the end of a book and the beginning of a new one

so i'm here. and moved in. and settled. all thanks to heather and my trusty car claude. and well... i'm not sure how i am just yet. i dropped heather off at the airport not more than an hour ago and i'm still attempting to grasp the fact that she is going home to stay and i am living in michigan now. not nebraska. screw changing my plates though. i need something to tie me to home!

the end of the undergraduate/ young adult chapter was filled with coffee with rachel and wonderful visit from jenna and a short discussion with my mom. on wednesday, my housemates threw me a going away party with all of my closest friends. it was great to see them all, even if i wasn't in the mood for lots of people. thanks to all of you who came!

We left the house yesterday just before six thinking that I would probably never see it again, so i said my goodbyes and so longs and headed out. it wasn't until we were at 60th and adams when I realized we had forgotten our lunch and proceeded then to get lost in residential hell for the first time in the four years i've lived in lincoln. i stopped in omaha to see vince one more time before heading out, but as were were leaving the state, a little rock, propelled by the van in front of me, hit my windshield and began the slow and steadily growing crack that is now six inches long. At another point in a city somewhere along the way (i think it was in iowa), a mattress had fallen into my lane on the interstate, and i had to swerve not to hit it. thankfully the car on my side swerved too so an accident was avoided. It rained the entire way to michigan yesterday. fitting as it was (heather insists that it was lincoln crying because it was going to miss me...) it was difficult to drive in. heather and i alternated driving here so that we could each sleep a bit. it was so nice to have a companion on that drive. i would have had trouble making it alone. thanks for insisting someone come with me mom!

we got to kalamazoo, michigan around 5:30 PM and stopped to eat at Arby's before heading onto the bio station. i didn't have the actual directions to the station so we were trying to follow the directions that google maps had given me on my blackberry. but for some reason or another, i decided not to follow them (mostly because i thought they were inaccurate) and went my own way. magically, we ended up at the right place. who knew i had natural guiding ability.







i'm living at a place called the carriage house at the bio station. it was built with the other main building that W. K. Kellogg lived in some time ago. its a nice little place. I have my own room to stay in and Jarad (the guy i'm living with) had a bed i could use so i didn't have to sleep on my sleeping pad for two months. not that that would have been a bad thing...

















heather really helped me put things together. like she said all this dull little room needed was a woman's touch, a bit of ingenuity and some febreeze (there was a rancid tuna smell in here for a bit). it fact, most of the boxes i brought are now being used as shelves. i also brought a lot of pictures and keep sake type things that are now decorating my room. now i just have to remember how to get them all packed again in two months.

tomorrow, i start work. I'm supposed to meet my graduate advisor at 9:30 AM. yay for a later start... just like 10:00 AM classes last semester. my guess though is that i will end up getting up much earlier than that. i'm not really sure why that happens, but it does. i think i'm looking forward to it, but i'm just not really sure what i am right now. in transition, you could call it i suppose. i wonder what the rest of the introduction to this new volume in my life will look like... i sure hope that it turns out well... and in the mean time, i'm going to wait to hear from heather :)