After one week in Eugene, I’m finally settling into life at school.

The first day back was a bit of a whirlwind. I tried to unpack and get myself organized, going through all the emails I’d received from my professor in the time I’d been away. I tried to read everything and at least have a clue as to what was going on and ended up feeling hopelessly behind. Sitting in on the class and talking to my prof made me feel a lot better about the whole thing: Alison was pretty confident I could catch up quite easily and be right on track for the next week.

And then, the next morning I got sick. I spent my first full day back in Eugene hugging the toilet. Ouf. What was almost worse than being sick was the very upsetting fact that I broke my twelve year streak of not throwing up! It was a point of particular pride . . . but I guess it serves me right. The next few days were kinda awful. I kept thinking I was feeling better but I couldn’t keep anything down. By the time Friday rolled around I was feeling so miserable that my mom had to come down from Salem and sweep me away in the middle of a pumpkin carving party that Molly was hosting in our apartment. (I was a dismal host, assuming the fetal position in my room and moaning every once in a while. Basically.) Usually I would consider it embarrassing that at the age of 22 my parents would have to pick me up from a party, but I was feeling wretched enough not to care.

I felt much better then next day, and my mom enforced a diet of dry crackers. But by the time dinner came around I could have real food for the first time in three days; it tasted sooooo good.
I spent the rest of the weekend recovering and sleeping . . . went to church on Sunday and said hi to everyone. I felt like a bit of a broken record saying how much I loved my trip though.

I’ve spent the last two days here at school, trying to come up with two different proposals for my thesis project before class on Tuesday night. One is fun, the other is rubbish (mostly because that was the “assigned version” –we had to dream up a project based on an article we read in a magazine). I’d forgotten how fun it is to really get excited about a project. The beginning is always so thrilling because there are so many possibilities. There I was tapping away at my laptop very excitedly taptaptatattataTAPTaTAPTAPTAptapataaTAPTAP. I’m taking a little breather form it today, but I’ll be back at work on it soon.
I stopped and talked to another prof last night – the German one who always holds me accountable to do better and encourages me to move upward and onward. I told her about my trip and how I loved Holland so much that I wanted to move there and work there. “Of course –it’s a beautiful country! So did you bring your portfolio along?” Anyways, I hope I don’t lose momentum and do make a big move when I’m done school. There are really so many options at this point I just have to pick a direction. It’s really exciting and slightly terrifying, but I can’t wait to see where I end up a year from now.

So here I sit, barefoot and crosslegged on my couch (which I’m very proud of. I’ve never had a couch before in my school apartment!) and nursing a mug of chai, contemplating some big questions. Well, pretty much the usual questions when you’re in your 20s and trying to figure out what to do.

But I have more immediate things to attend to. I still haven’t unpacked my bags completely! It’s so ridiculous because that’s the one thing I was sick of when I was traveling: living out of a bag. There are pictures to hang on the wall and a stack of design magazines to catch up on reading before I dive back into my own project. Hm. I subscribe to too many periodicals. I think there are like 5. And that doesn’t count the ones I buy for fun or the news ones I read at my parents’ . . .