The stars at night are big and bright

Welp, Austin it is, I guess.  Unless of course I get an amazing financial aid package at Washington, which seems unlikely.

I had been leaning towards Austin if for no other reason than a change of pace.  Chapel Hill seems too much like Ann Arbor and there's not much in the way of employment for Ed in the Seattle area.  I guess Ed had been leaning towards Austin too because when I told him of my UT acceptance, he says "So we're moving to Austin?!" and he just looked so cute and excited that I had to agree.

So now I have about one million things I need to do before August 1st, including, but certainly not limited to:

• Find a place to live (I think I'm going to convince my parents to move to Austin.  I know there's nothing that would bring my conservative father more joy than housing his adult daughter and her boyfriend [read: I'm living in sin].)
• Find a job
• Be supportive while Ed finds a job
• Save money for moving expenses (which, for the record, are OUTRAGEOUS!  I got a quote from U-Haul that moving all our stuff would be EIGHTEEN HUNDRED DOLLARS.  You read that right, folks.) (Also, this is impossible with a puppy with no immune system who loves catching pneumonia more than chasing squirrels.)
• Schedule a visit to Austin to tour campus and get reacquainted with the city
• Make friends/reconnect with friends in Austin so that when we get there we're not terribly lonely and miserable. 
• Not panic about aforementioned to-do list.

To be honest, I have mixed feelings about moving.  For all the antsiness and anxiety I feel about leaving Ann Arbor, I've lived here for longer than I lived anywhere during my childhood.  Hell, Texas only beats Ann Arbor by two years.  It's become my home, the place where I became an adult, and I'm going to miss it.  Also, I think it's going to be a lot harder on Ed than either of us realize; he's never lived anywhere else and we'll be leaving all his friends and family.  For a while we're only going to have each other which has the potential to make or break us.  I hope it makes us, I feel in my heart that it will, but the thought of things falling apart after I've made him uproot from his home is heartbreaking.  I feel good that the two of us can handle this; everything we've ever done, from dating to saying I love you to moving in together has been so natural, so comfortable, so unceremonious.  I have no reason to believe this big-time, cross-country move will be any different.  And at the end of the day, I'm in a familiar place and he isn't; it's a sensitivity I will have to try to always be aware of.

On top of all this excitement, Jamaica is in less than 2 weeks and this cold that I've been brewing and had convinced me wasn't going to boil over until I touched down in Montego Bay has hit!  I'm sick and I couldn't be happier.