Breathing a sigh of relief.

Yesterday was the official last day of the semester at UTD. We start early; we finish early. It sucks in January but is a welcomed relief come the first week of May. So, after spending much of yesterday sitting around catching up on tivo’d television I haven’t had time to watch, I’m feeling (mostly) refreshed and (more) calm today. Hooray for “summer vacation.”

It won’t be much of a break, however, as things will start to get hectic again pretty quickly. Nevertheless, I’m happy to have a few days, maybe even a full week, where I can relax a bit.

There’s much new in la vie de Liz. I think I mentioned last time that I have been officially annointed as one of the departmental envoyees at the Essex summer methods program in England. That will be the first two full weeks of August and ought to be fantastic. I just found out that one of the other people from UTD going is taking the same class as me, so I’ll have good company. And, in general, the delegation we’re sending is chock full of really fantastic and fun people, so I expect this to be a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

On something of a whim (I considered it for less than an hour, so it felt *terribly* spontaneous for me), I applied for a summer internship with the federal government. The job is essentially a research one for an agency inspector general regional office. When I went in for the interview last week, I was pleasantly surprised to find an office brimming with research nerds. The fact that I have a library science degree, a background in journalism/writing, and am working on a Ph.D. at a program where many of them have gotten master’s degrees? Well, let me put this way: One of the people I met actually *said* to me, “I am *fascinated* by your resume.” Me? Fascinating? {blush} Very flattering. I love job interviews! hehe

Anyway, I got the call late yesterday with the good news that they’re going to give me one of their internships. Fantastic! I have no idea how I’m going to balance that with everything else this summer, but I will find a way — as I always do — and it will be a really great experience for me, I’m absolutely certain.

What else? I’ve got a whole lot of balls in the air right now, despite it being a brief between-semesters break, but I’m genuinely hopeful that the summer will, despite being busy, be a relaxing time. I will be working (as in work-work) A LOT, but I’m only taking one class and I’ve been promised the workload will be sparse — mostly just doing the reading and showing up for class. (Read: No homework. No papers.) Plus, I get to end the summer with two weeks in England… hard to be depressed about that.

My parents are in Hawaii at present, lounging around and taking a couple of much-needed and well-deserved weeks for themselves. This tax season was my mom’s first as sole proprietor of the H&R Block empire up in Baxter County, so I’m really glad she’s taking it easy at their house there.

My brother’s significant other has recently relocated from Colorado Springs to his apartment complex in Kansas City (which should *not* be taken to mean they’re living together, as I’m assured they are decidedly *not*). He was quite happy about that, clearly.

It has happened before, and it’s happening again now; I occasionally go through these cycles where I start having particularly vivid dreams about people I once knew and have lost touch with. Tim, Jennifer, Bryan — you’re all popping up in my dreams. Heavens knows why.

Daniel is keeping busy, too, and likes to remind me of this by sending clever little text messages my way like the one he sent this morning: “LEAVE ME ALONE I AM BUSY VERY VERY BUSY.” So there you have it, memoralized forever on my blog, my dear husband’s hard-working can-do attitude about all the exciting things happening at his workplace. At least he has *excellent* job security.

He is considering taking Calculus this summer at Brookhaven, which would be really hilarious considering I will be teaching a class two doors down from the Cal II class. Okay, maybe that’s not quite “hilarious,” but it is certainly … strange? Unexpected?

We’ve got high hopes of remodeling our master bathroom this summer, which will be financed by my exciting summer job with the feds and executed by said dear husband and (probably) his dad. It desperately needs done, that’s for sure.

I guess that’s about it, everyone.

Well, one more thing. If there’s anyone reading this in Europe (particularly France, Belgium, Germany, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Spain, or Italy), I would be forever in your debt if you could post a short description of what your election ballots look like. Specifically, do you cast a ballot for a party name alone, for a list of candidates under a party heading, or for specific individuals? I should mention, I’m interested in the legislative and/or executive elections (e.g., your member of Parliament and/or the president, if you have one).