Mega-Update

I'm home. I've been very, very busy lately. And the past week has been entirely eventful.

The trip home went as well as can be expected, as far as death-traveling is concerned. Death traveling is when you travel for more than 15 hours in a stretch. We flew from San Diego to Washington D.C. (with a connection in Phoenix) and then proceeded to drive 8 hours from D.C. to Kingston. No breaks.

While exhausting, we did have a chance to catch some beautiful fireworks displays during the drive. They started just around sunset and went until around 10:30 or so, and ranged from private displays to big-city spectacles. It was really cool.

After about seven hours of post-trip rest, I had to prepare for my course at work. This involved a trip to the cottage to pick up some supplies, and ended with a rather large surprise.

Apparently, I've been accepted into graduate school.

While I'd received a letter of rejection from King's College of London earlier, they apparently were not referring to both of the two programs that I was applying to. And so, rather suddenly, I found myself staring down the barrel of an acceptance to the Master of Arts in Intelligence Studies and International Security.

(I know. Very bad-ass.)

It's become my official plan B. Ask me a year ago, and I would've been all over it. But I think the job(s) I'm pursuing right now would be more rewarding and provide more useful experience. This isn't to say that I'm not likely to take the Master's later, but I think taking it now might be a little bit too much, too soon.

That, and it costs absolute boatloads of money.

If you include the lost wages from my potential job, we're talking a cost of $130,000 (including living expenses) for one year of school.

So yeah, it sounds good, but I have a feeling that it's going to stay as a plan B.

Anyways, I must retire for the evening. More to follow (including pictures of the trip) later.