Doctors and Doctorates

So, long time no update. Life has been pretty good of late. I have more friends in the area, polo is going well and taking up a lot of my time. Alexander is in Boston which is lame, but we've done the long distance summer thing before and I'm going to visit him in less than two weeks! I'm very very excited. Of course mostly to see him but I've also never been to Boston before, or Massachusetts at all (no offense, people who live there, but that is just the dumbest of the state names). Apparently he has all sorts of things planned out for us but I won't find out till I get there. Cannot wait!

The one big stressful thing in my life currently is this whole grad school deal. I finally started looking in-depth at programs and so far have a few I really like. Namely: UC Davis, UNC Chapel Hill, Bucknell (PA), and Macquarie University (Sydney). I'm not done looking yet and I'm not really sure how to find more or narrow down, all of these were picked by looking at what research the professors were doing. The real problem is that only one of them is in a city that I really want to live in, and that's Sydney. I want to live near the ocean. I just do. UC Davis is only a couple of hours away and I hear very good things about the city, but Bucknell is in a landlocked state and Chapel Hill is not even really day-trip distance from the beach. I know this may seem like a silly requirement and it isn't one really but I just feel happier when I can swim in the ocean, or at least see it. I don't know why, I'm just drawn to it and I've lived smack dab in the middle of the continent my whole life. I know I posted on my other blog about this at some point but honestly Sydney is the only city I've ever been in and thought "Yeah, I want to live here." There are a lot of other places that I like, don't get me wrong, but Sydney is the only one I've ever actually felt strongly drawn to. Which is a problem, because it is a million zillion miles away from everyone I care about. I really liked the research they were doing, I love the city, it's on the ocean, it's near the mountains, it's in Australia...but 2-6 years that far away from everyone? I have no idea how to make that kind of decision. I have always been terrible at decision making and my basic strategy is to ask everyone I know what their opinion is and then do whatever I was going to do in the first place. Getting more perspective does help, it often helps me realize what I really feel and what's important, but sometimes it makes it worse. I've only brought it up with a couple of people but so far it's only made it more confusing. Either they've said "Oh that would be so cool, you should totally do it! The loneliness will be worth it" in which case my reaction is "but but but EVERYONE I know will be so far away. For YEARS. I can't do that!" or they will say "Yeah, I mean, that sounds cool but I couldn't do it, it would be too rough and I couldn't be that far away for that long." In which case my response is "But I want to! I'm not going to chicken out just because it will be hard!" So, yeah. Not helping. I have no idea what to do to make this decision, other than look more closely at the programs, email professors, and that sort of thing, which should really be my next step anyway but is awfully scary because then it's less theoretical.

 The other big thing in my life has been doctor visits. I don't know why but since I've moved here things that have always sort of been a problem but not that medically significant (so I thought) have finally seemed worth mentioning to a doctor. For instance, I've been given a lot of shit over the years about how often I fall asleep during other things. Alexander says in the almost year and a half we've been together he can count on one hand the number of times I've stayed awake through a whole movie with him, no matter what time of day it is. I slept through classes in high school and college, even though I was taking notes, chewing gum, jiggling my foot, and drinking water I just could not force myself to stay awake. I pass out in the car, I fall asleep in public sometimes, often I have trouble getting through more than a page or two before I pass out when I just want to read...it's frustrating. In college I figured it was because I never slept enough. I don't think there was a week for those four years that I got a good 8 hours every night for 7 nights straight. And in California because we worked in the desert and it was the summer the only way we wouldn't burst into flames during our job was to start work at 2:30 or 3:00am, which meant going to sleep at 6 or 7pm which was just not happening in a house with no AC when I had west-facing windows. There was no way. So I spent the whole summer sleep deprived, too. But now I get seven or eight hours most nights and it still happens. I fall asleep during game sometimes. I fall asleep all the time, and it mostly seems funny or annoying, not like a real medical problem, except that I am a 23 year old woman, not an 80 year old man. So I mentioned it casually to my therapist who told me to talk to my doctor who gave me a little quiz and said I probably had a sleep disorder and needed to see a sleep specialist. I had that appointment today and they want to do an extensive study which would mean me staying there all night covered in electrodes and then all the next day also covered in electrodes to see what's up. Scary and expensive and maybe not worth it, but also, it would be really great if I could just watch a two hour movie with my friends without missing half of it. So. I don't know. First we're trying changing a few simple things and keeping a sleep diary. They even told me to drink coffee which I don't think a doctor has ever told me before. I hope these things work and I don't have to do ridiculous stuff (although, it would be cool if I got to see my brainwaves, and sleep science is really fascinating to me because it doesn't make any sense). It just seems like the silliest problem to have.

 So, that's pretty much my life right now. If you have any advice about grad school or living far away, I would love it. I will probably let you know how Boston goes. So excited! And now I have to get ready to go play polo! It's a hard life, you guys.