So, here I am! It felt like it was always still a little ways away, but I have officially arrived in San Marcos to stay. Orientation at TSU was on Tuesday, things are working out, but, naturally, only after nearly every plan I had went awry. I begin class on Monday (yikes!), and today and tomorrow consist of job-searching and being in a constant state of being lost and almost out of gas. The good news is that, though I can hardly believe it, day by day I am getting more done, getting things set up, and it looks as though my life in San Marcos is off to a pretty good (& extraordinarily hectic) start.

I did have a very amusing experience trying to get my books for this semester, today. Doesn't it seem to you that the campus bookstore would be an appropriate place to obtain your class materials for the coming semester? Yes, a very logical and reasonable thought, I figured. But no. I was (and you are) incorrect. In order to buy textbooks for class, it is in fact necessary to go off-campus, to one of three bookstores in town. The campus bookstore is improperly named indeed. However, in my search for my textbooks, I made a new friend - the first one of San Marcos! An English major who speaks English, Spanish, and Japanese - imagine that!

Missing all you Prescott peeps much love to you guys and hope you are all well! I'll keep you all updated on the living situation and this coming week (which, there is no doubt, is bound to be filled with crazy stories).

I'm embarrassed, and that's really all there is to it.  More than embarrassed - humiliated about the whole experience.  When I think about it, my heart beats faster, and I get that familiar lump at my throat, my stomach turns and twists with anticipation.  It gets harder to breathe.  My hands get clammy, and I feel my face begin to flush - it's like pins and needles all over me, and the sensation that I want to cry is almost overwhelming.  But here's the funny little catch.  I don't want to cry for anguish, or fear, or any kind of real sadness - I just want to hide and dissolve into tears because I am so embarrassed, so humiliated; I wonder and am terrified in those moments that someone will see right through me.  That someone will see that I am guilty for remembering.  Isn't it odd?  I don't even feel what really could be considered shame... it's only severe humiliation... as though everyone in the room could read my mind and view my memories as though viewing a home video.  And there is always that dash of frustration - that nagging irritation; the one that complains that I have dealt with this already, it is done, it is recovered from.  It is because it catches me off guard... I forget a little, like Matt puts it... and when, on those relatively rare occasions, it comes surging back through my memory; then it catches me by such surprise and when I am so unprepared, that for several days following I just can't seem to escape this funk.  Those days following when I feel like I am a stranger in my own skin, viewing the world through eyes that aren't my own, and with a spirit that is slightly crippled by embarrassment. 

-CuriousBlue

Good gracious, how I have forgotten.  Time and distance seem to act as blinders in remembering a place - they shape your memories, and you return to rediscover the things you've shaded out of your memory.  For example, the pace and attitude of life in Massachusetts.  I love this state, it is my home and I have some of the most amazing memories from here.  And, when I left, those sweet memories are the things that my heart held on to - which, in my opinion, is a very good thing.  However, I forgot about how fast things move here.  And I forgot how cold people here can be.  Not that I haven't met people who are cold in Arizona, but for many it has become just a way of life here.  Having lived in Prescott for the last two and a half years, the differences are quite clear, in a rather surprising way.  And I don't believe it's just that people here are more bitter - no, it is just that it is almost necessary here.  I mean, the difference I notice is in strangers.  In Arizona, everyone you make eye contact with you greet and perhaps even socialize with, complete strangers approach you in stores, parking lots, restaurants, and begin conversations with you.  I remember how startled I was the first time that happened to me when I initially moved out there.  In Massachusetts - maybe New England in general - you don't interact with strangers unless some outside circumstance requires it to be able to continue on with your day.  If you do, you are, as a rule of sorts, glared at or ignored as (a) a tourist, or (b) a crazy person.  How strange, to feel suddenly like a tourist in your hometown.  I do love this place, though.


-CuriousBlue

I write tonight from San Marcos, TX.  I left Prescott on Saturday afternoon, after a delicious lunch at the Dinner Bell with Kristi and Mason, and drove all the way through, about 20 hours, to Buda, TX, where Matthew has been staying with some friends.  I surprised everyone by driving straight through - but when I arrived at the point where I had intended on staying the night, I just wasn't really very tired!  So, the only thing to do was to keep driving!  Not to mention I had the snakes and the guinea pig with me, so it was more convenient to keep going. 

The party before I left was amazing!  It was fun enough to be entirely worth the hangover the following day (which delayed my departure, as a matter of fact); and trust me - that is saying something.  Most everyone stopped by and stayed for a while, talking and laughing and just enjoying one another's company (and a good drink, hehe).  We had a nice warm fire outside, where we toasted marshmallows and chilled.  For all the stress earlier in the day, running around from the car repair shop to the grocery store to Costco and back to the grocery store and to Kristi's then back to the grocery store (have I mentioned how absent minded and forgetful I can be?), and all the setting up and cleaning, it really was a great party.  My last time with so many of those friends for a long while to come.... yes, for a while indeed.  But it was amazing.  We even went out with my Leafers to Whiskey Row dancing afterward.  And, apparently, Mason, Cooper, Kristi, Casey and I went out to Denny's following our dancing escapade... though I must confess my memory of that is hazy at best .

I am so grateful to be here with Matthew.  I have been able to help him move his stuff from the apartment that got flooded/collapsed to a new apartment, which I think has been helpful to him.  I missed him so much when I was in AZ - to finally be here... it hardly seems possible .  I leave here on Sunday for Massachusetts, but Matt will be flying up to visit for a week or so on December 31st.  We are planning to go to New York City with my Mom and Glenn for a Trans-Siberian Orchestra concert in early January - SUPER PSCYHED!  I begin school in just a little over a month at SWT, something that I am very excited about - though I must admit, I'm a little scared about, as well. 

I miss all my friends and family away from family in Prescott dearly.  I have, so far, made it today without any tears, but it is the first day of the six I have been here and it is not over yet... I feel as though a part of my heart is not caught up yet to Texas, and is still back in Arizona with them.  I know that this will improve - I won't always feel this homesick.  And I believe that this is where I am supposed to be right now.  I have all these sweet memories of that place; those times; the faces of the ones who I grew to love.  That is what I take with me.  Thank goodness Matt is here .  He puts up with my being a little (or a lot!) melancholy with a warm hug and much patience.  He knows the feeling, having come down here 3 months before me.  I am so thankful for him.

Anyway, enough rambling for tonight.  Just thought I'd leave a little update.

Goodnight, world.

CB