A collective sigh of relief

Today marks the end of possibly the most stressful/emotional/worrysome two weeks of my almost 20 years on this earth. For the past two weeks, my parents and my life has been calls, faxes, e-mails, and messages galore to the US Department of State and our congressman's office which has been like trying to yell for help in a soundproof room.. seemingly useless.

Here's the scoop: I'm going for over 180 days, therefore I needed an FBI background check done. Check. Now, as of, oh, less than a year ago, we now have to get an apostille to attach to this said document. What is an apostille you ask? Honestly, I'm still not sure myself. I'm currently refering to it as the Holy Grail and that which has shaved 2 years off my lifespan. It is a yellow paper, groveled to my FBI record saying 'hague convention', signed by someone, and stamped by someone. What I've gotten from the things I've tried to read about it, it lets other countries in the Hague Convention not have to verify that document. Whatever, Hague Convention, you made my life more stressful. Any who, I sent off my FBI record to receive this important apostille in late May and just received it back on Friday. Fine, except they told me it would take 14 days and I had a deadline to make to get my visa to go to Spain to do all of this exploring, dreaming, and discovering. God bless my mother, who is a magician and saint in my eyes. She took the reigns of contacting and persistently pestering (rightfully so) the state department and our congressman's office. Finally, we got a call saying it had been shipped the 29th of June (which, we found out was a lie. It was sent on the 6th of July but I digress) and it has been received at the McMullen household.

Now it is off with a collection of other important documents to the API office so they can get my visa for me, god bless them. For the past two weeks, we have been looking at some alternative options in case we didn't get this apostille, all of which were less than ideal. I'm so happy that this has all worked out and I can do what I really want: the early start program + the academic year.

Now, the countdown happily continues!! 44 days! Honestly, it still doesn't feel like I'm going. That sounds dumb, but it's terribly true. I just can't believe that I get to go back over and for eight. whole. months. .... and I'm mildly freaking out a bit (but very very very excited. Odd mix of emotions over here) Now, off to eat and sleep early so I won't be a zombie at work tomorrow.



Katie