Saturday, September 13, 2008

Nathan's graduation day

Nathan graduated today! Here we are after the ceremony:




And here he is being silly with his friend Greg, trying to look as "Oxford!" as possible:



I am very proud of him. Congratulations Nathan!

Saturday, September 6, 2008

Changes, once again.

Wow, it's been forever!

Many apologies, once again.

I got back from my summer in Malawi and Kenya a couple weeks ago. Suffice to say it was one of the best summers of my life, full of hilarious, ridiculous challenges, developing new friendships, solidifying old ones, and renewing my commitment to working in Africa without a doubt. It was absolutely wonderful and I cannot wait to go back as soon as possible.

And now I'm back in the UK. I have to admit that the first week or so of "reverse culture shock" was quite awful. I did not want to be here. I wanted to get on the first plane back TODAY, dammit. But that's faded a bit, and I'm refocusing my energies on being here with Nathan, specifically supporting him through the last couple weeks of his MBA program, finding a new place to live in London, and getting ready to start my own masters program.

Nathan graduates from Oxford a week from today. Unbelievable. It's gone by in a FLASH and I'm so proud of him.

And yesterday I found us a new flat in London! This is a huge relief and very exciting. A relief because I assumed I'd be spending the better part of September looking for a place, and now it's the 6th and it's already taken care of. And exciting because it's a much nicer place than I expected we'd be able to afford in London (with a bathtub! a washer/dryer! a dishwasher! All things we come to expect in most places in America but difficult to come by in most of the rest of the world, including the UK). It has two bedrooms, which means we'll be able to have an office/guestroom -- great since it will facilitate visitors staying with us more easily and often, and also great because Nathan will be working from home quite a bit in the coming year.

We're signing a one year lease. After the year is over and I've graduated, we may stay -- but who knows, we may wind up in a totally different country. Stay tuned!