The process takes so much: the excitement and disappointment, four graduate applications, essays, interviews — and the real problem is a lot of the work falls on others: the teachers I actually liked in college and the program heads I’d want to study under if not annoying them first by begging them to let me apply a year early and mail me crazy documents during postal strikes.

Thank you to all who have done this with me: Dr. Jay, Jeff Truesdell, Dr. Deaver, Ron Jones, Mom D, Chris, Rollins College, and the international advisers and program heads at Bath Spa University, Swansea University, University College Falmouth, and University of Winchester. I’m disappointed you guys didn’t get this win: You deserved it.

I knew we really fought well when even Dr. Jay was disappointed that the Marshall didn’t want an interview this year :) And I know it was a God-thing. Mom B was praying for God’s will even though she didn’t want to see Chris and me go, and this was the only year I didn’t make it to the second round for the Fulbright Scholarship — the letter from my most reliable recommender was mailed early and arrived a month late!

I hoped to spend a year on creative and media writing and a year writing for young people — and was excited to bring my best friend and my baby! But who knows what God has, eh? And, you know, I really would miss my pots and cookbooks :)