So, now may be a good time to make this announcement:
I am starting a second Master's degree at Aberystwyth University in September. Does that seem like a sudden decision to you? Yeah, well, me too. I applied on a whim about 3 weeks ago. I just checked my email--it was July 18th that they received my application.
Things have been stagnate for a while for me and it seemed like nothing I tried worked out. So, when my live in landlady threw yet another fit and told me I had to leave by August, I jumped on the catalyst and applied to AU. Life had really become unbearable anyway, living with a (genuinely) psychotic, racist, old bigot anyway, so I decided to change things up significantly. I considered going back to the US, but I didn't want to let one bad (albeit Umbridge-level bad) landlady drive me out of the UK. I don't even know how I found this Master's, which is History and Heritage, but it builds perfectly on my first degree and will help to give me real experience managing a Heritage site. I never thought I'd get in this close to the deadline, and figured that even if I did, I'd never be able to get things ready in time. And yet, somehow, everything just combined to make this happen. All the references and documents just seemed to appear and were processed immediately. I applied for a student loan and was approved two days later. I went to look for housing in Aber and found my dream flat after viewing only two flats. Referencing for the lease was supposed to take a few days, it was done within an hour. I needed documents from the school--it took a half an hour. I feel that it is very obvious that this is what I'm supposed to be doing, and since I'm a religious-type person, I would go so far as to say that I feel the hand of Deity in my life.
The really fun bit is, since I was desperate to leave Harrow (which I will never be able to think about without shuddering) just as my brother and his wife and my nieces and nephew were coming to visit me, they decided to stick around for a month with me. We're living in Nottinghamshire, in a gorgeous historic property with awesome neighbours just 20 minutes away from the Sherwood Forest Trust. We went to the Robin Hood Festival yesterday. In a word? Awesome. In 4 words? It was really awesome.
So, life had a major dip, but is looking pretty amazing now. Cymru am byth!
