What do Courses, Dreams, and Haggis have in common?

May 13th, 2009. There's a lot of things one must do to get out of a country, you know. Now I see why so many people resort to smuggling themselves across borders and becoming stowaways on ships traveling across entire oceans. Maybe I should just do that instead? Honestly, all I read is "student visa" this and "health insurance" that and "don't forget to get your international letter of permission" and "as soon as you get your acceptance, contact the British embassy" and I can't start most things until I hear back about other things, and everything is dependent upon the thing that goes before it, and if one falls through, then it takes a long time to reconstruct it all from the ashes to which it fell. Okay, so perhaps that's an exaggeration. But probably not. Contrary to popular belief, I haven't actually been accepted to the University yet. Why not? Because, my dear friends, I haven't even applied yet. That may sound odd, it's true. But I made it through the Queen's application process alive, and apparently that's the hardest part. Now I'm trying to figure out what courses I can take to go towards my degree when I get back to Maple Syrup Land. And therein lies the problem. So today's update informs my lovely follower (yes, singular, because apparently I only have one person reading this so far) of my ongoing quest to coordinate education systems across an ocean. When you come from a program with 21.5 mandatory credits (which is, to my knowledge, the most required courses for any degree), and you need 4-5 full French credits, a full psychology credit, 2 music education credits, one credit that is comprised of four .25 ensemble credits, PLUS 2.25 extra credits in education courses (which is broken down into 7 separate classes), NEVERMIND the core mandatory courses, it is SO hard to fit everything in. So when I have to further alter my plan to accommodate the courses offered in Scotland, you have no idea how frustrating it is. To make a difficult process even harder, I have to do everything by email. Send emails to faculty at Queens and to faculty in Scotland, see which courses are offered, which ones will count towards my degree when I come back home, etc. And sometimes, people don't answer emails. Whether that's because they're too busy, it gets sent to their junkmail, or they flat out ignore you (I hope that's not what's happening!)--it's tough to get a hold of people...especially when you are coordinating 7 or 8 faculty members. Enough with the blabbering, I suppose. No one wants to hear that--and my ego can't really afford to lose my one and only reader. On the bright side, I had a dream about Scotland. It was short, but it was wicked. I was in this little Scottish town (which, when I think about it now, is strange because I have no idea what a "little Scottish town" really looks like). Anyway, I'm in this little Scottish town, and my parents drop me off at the doorstep of this family home. It's this little greeny-blue painted house with little red flowers in the windows -- cute, really. I go inside and there's this lady who's basically a Scottish version of Mrs. Weasley and she brings me up these winding stairs to the kitchen and shows me around her house. I met a bunch of students all living there. I don't know why there was so many students there, probably like 10 or 15...because I don't think it was a dorm--just a huge kind of host house for students. Unfortunately, I don't really remember much more, except there was something about haggis. Haggis is one of those things that, you know, I just don't know. I mean of course, I'll more than likely try it when I'm there. Just the thought of it kind of makes me neaseously uncomfortable (does that even make sense?). If I don't think about it, and just eat it, I'm sure it'll be just fine. That's the hard part. Not thinking about it. Nothing else too exciting is going on. Since I have no job as of yet, I'm spending my time sleeping, trying to complete p90x, and lazing around in the sun. Speaking of which, my next-door-neighbour has some beautiful tulip action happening in his backyard, so I think I might just go look at them and enjoy the warmth of early summer. Thanks for reading, Beckers