Acceptance

I guess the most important element (in the long term) about this week was that I officially learned that I've been accepted to grad school! I got an email. I'm hoping to get a letter in the mail with more information before I send in my acceptance, but if that doesn't come Tuesday, I'll have to respond to the email anyway.

I fully expected I would be admitted—I'm already published in history, and my GRE scores were much higher than the requirement. (My math score was higher than the required verbal score for PhDs, and my verbal score was much higher than that, so I'm certainly qualified for a master's.) Now that it's official, I'm more nervous than I am excited or relieved. This is really happening. This means I have two difficult years ahead of me full of homework and writing. I have to figure out forming a committee, picking classes, and learning how grad school works. But it's nice to feel like I'm making progress in life, because I don't know how long I could handle this low-paying This Is the Place/Sundance Institute pattern.

I really enjoy doing my own historical research and writing, so if grad school is more of that, I'm excited for it! But if it's more like my undergrad history classes, then I will really struggle.

Anyway, I didn't want all that to be buried in a post full of frivolity, so I put it at the beginning. Now to start with an overview of my week.

My grandparents go to plays at local CenterPoint Theater, and each time they take a family member with them. My mom couldn't make it this time, so I went in her place to see Peter and the Starcatcher. It was literally the worst play I have ever seen. The acting and sets were fine, but I thought it was a shame that they put so much effort into producing such a dumb play. It's yet another Peter Pan backstory. I was not impressed with the Come Away movie I saw at Sundance Film Festival last month, but this was way worse. Honestly, it felt like the videos that student body officers used to make in high school. It was full of juvenile "humor": gibberish talk, fat jokes, cross-dressing, scatology, anachronistic pop-culture references, and more. It was one of those plays where they want you to use your imagination for the setting, like Our Town but without the sophistication. Remember back in the 2000s how all the kids movies wanted to be Shrek, but they weren't as funny as they thought they were? That was the case with this play. Apparently it's based on novels by Dave Barry, and they're also making a movie of it. I think it will work better as a movie (though it still won't be great), but as a play it was just plain awful!

On Tuesday and Wednesday, I went to the rec center to swim, and my typical swimming workout begins with fourteen lengths without stopping. On Wednesday, I cut more than twenty seconds off my usual time for those laps! A few weeks ago, I was swimming, and a former swim coach was in the lane next to me. He said, "I hope you won't be offended," and then gave me some tips. I've been implementing his advice, and that's the only reason I can think of for improving my time so much.

On Thursday I went to give my car a regular checkup. When I bought it, I got free tune-ups from Toyota, so I would take it to the dealer where I got it out in Murray, but then I ran out of free tune-ups, so I went to the Bountiful dealer. But it turns out that all this time I still could have had the free ones from Bountiful instead of driving to Murray. Oh well. But what I feel bad about is that there's this really delightful car place in Bountiful called Andy's Lube and Service. I always went there with "my" last car, and they're just a small business that's very friendly and reliable. But it really is in my best interest to take my Toyota to the Toyota dealer. I just feel bad not taking my business to Andy's.

It's not trail season right now, but I'm always looking for new trails. Well, I kind of found one this week. I had seen this trail before, but I saw that it was "private property," so I never used it. But the sign makes it sound like you just can't hunt or drive there. So I might have to return once the snow melts. I went a few feet on the trail, and it was muddy. But that kind of fulfilled a dream I had the night before; I had dreamed that I was walking on a really muddy road in my nicest dress shoes. (Of course, in real life I wasn't wearing dress shoes, and I only took a few steps.)

That wasn't the only dream that kind of came true this week. Last night I dreamed that I was in a lakeside home, and the waves on the lake were getting really big and crashing against the porch windows. I hoped the window seal would be strong enough. But as I was watching the waves, I started singing "Master, the Tempest Is Raging." Then today at church, the organist played that after the closing prayer.

Valentine's Day is my least favorite of the nine holidays I formally celebrate, but I still like it. My parents and my sister all happened to be off that day, so we went to the Leonardo museum to see their Pompeii exhibit. I was amazed to see all the things they had two thousand years ago that we still use today, such as folding tables and colanders. The Leonardo really is a wonderful local museum.

On Friday, February 14, 2014, I came home from college, and we got a heart-shaped pizza and a stuffed pizza from Papa Murphy's. My mom was carrying a pizza down the stairs when she misstepped and totally destroyed her leg. It happened right in front of me, and I still have PTSD from the incident. But ever since then, we've gotten Papa Murphy's pizza in commemoration of that terrible Valentine's Day. We're still a little superstitious about the day, and this year was especially bad because it was on a Friday again. But we made it through accident free.

Now that Valentine's Day is over, the green season has begun, and that's always fun, even if it's not very meaningful.

Yesterday I ran to the Bountiful Temple and back, which is always a risky run (almost eleven miles). If I can make it, great; but sometimes (usually late winter or early spring) my knee starts hurting and I have to walk home the last two, three, five miles. Yesterday, my knee starting hurting. But I powered through and it quit hurting as bad! I had never done that before. I just really didn't want to walk four miles home.