In my mind I'm going to Carolina...

All right y'all, I really don't like that song but it is appropriate.

Tomorrow I leave for Chapel Hill. I've shipped much of my life in boxes and the rest is being crammed into my little Honda Civic. My mother is accompanying me on said moving endeavor. We're pausing overnight in Jacksonville to visit my grandmother, and will be arriving in Chapel Hill on Wednesday.

Who is exciting? Me. Fucking me.

I'm mildly terrified as well, of course. Graduate School. It sounds vaguely foreign and adult and far away. I've been planning this since I am sixteen, and now here I am entertaining an M.A./Ph.D. program in art history. They only took six new students this year, so I'm fairly pleased about that. But I'm anxious--I don't know a soul in Chapel Hill, save for my uncles, so I am literally plunging into an entirely new world. It is exhilerating. I excell at such things. But it will certainly be a challenge...

...also, I'm going to miss Gator Nation. I went from a skeptic to a die hard and now I am venturing to the land where all is Tarheel Blue (I finally learned what a Tarheel is, at least, it's a Civil War term). Luckily the Triangle has the third largest Gator Alumni club in the nation, so I'll be in good company. (Go Gators).

So that's all. I feel as though I should say something prolific or profound, but really...y'all know where to find me.

One final thing: My great uncle Stu, the younger brother of my late grandmother and my father's uncle, is dying of leukemia. His granddaughter, Ally, was supposed to be bat mitzvahed mid-August, but she moved the date to last week to ensure that her grandfather was there to celebrate with her. Ally's a lovely, mature, graceful girl, and I'm proud to call her part of my family. A newspaper in Akron profiled the event, my great uncle Stu, and Ally: here's the link.

Lots of changes in my life, right now...