!!!

This is where I tell you just how much my brain is buzzing.

Came home today to an acceptance package from Pacific University (another one of those top-five low-res programs), which brought my tally up to five. :)

Then, hopped on the forums (because I'm a masochist) and discovered that Minnesota has (probably) rejected me, which should have flattened me, but it didn't. I took about a year's worth of MFA courses as an undergraduate there, so in a sense, I can say I've sampled Minnesota. Minnesota, an hour away. It would have been so good, so easy.

And, if you know me, you can know how easily I spiral into self-doubt. Despite five (five!) acceptances to excellent universities, and despite a phenomenal post-observation with my principal, I kept thinking... well this, is terrible to say, but sometimes I think I'm a bit wasteful. A no-talent, waste of space kind of person, as if I was unworthy of so much--I kept thinking, Look at me, lying in bed, reading some escape book, not even doing anything important. I thought you wanted to be someone who left your mark on the world somehow? (Sometimes, really, I just hate those voices in my head.)

As I was falling asleep for a nap, which I desperately needed, I was roused by a phone call. From Mark Winegardner. At FSU.

!!!


So now my brain is buzzing, buzzing, buzzing. I have called all of my relatives and nattered on and convinced myself of one thing, then the other, got excited about all else and back again. Chelsea says to sleep on it, Kelly says to call her and cry (cry! seriously, because big decisions like this are hard and with a lot of consequences) and my husband is taking me out to dinner where we'll talk about what life might be like if we lived on opposite ends of the country for three years. Or which of the low-res programs might best suit me and my teaching. Or whether or not we could just become hermits and move to Alaska.