The trip went more like this:I had an interview with a direct marketing firm on Thursday. The interview went really well and they asked me to come back for a final interview so I decided to stay through Tuesday morning instead of coming back on Sunday as planned so that I could do the second interview on Monday. I really liked the manager that I interviewed with but the position I was applying for was never really described in detail (in hindsight that should have been a red flag but too late now).

On Friday, I went to an open house for my grad school program at Boston University. I really enjoyed meeting the faculty, and the program sounds really great BUT all I could think about was the neon light flashing dollar signs in my head because of how much student loan debt I would have to be in to go there.

On Saturday and Sunday I pretty much just walked around exploring Boston with Randy & Tamara (who were so gracious to let me crash on their couch for a week). I loved the city even more the second time around. I thought the snow was pretty in January, but the Public Garden in April is 10 times better. I love walking down Newbury Street and stopping to get a coffee at an underground cafe, I love the 5-story Cambridge Antique Market, I LOVE having Dunkin Donuts on every corner. In short, I felt totally at home.

SO, Monday rolls around and I have to leave the apartment three hours early just to get to this place that’s ten miles out of the city –Monday was also Patriot’s Day & the Boston Marathon so most forms of Public Transportation were out. Long story short, I spent the next 8 hours following this 25-year old guy around door-to-door selling in my suit and brand new shoes in 40 degree weather! They offered me the job at the end of the night, but needless to say I said, “Thanks but no thanks.” I was finally done around 9:00 at night, got dropped off at the train station where I was the only one there besides some creepy old man,and finally decided to just catch a cab all the way back to downtown Boston. The whole thing was a nightmare- a ‘learning experience’ you could say.

Anyway, the next morning I woke up at 3:30 (2:30 Arkansas time) to go to the airport. I was supposed to fly out at 5:40 a.m. and be home by 10 BUT this being the day after the Boston Marathon and an extra 40,000 people were flying out and all it took me 7 flights to get a seat SO I got home around 9 o’clock Tuesday night (18 hours later). I did, however, have plenty of time to think and talk to Jacob about my grad school/interview experiences. We weighed all of our options and made a decision, I think. We are going to stay in Fayetteville for a year, taking whatever jobs we can get, and I’m going to defer my enrollment at Boston University until August 2011 because:

1. We don’t have enough (or any really) money to move right now
2. We want to get married before we move away to start our careers
3. We want to be able to save some money for when we do start our new life together

We fully intend to move to Boston in a year. I’m not giving up, just taking it slow. This decision has caused me to be oddly calm about the future. It’s still not really in my nature to take a break and assume that ‘everything will just work out’ but I have to believe it or I’ll go crazy.

In other news, I guess I’m officially on the job hunt in Northwest Arkansas and a week from today I will be completely done with college. crazy