Woo hoo!! (Tentatively)

This katydid looks as shocked as I feel

I'm going to graduate school!!! For entomology!! In the Pacific Northwest! Woohoo!!

I was offered a graduate research assistantship by some professors I've been coordinating with, and am expecting to begin in September (if all goes well). There are a few logistics to finalize. My work isn't yet over; I could still screw things up. But my faculty colleagues (down here) assure me that once a project, the funding and the committee are in place, and they've chosen you as the student, the rest is formality. If plans work out, soon I will be at work on a very cool applied ecology project that involves sustainability issues and invertebrates. Just what I've always wanted!!!

I'm still in shock. For two years now at two universities something has always been off and impeding my graduate hopes -- the faculty, the funding, or the project itself. But now it's come together, the whole damn package, at a completely different university, and I can hardly believe it. Since being offered the assistantship last week, I awake each morning with a "yippee...?" and a pause, waiting for the sky to fall in. But I am beginning to realize it won't; it's not another false start. And should things hiccup, I'm smart, stubborn, and patient enough to do fine. So...(deep breath)...YIPPEE!!!!!!!

What I really can't believe: that this great graduate package includes moving home. HOME!! A magic carpet ride to a number of wonderful new beginnings, which will undoubtedly exhaust and exhilarate me. For now this is still percolating, and I'm pinching myself all over with tentative glee.