"I need a place that's hidden in the deep where lonely angels sing you to your sleep though all the world is broken."

Sarah needs to be packing. There is so much. My bed has already been re-located to it's current resting place: the basement. And so I sit on the floor. I wonder when I learned to sit cross-legged? I had to be pretty young because they make you do that all through elementary school.

In other words I am taking this opportunity to procrastinate.

Thank you for sharing it with me.

This is the last night that I will spend in Columbia for 10 months. How do I feel about that? You would think I would be excited. The truth is, these knots refuse to leave. There are stretched of time where I am s distracted that I hardly notice. Then I come home again and realize just how big a step this is in my humble existence. There are no parties. Nothing exciting. No big bang. I simply drift away from the home that has been my mainland for the past 22.5 years.

Somebody tell me that I am doing the right thing.

No, don't. Because the only one that can know if this is right is me. It may turn out that this is all wrong. But I will endure because I need to grow up. No more crutch. No more pretending that I'm not really an adult. Not yet. I still feel like a child but with none of the innocence and simplicity. I'm in the worst kind of limbo.

I have two more nights to spend in blissful familiarity. I suppose I should be glad that I'm not going oversees into some harsh country where I don't even speak the language.

Enough of this. I just needed to put some thoughts down. As I said before I went into Rhode Island, who knows how many opportunities I will have to blog out there (Of course I had plenty in Rhode Island but the office I spent time in had internet.).

Happy snowy Wednesday everybody.

"All I wanns do is *bang*, *bang*, *bang*, *bang*, and a *Cha-ching*, and take your money."

The verdict is in. Here are the results.

Behavioral Biology: B

Human Dimensions in Fisheries and Wildlife Conservation: A-

Behavioral Ecology: B+

Geography of Cemeteries: A

Natural Resource Biometrics: A-

Semester GPA: 3.5

Cumulative GPA: 2.985

Status on my Ichthyology grade: Still a D+. No grade change out of him.

I am SO close to that 3.0 GPA I can taste it. If only he would read my paper and say, "Man, that was one of the best written research proposals from an undergrad that I have ever read. And this girl did SO much for this project, I am going to bump her grade up to a B."

I do not hold much hope for that scenario.

On a less happy note, I spent $1083.75 on my car today. I sent it in on Tuesday morning to get them to look it over and tell me what needed to be done to get it to New Hampshire and not die withing the first week. I told him to fix everything that needed it. He did. Now I am praying that it makes it all the way there. I would probably stand in traffic if my car died halfway to New Hampshire.

I guess it's better to spend the money to get it fixed now rather than have to worry about it in a strange location where I don't know anybody. I also get to spend another $80 to make Sadie genderless.

So all in all I am of the opinion that money is horrible, as is spending it. But I do have faith that it will all work out.

That's all really. Just wanted to give you all a little update.

Also, I leave in T minus 8.5 days and counting. I am not ready. Give me another month, please?

"We believe in the sum of ourselves and that's the way we get by."

And so the epic tale of Pimephales promelas and the scholar comes to a dreary and anticlimactic end. Not ending in triumph in any sense of the word. Letters were scrawled across a paper, yes. But there was nothing of real merit in those words. They were empty and lacking of any real results.

Why was the end so tragic, you may ask? It is simply this. That 10 months passed and all that results is a sad excuse for a paper. No eggs. Never eggs. No real experimentation. Just a handful of attempts and a spawning surface lying bare like white bone picked clean of all it's intentions. 10 months of hopes (like tiny sparrows), worries (like writhing snakes), and disappointments (like murdered puppies). And in the end it came to this. Writing a paper of what could have been. This scholar, soon to graduate, putting all her sweat and blood into something that will later be used by another. Will he/she have to do work? Not as much as I have done because it is now completed and all he/she will have to do is sit back, wait, and observe the fruits of her non-labors as they develop and hatch.

But as I said. This epic is at an end. There is no use dwelling on what is past. The words are written and sent the the man who, after all these months, will finally decide my fate.

And this scholar asks herself: Why on earth would you want to do this for the rest of your life?

Because it gives back what I take every day from the world.

In other words, I wrote my 10 pages, I did the research, I turned it in and now I am waiting for my professor to read it and tell me what he thinks and if I got my C or not. (A on the paper hopefully, C in the class).

I wish I could say that I was really done. I still have one other paper and a test looming over me. The paper is no worry. It practically writes itself. I just have to sit down and do it. The test is no real sweat. I can fail it and still get a B in the class. I would much rather get a B on the test and get an A in the class...but you know. We'll see. I have no idea ho hard it is going to be.

So that is what I have left. That and a mound of things growing ever higher of things I need to do before I leave. Among them is spend time with the people I will miss the most (My friends and family).

So there is your little update of my status in life right now.