Oh happy day!

         Shopping didn't pan out today, BUT I started my Sewanee packing list! I'm feeling pretty good about it, really. I know it's only three weeks instead of the ELEVEN I'll be packing for in Europe, but it's still good practice. I'm a famous overpacker because I really don't like to repeat my clothes, but alas, it is an inevitability of a life of travel.

        I went to the wedding of my next door neighbor's son yesterday to a girl named ROBYN--that's weird. But it was very nice and afterwards we went to eat dinner at Vesuvio to celebrate my birthday and my dad's birthday, because I'll be gone during both of them. I enjoyed my pasta very much! And after that I got to see my best friend Lauren Hales on Skype. Couldn't have had a better day!

        

It made me so happy that I made this face:

Okay yes, you caught me, I am partially using this post to experiment with posting pictures....

       Guido is home! He looks WONDERFUL--they detailed him inside and out and he is super clean and very happy about it, I think. I'm quite pleased about it, too, because it's been too hot to get out there with the good 'ol soapy water bucket and give him the scrub he deserves. 

        No contacts the past few days. My eyes were feeling a little tired so I'm giving them a break over the weekend. 

       Today has been a shopping day! Very excited about some of my new things, especially my ankle jeans. I think Stacy and Clinton would approve of my selections! Trying to look chic and classy? I would highly suggest visiting The Limited--everything there was 40% off today and we really won the day. We are hoping to shop again tomorrow after our energy returns. I would like some of those riding boots like every human on the planet except me seems to have... is that falling in with the crowd? Maybe so but I don't care: in this case the crowd is right!

update: PSYCH! I snuck up on my eyeballs and put the contacts in the fastest so far! Maybe that's the trick... to *say* I'm not going to have them in today and then BOOM

     Well, Guido went to be serviced today, I miss him so... I look out in the driveway and all i seen is a lone, proverbial tumbleweed where my car should be. At least it's getting over with! Who knows if he'll be back tonight or tomorrow? Hard to say.
      In the meantime, I've got my contacts in for the third day in a row! This may mean i've actually got the hang of it! Don't want to jinx it though. The scariest part is trying to get them out, but i've done it two times already so surely that means something, right?

I'm so excited!! But I won't be back at Rhodes for 6 more months :(

(This is a selfie from last semester featuring the Rhodes Diplomat look to honor the college that I miss)

This Is it!!

         Well, here we go! I've officially set up this blog to record my adventures on the European Studies program, which I will be embarking upon in approximately 11 days--that is, it is 11 days until I go to do the three weeks of coursework at the University of the South before we actually fly over, landing in Edinburgh on August 1. I've got a lot to do before then to prepare, mostly to do with clothes! Luckily, I've been watching a ridiculous amount of What Not to Wear (it's summer, that's what you do, right?) to fill my head with a variety of impractical, highly colorful ideas of what I might want to take...
         I also bit the bullet and got my eyes checked last week. I have one pretty bad eye and one pretty good eye, which has allowed me to go with uncorrected vision for many years--that's right, i'm blind, so if i've ever given you a ride anywhere, i'm sorry, and also glad we didn't die. I figured though that, to really study art history, it helps a lot to be able to see the paintings. So now I've got a spiffy new pair of contact lenses! Predictably, I'm still adjusting to getting them in and out, but things are going better than I might have expected with them. I've got a very sparkly pink case for them to go in, which seems to take the edge off the terror of poking pieces of whatever-they-make-contacts-out-of into my eyeballs. Anyways, I'll keep working with that and hopefully, by the time I get on that plane in a little more than a month, it'll be nothing.
        Guido needs to go to the Nissan homeland to have his engine serviced before I make that long drive to Sewanee--that's about 7 hours from Little Rock. So we'll see when that actually happens... it is beyond inconvenient to be without your car! Hopefully whatever it is they have to do can be done quickly.

       That's about all I have to say right now, but I'm hoping to make updating this blog habitual before the program starts so I won't forget all about it once I go!