Back to the Future

It's been a little over a year since my last post...oops! Though I must say that this past year has been unbelievably hectic with many ups and downs. The good was really, really good, and the bad was...well we won't talk about the really bad stuff.

I've officially got one more year left of grad school here at WSU. I've just started writing my masters thesis a few weeks ago. As of today, I have written 10 pages! Yaaaaay!!! Except I will probably need to write about 100 or so pages more... *wallows*

I should mention that I've almost got an official list of doctoral programs that I wish to apply for, including musicology programs at Harvard, Yale, and Boston University....just got a little nauseous from the anxiety (and excitement!) of thinking about it. I never thought in a million years that I would even consider applying to schools such as these. I think if I showed this post to the 18 year old version of myself, she would laugh and think it was a joke, a cruel, cruel joke. However, she would have no problem believing the time traveling part. Good ol' me. But I do believe that these programs will help me on my journey to attain more knowledge. As I said earlier, I really do enjoy learning about new things and particularly discovering things of old and I believe that these programs understand that constant desire to seek knowledge and understanding quite well.

I have decided that I will (and desperately need) to take a year off between my masters and doctoral studies. Though I enjoy school and learning (yeah, I'm weird, and over it), I need to give my brain a break to recuperate from the onslaught that has been my masters program in musicology. I want to make sure that I am mentally, physically, and emotionally prepared for doctoral studies when I apply. And I've never taken a year off, let alone a semester. So there's that.

I'm hoping that during my "time off" that, soon after I graduate, I will actually take a real vacation, like, leave-the-state-for-an-extended-period-of-time-and-get-away-from-it-all vacation. And I've decided after much debate (ha, who am I kidding? There was no debate) that I want to go to Florida to...THE WIZARDING WORLD OF HARRY POTTER! Maybe I'm a little too old, but I don't care. I want butter beer(!), amongst other things. Harry Potter was one of my first and still one of my main literary loves. And if I've got time off, that'll be the first place to go. Though someday I do hope I eventually get to London and other parts of Europe. But for now, I'd be more than content with visiting the Harry Potter theme park.

I'm also hoping to possibly delve into the world of publishing with my time away from school. It's something that I don't know much about but at the same time it looks like an interesting career path However, I wouldn't do publishing instead of musicology. I think I would like to do both if it turns out I like publishing. I'm hoping to find a publishing company to do an internship with to see what it actually involves.

We shall see what the future holds. Only time will tell.

P.S. The photo/picture I chose for this post is from Harvard U. but reminds me of Hogwarts a bit, effectively killing two birds with one stone.