car!

I bought the car! It's a 2007 Honda Civic Hybrid and I am SO happy with it. It's got navigation which has already been so great to have because my knowledge of city driving is limited and somewhat biased by Muni routes, not always the most expedient ways of getting around.

No pictures (yet) because I keep forgetting to take my camera. Kevin and I took a day trip on Sunday up to Half Moon Bay for some walking by the beaches there which was really nice. The car handles so well, even windy roads like Route 1. I am so excited for the long drives coming up - stretches of highway and mountainside curves.

I haven't done too much else moving or trip related. I got a lot of Tourbooks and Camping Books from AAA, and also picked up the newest edition of Road Trip USA, so far very interesting. I think it will be nice to have along the way. Otherwise, I've just been packing and shipping boxes home, keeping my eye on some nice apartment buildings and checking out cat toys so I can spoil Isis when she moves in with me.

As far as this whole transition thing goes, yuck. It's messy and I feel like I'm split between two coasts. The difficulty is hitting me harder than the positive-looking-forward stuff right now - leaving Kevin, leaving my classmates, school, professors, supervisors and colleagues, leaving my job, my neighborhood and even my apartment (aka The Box). My apartment is getting emptier - the bookcase is gone, most of my books, pretty vases and things. I took down my altar and I'm surprised at how much I miss having that little space there to remind me of the spiritual every day. I took down most of my pictures, too. It's more echo-y in here and I can hear my neighbors a lot more (which is a lot considering how much I could already hear them).

Kevin and I have loose plans right now, which is nice. I'm not looking forward to over two months apart though, and then who knows how many after that. He'll stay with me for part of August, and then leave for Europe et al. So I have August to look forward to, but mostly I am anticipating a huge loss. After over two years of being only 5 blocks apart, and another year or so of being a mile apart, 3,000 miles is going to hurt.

I haven't really thought about goodbyes too much yet. Well, I have, and I don't like it, so I'm not pushing myself to keep thinking on it more. But I guess it's there. It feels like the closer I get to the East coast, the harder is it to keep moving forward, the more I feel attached to the people here. I am really going to miss NCSPP and the committee and so many of my classmates. I've checked out some of the professional associations out there, but not for serious yet. I think it will be helpful though. The Jung Institute sounds great, lots of workshops and classes, and a classmate in my Jung class recommended a few other institutes for CIIS-esque coursework and such. Ugh, surprisingly I am missing that class! I had my last lecture on Thursday and can't make this week's because of the McWilliams salon. I'll hear the recording of it, but beside that, it was a great class. It really brought together everything I've been studying since college, maybe high school - all the philosophy, religion, psychology, history, culture, and probably more. It was an excellent way to end my graduate coursework, and the lecturers and my classmates were amazing. I do have Rick Tarnas' books to look forward to, to continue my education in that strain (Cosmos & Psyche and The Passion of the Western Mind - I read excerpts of these for his classes and was impressed by both his writing and lectures).

Okay, I lied earlier (I just realized). I have made some further plans for the road trip: reading, of course. So in addition to Cosmos & Psyche, I also have Hesse's The Glass Bead Game, recommended by one of my classmates in the Jung course. Annnnd probably a few crosswords and Sudokus as well. And Dad just mentioned bringing along Stevie's CDs to learn a bit of Polish; on top of that I have Pimsleur's Italian. I don't think we'll be bored with these in addition to all the sights. The car has an auxillary outlet, so my iPod just fits right in, providing us with 5415 songs - 16.3 days of music (thank you iTunes).

Hmmm, thinking about it now, I have also bought a Coleman propane stove. But that's it for now. Actually that might have been the last thing for the trip itself that I need to do, besides pack. I'm out of boxes for the time though, so it can wait. (My last paper ever for graduate school, on the other hand, cannot wait. So I am onto that task....)