the only moose I saw while in Jackson.

We’re staying at Amangani, one of the luxury hotels in the Aman chain. It is aman-amazing.

Seriously, this is the view from the deck.

Yay, I’m so, so honored to be invited on this trip (Fiancé-friend, too!) to celebrate Jessica’s wedding later today. I’m also relieved that my MOH dress, shoes, and jewelry all arrive safely in my checked bag.

First, though, we’re going for a morning hike. Then hair and makeup starts at one.

Though I am disappointed to say that we have not seen any elk yet! No elk! Just lots of their poops.

• finishing the semester (German, curse youuuuuuu and your trivial evaluations!)
• calculating final grades (somehow, the most onerous process ever)
• applying for jobs (Fingers crossed! And toes! Oh please, oh please!)
• Getting ready to move out of the apartment.

I also need to:

• Continue selling our stuff on Craig’s List
• Figure out what to pack for Jackson Wyoming (Uh oh, we leave on Thursday.)
• Write a maid-of-honor speech (ZOMG WE LEAVE ON THURSDAY!!!)
  
• Deal with a bogus cleaning fee from our relay van rental company
• Blog for the running store
• Harass (I mean, reach out to) my high school classmates and ask them to contribute to the annual giving campaign
• Run miles and exercise so that I can generally fit into my wedding attire.

So in the mean time, please check out this post on the Wedding Victory Tour blog about my bachelorette party.

A friend of mine is looking for participants for a study involving Non-native speaker’s judgements of English sentences. The study consists of reading 45 sentences that you read and provide a judgement of whether it sounds like an English sentence or not. There is also a short (very short) grammar quiz, consisting of 23 multiple-choice sentences. It should take about 10-15 minutes to complete. The link to the survey is below.

Your participation in this study is very helpful and very much appreciated!

Survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/PCV6BMV

Thanks from Mica and her friend Staci!