I'm here for ya, sistah!

Nicole! Don't worry your head about your life. You are living in a city that is not easy to live in, you cannot be faulted for making certain concessions in order to live decently. You should be really proud of yourself! You have a reputable job that more than pays the bills doing something your not entirely unfulfilled by, which is more than most American women our age can say (certainly more than I can). And you have the drive and passion and stamina necessary to continue to follow your bliss on your own time. Girl, that's all I ever want to do. I have known all my life that I was not going to get fulfillment from what I do for money. I have just known that I will be doing something that bores me during the day so that I can afford to not live with one or the other of my parents, and then spending my evenings and weekends completely engrossed in theatre. This, to me, looks like a very happy existence compared to a LOT of other choices. There were a few reasons I decided to get the MFA: 1) because they're paying me to do it, 2) I'll have a masters just like all my grown up friends, 3) it may conceivably open some doors so I don't end up doing community theatre for the rest of my life. But there's a HUGE gap between community theatre and theatre that pays well enough to eat a can of dog food every once in a while. And I know that I will probably succeed brilliantly in that gray, unpaid, artistically-fulfilling area. And you already are doing just that, and we can be proud and happy and feel really blessed that we can look back on a life spent making art and not spent entirely playing video games. Oh, I have more to say about this, girl! I'll e-mail you.

On the other notes:
-sort of a few leads on a couple of apartments in Bloomington. I am not going to live in Normal, which is fine with me, because I am old, and Normal is kiddey-ville during the school year (Bluh). I found two efficiencies in historic homes, one for 300.00/mo, water included, and one for 350.00/mo heat and water included. Because of the limited amount of time I had to spend in BN, I saw neither of them, but both of the landpeople had audible orgasms when I mentioned that I was a masters candidate, so I have a feeling I will be renting with one of these folks. Weirdness, though; in BN they don't do August leases for efficiencies or studios. No one does. I find this odd. Everyone told me that there was nothing available at the moment, but that they would definitely have something closer to August. I guess they're all month-to-month or something. I can make the drive there and back in one day, so this shouldn't be that big of a deal, but it's still weird.

-I am so EXCITED. I met a bunch of the faculty and they seem really cool. I really like the building, it's worn and smelly in the right places (I was kind of put off by how million-dollar perfect everything was in Indiana. I like it when things are old and messy.). I'm going to have an office, I'll give you all the number and you can prank me. I'm not teaching a whole course, just a section of a huge lecture course, which is cool. I am almost all enrolled in school, and I'm going to have voice and movement and acting my first semester, plus my teaching section, plus hopefully getting into a show or two (they have a HUGE roster of shows).

-it's really HOT and DAMP here right now, and I don't like it much. I will be glad when it rains.