one more miracle

Today is a good day!

I saw my friend Jake from high school for the first time in THREE YEARS. We were geek buddies in high school and continue to be geek buddies. He's awesome. We went bowling (I totally kicked his ass) and then got a pint of Guinness and chatted for a while. Om nom and yay :)

Then I met three of my oldest and wonderfulest high school friends, Sarah, Coryn, and Dana (I've known Dana since we were ten, oh the stories she can tell about me!). We hung out in an Irish pub for four hours just talking about everything, life and school and guys and sex and studying abroad and high school and the future and everything. It was ridiculously fun, I had a wonderful time. I used to be so antisocial - when I was around people too long, I would start to get restless and need to leave and be on my own again. But Dublin totally cured me of that and I just kept talking and talking and it was just wonderful.

Another glorious thing to happen to me today was this baby:



That's right, I'm typing now on my brand spanking new 15" MacBook Pro. OH MY GOD I LOVE IT SO MUCH. The screen is huge and sleek and BRIGHT, the speakers are deeply fantastic, the keyboard is EVEN nicer than on my Macbook, the body is smooth and shiny, and it's so goddamn fast! And I have 250 GB of hard drive space AHHHH! Unimaginable riches! I am so giddy and in love with my pretty new toy!

I was totally prepared to stick with my old Macbook (three years old) until it gave up the ghost, but my brother needed a computer for college (he hasn't had one in a while because by various means he has lost two different computers and my parents wouldn't get him another). He wanted to buy one with the money saved for him for college, but that's supposed to go towards tuition, and I was like well... I was considering buying one with the fellowship Michigan gave me, so he can have my old one? And my mom was like YES, do that, and so here I am, with my shiny new laptop whee! My mom paid for it but I'm going to repay her once I get my first paycheck from Michigan.

TL;DR -> SHINY = YAY. *twirls* Now I'm gonna give it a spin!

Besides getting into a PhD program (!!!! :D), today was pretty ridiculously awesome!

I first headed into my high school again to see one teacher I hadn't gotten to before. We had a lovely chat over some tea and it was really great. It was just as we were saying goodbye that I got the call from Michigan, so I got a huge happy hug from her and it was lovely.

After that, I went upstairs and met up with my CORYN!!!! She was my best friend in high school, and an absolute darling of a girl. We sat down and chatted for over an hour about anything and everything. Including the new X-Files movie :D We were ridiculous about XFiles and Mulder and Scully together in high school, we were so silly! And she was like "Do Mulder and Scully hook up??" cause she hasnt seen it yet, haha. I really missed her! It was so wonderful to catch up. She's studying for the LSATs right now and planning to apply to law school! Crazy!

I also got to have a great chat with one of my teachers from EIGHTH GRADE. He's a really sweet guy, and was so earnestly interested in everything I'm doing. I mostly dropped by to ask him about the summer school at my old school that he's run for the past few years, and to see if there might be a possibility of my getting a job there this summer. He said there is! He isn't running it anymore but he told me to email the guy who is and tell him I talked to him. So that's a nice possibility!

THEN, when I left the school, I decided to drive home by the back roads instead of the highway for nostalgia's sake. I've gone on those roads thousands of times in my childhood, so driving them was almost instinctive for me. Until, that is, I got to Norwalk, where our path changed several times when we moved so I couldn't remember where to go! I just kind of kept driving, and ended up in my OLD old neighborhood, by the house I grew up in, ages 4-12. I loved that house. So I dropped by my street (a short, steep dead end - so many memories tied up in that little stretch of pavement) and noticed that my old neighbor's lights were on. There was this boy who lived next door, Sean, with his single mom. He was 2 years younger than me and we were attached at the hip for years. So I stopped and kind of chewed my lip for a while, then decided what the hell and pulled into their driveway. I knocked on the door and a small woman answered. "Are you Susan ______?" I asked. "Yes?" she said, confused. "I'm Anne _____, I used to live next door?" Her face lit with recognition and she said "Yes, wow, come in!"

It was more than I could have hoped for. We chatted, surprised and smiling, for a minute, and then she called upstairs, "Sean, guess who's here!" And as he came thumping down the stairs, "Anne _____!" "No way," said a deep, masculine voice, and then Sean rounded the corner. Sean. The scrawny kid I remember is now built like a truck, but in a very pleasant way. He's not terribly tall, but he's very solid and muscular and lean, and holy crap handsome. I was treated to a lovely hug, and then we all just stood around talking for about half an hour! I told them what I've done with my life, and they told me about theirs, and it was just really lovely. They're great people. I'm so glad I worked up the nerve to knock on the door. It brought back lots of memories being in their little house, and now Sean isn't just a vague figure from my childhood anymore. We're even friends on Facebook now!

So THAT was my day! I got into two graduate schools (well, one's a provisional acceptance) and saw lots of old friends. All in all I'd call it a win :)

Thank you all for your very sweet enthusiasm, by the way. It really warms the cockles of my heart! ♥

Okay girlies, I need some feedback!

I've been considering getting a tattoo for a long long time. I've just never known what I wanted. However, I think I finally came up with an idea I love! I want to get "Think happy thoughts" on the inside of my right wrist, in some kind of pretty script, though the font isn't decided yet. This phrase has twofold meaning for me. 1) I played Wendy in my high school's production of Peter Pan, and one of the key ideas of the story is that you have to think happy thoughts in order to fly. And I really got to fly! With a harness and everything! It's one of my favorite memories of my adolescence (the whole show, not just the flying *g*). and 2) It's a line in My Chemical Romance's song "Headfirst for Halos," which is absolutely one of my top three favorite MCR songs, and also they played it as a special treat at the show I went to in London, which was one of the best nights of my life.

So! Thoughts? Opinions? Advice? I'm really excited about this, but I want to know if it's glaringly stupid or cheesy for any reason, hee. Thanks darlings! ♥