The Secret is Out...

I have spent the past two months trying to decide what direction my life needs to go. I've spent hours upon hours contemplating, weighing options, etc.

My decision is as follows:
1. I will be moving to Pittsburgh in June when my Bloomington lease runs out.
2. I will work for one year while I establish Pennsylvania residency.
3. I will go to Univ. of Pittsburgh to get my graduate degrees in Public Health, specifically Epidemiology.

I haven't written in so long because I wanted to wait until I had informed my coworkers so they wouldn't have to find out via this blog. I know some of you read it!

Reasons for my decision:
1. If I don't go to grad school now, I'm going to end up never going.
2. I need to get the heck out of Bloomington. Although I adore it, I don't have very many friends here anymore due to the mobile nature of this town. I think it's also in my gypsy blood to never stay in one place too long (thanks to mom's side of the family).
3. Bloomington holds a lot of memories that need to be put in the past. I've found myself dwelling a lot in the past lately, so much so that sometimes I forget that I need to keep looking forward.
4. I need an adventure.
5. To work for the CDC, UNAIDS, UNICEF, etc, it is best to have a graduate degree.
6. Although I joke about it, and my parents certainly couldn't care less, it's difficult to be the daughter of Dr. & Dr. Such and Such. I know the pressure is my own and I want to succeed, but I feel like I NEED to be just as successful as they are.
7. I don't want to be an admin assistant the rest of my life. I enjoy what I do most of the time and I love my co-workers, but the truth is: it's not what I want to do with my life.
8. I want a job that I feel like I'm making a difference in.
9. I need to get away from exes. As petty as that is, it's true.
10. I'm broke. Property prices are too high here for a single girl making what I make to live here on her own and save any money for later in life.

So I'll be moving in June. My lease is up on June 15. I plan on the Friday before Memorial Day being my last day. I'll be moving my kitties to my mom's about a month before I move. I think I'll be lonely without them, but I want them to get used to Mom's place and be able to move my stuff without them trying to escape and the like.

This new path that I've decided to take is, to be brutally honest, scary as fuck. Excuse my language, but that's the best way to describe what I'm feeling right now. I've lived in Bloomington for almost 14 years. I moved 5 times before the age of 12, but I've been in this town for over half my life now. I think from the time we moved here, I knew I'd move on eventually. It's still scary. I hate moving. I hate learning to drive in a new town. I hate making new friends. BUT....I love the adventure. I love making new friends too, because you never know who you will meet. I love having a new place to live. I love finding out everything about the town I'm moving too.

So AHHHHHHHH! I've told my coworkers that I'll be leaving. I wanted to give them as much time as possible to find the right person to replace me and for me to have enough time to train that person. I don't want the next person to be in the same place as I was when I started, which was jumping in two feet first with no idea about what I was supposed to be doing. I'm reluctant to leave as I really like my coworkers and the kids that come to our programming. I'll miss them all very much, but hey...maybe when I'm rich and famous, I'll be able to give them lots of money. :)

I've read a lot of books lately, so I won't critique them all. But some books to check out are:

Carrier: Finding the Danger in My DNA
What the Dog Saw
Any David Sedaris book

All of the above are thought-provoking, interesting books. Another couple of amazing books are The Price of Stones and The Love We Share Without Knowing. CHECK THEM OUT!

Another aspect of moving is all the STUFF one accumulates over time. You never realize how much crap you own until you decide to move. However, I'm proud of myself. It is easy for me to purge myself of stuff. I currently have an enormous pile of stuff in my second bedroom that I need to take to Goodwill. I also gave a lot of my books away to the public library and to the library at the place where I work. I still have a ton of books. I took some of them home when I went home for Thanksgiving, but I still have a lot. And DVDs....I own a lot of those too. Other than that, I really don't have a lot of clothes or anything like that. I'm going to be selling my recliner and coffee table and maybe a couple of other things, so if you are interested, let me know.

Finally, Thanksgiving was wonderful. I went to a magazine premiere for Jenny, a magazine published online by students at Youngstown State University. Check it out at www.jennymag.org. I met a lot of people. Hopefully, I'll be able to make some friends with some of them. We had Thanksgiving at my aunt's house, as usual. Everyone is doing great. I really liked that I was able to just do nothing for a few days. I had almost a week off and it was fantastic. I also got to see my Great Aunt Marlene and her new kitten, Odie. I don't like driving the 7 hours there and back. It kills my lower back, but seeing my family is worth it. I can't wait until I'm less that an hour from all of them.

Sorry for the strange construction and thought process of this blog entry. I basically just let my thoughts pour out on the page, which just means that they're just as mixed up as my thought process right now.

I hope to get to writing in my blog more now. Enjoy and I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving!