There is a distinct possibility I could be sitting in a vehicle this time tomorrow heading a few hundred miles south of Canada. Samantha's grandfather has been hospitalized for severely blocked arteries. Surgery doesn't improve his prognosis because he is already weakened, but not having it is far worse. Although not her biological grandfather, he has been one of her most cherished relatives since childhood. I am deeply concerned about the weather conditions up there, but most of it appears to have moved off to the east. I want her to be there.
Compounding things is my eldest sister's arrival from Arizona. This is her first real trip back since starting the semester at Arizona State University. She's been bugging me for weeks about when I'll be home, but unless things improve dramatically in the next day or so, I'll need to be with Samantha. Being eight days away from Christmas, it sure doesn't feel like "'tis the season to be jolly." I don't know if my own family has much to celebrate this year, either. I hope they do.
My Christmas shopping is finished, so that's a plus.
Graduation is tomorrow, and then we're swinging through Jackson tomorrow afternoon for a Moe's run ... among other things. Our adviser is graduating with an undergraduate degree in Geography, as well as my Advertising Manager and Copy Editor from staff. I don't expect the dynamic to change much, but Samantha will have a lot more responsibility by taking over the advertising department.
In slightly brighter news, I did get my grades back. My GPA is inching ever higher, although this semester wasn't one for the record books. This leaves me with less than 15 credit hours left before I too can grab a piece of parchment. By hour count alone, I could graduate in May. I'll be prevented from doing so because of a pesky foreign language requirement. As it stands, four hours a week this summer will be spent speaking and writing Spanish.
Then what? First and foremost, I need to land a summer job here on campus in order to earn those last four hours. There would be a lot of paperwork to earn it elsewhere, and I'm not confident that would fly through committee as my professor has suggested. The university is fairly strict about that "last 30 hours must be earned from UT Martin" rule.
We've started talking more about possibly moving to Jackson after second session ends this summer. Job prospects are much higher, as are the wages. Living expenses should be less than Nashville, but even that is an hour and half away. Every day it seems more and more questions are being tossed up in the air, and the answers aren't taking them down fast enough.
If someone asked me for a concise plan for the next six months, I'd draw a smiley face on a napkin. That's about all I've got to give right now as far as specifics.
Perhaps changes are coming soon.