What a difference (almost) a year makes

Greetings and Salutations! as Charlotte (the spider) would say. It's been a while since I've written a post, but I've been ridiculously busy, and honestly, I think I'm approaching my breaking point. Grad school is technically easy but it's a grueling set of hoops to jump through. Readin' and writin' aren't that difficult, especially when you've done them for so long and you think you're good at it, but when you have so much of it to do and it's so dense and all this unstructured time to get it done and you may or may not have a support staff to help you do all this work you have to do by yourself.

See, 'cause that's the problem: even if you have a great set of people behind you, most of the work has to be your own. YOU have to be the one to sit in class and take notes, YOU have to write your papers and use sources correctly to create original work, and then given the choice of working in groups, you'd really rather work alone.

So that's what makes grad schoo stuff hard. I am really diggin' anthropology because it's about...everything! And I am able to combine the 4 things I like about what I want to do with my life: 1) get paid to 2) travel around the world, 3) talk to people, 4) and write about stuff. I am so grateful for all the opportunities that anthro has been able to swing my way. That being said, the reason why I am writing today is because I am just two days away from going to Eastern Europe for the first time! I'm going to Transylvania, Romania to search for Dracula - no, I'm going to look at how the Romanians are dealing with the internet access that they've received. How are they using the services, how is the state using services? It seems a long way to go when I already know the answer is "porn" - b/c that's how everyone else uses it! - but I'm looking forward to going.

I am looking forward to going, but I really think it will be hard to get on the plane on Monday knowing that my friendship with my best friend is on such shaky ground - it can't keep me from leaving, but it's keeping me from being completely excited about this trip. I really wanted to patch things up well before I left, and I can't honestly say if that has happened. Makes me nervous and sad.