All My Bags are NOT Packed

I haven't even remotely started packing, my apartment isn't clean, I don't have any of my animals' stuff packed up for them to spend three weeks at Chelsea's, and the load of laundry that includes a lot of the clothes I need to pack is in the washing machine as we speak. But somehow all of that is gonna get done by tomorrow afternoon, and then I'm outta here!

Chelsea's driving me to Houston, and then I'm spending the night with Matthew!!!! Yay Matthew!! I'm spending part of the night with Matthew, anyway, since we'll have to leave for the airport by 3:30 in the morning. I probably won't even sleep tomorrow night. I'm gonna be jet lagged and totally out of whack no matter what I do, so what difference does it make?

Anyway, I'm so excited now it's ridiculous. I'm starting to feel a bond with my classmates, that sort of inevitable bond that forms whenever a group is spending so many hours a day together, especially when they're doing emotional acting work, especially when they're traveling together. So I'm actually really excited about spending three more weeks with everyone (even though I realize from my last study abroad trip that spending three weeks together literally 24/7 is a very different thing than spending three to five hours a day together). And I think everyone else is feeling a connection forming, too. In our trip orientation today Dr. C. was saying that graduate students have to stay with the group all the time and can't go off on our own excursions (apparently there have been issues with grad students in the past thinking that they should have special privileges because we're not undergrads) and she said, "I don't think we'll have a problem with that, though, since you all have developed such a good ensemble feel already." And I joked, "What, you mean you're not sensing my elitist attitude? That's not coming through at all? I was trying so hard!" I have now been teasingly nicknamed Ashley "Coriolanus" D. Haha.

Anyway, I'm only really posting because I just had to post my horoscope for today. I'm not a big believer in astrology, but I do read my Google horoscope for fun every day and on days when it's especially good I choose to believe it. And today's was awesome:
"Finish up old emotional business while there's still time, for it's all about to change. Stick to your regular routine, however, until the action begins; it's the details now that will make or break the success of what is to come. The more you focus on what needs to be done today, the easier it will be tomorrow."
Something new is about to come along! Everything is about to change! How appropriate. And it's telling me to finish up old emotional business, which, honestly, is exactly what I've been doing the past few days anyway!

Like today I had a long conversation with my mom about Mike. I mentioned something he had said, and Mom said, "Oh, you two are talking again?" so I told her the whole story and about my worries about falling in love again and all of this stuff that I don't usually talk to her about. I don't like to talk to my parents much about any problems between me and Mike because I don't want them to form a negative opinion of him. I really do think he's always going to be in my life at least as a friend and I'd rather my parents see that as a positive than a negative. Still, today I told my mom a lot of stuff about Mike and Jenny that we hadn't really talked about before, and we talked about my feelings and how I've coped with everything. I feel like I came across as sort of emotional and still hung up on it all, which is weird because that tends to happen when I talk about it all when in actuality I feel pretty good about everything these days. But anyway, we talked about it all for a long time.

And then about an hour later I was in the laundry room (why is everything happening in the laundry room these days?) and my phone rang and it was Mike. Weird coincidence. So I talked to him for a while and he had big news as far as his relationship is concerned, news that I'm not gonna post here 'cause that's his business to share and not mine and it's all new and I know everything could still change in a second right now. But if/when he does go public with what he told me tonight and you all figure out what I'm cryptically alluding to here (and let me just say, your best guess is probably correct anyway) I'll say that my reaction to his news is to have no freakin' idea how to feel about it.

So I'm not going to worry about it right now. It could all change by tomorrow anyway so trying to figure out my feelings about it is a moot point until it becomes something definite.

Plus I'm going to ENGLAND in less than 48 hours. I have better things to think about.

So...I'll talk to you then!