I have all of my textbooks for the upcoming quarter at Edmonds CC, with one exception. I was just informed this morning that my "Philosophy of Religion" class has been cancelled, which was/is disappointing. I immediately logged on to online registration, dropped PHIL 267, and grabbed the very last open slot for Research English. Whew.

Although I'm still a bit bummed about the cancellation, the selected topic for my section of Research English will be "Detective Fiction," which should be interesting. It's been a while since I wrote a research paper, so at least this change will be useful for catching me up on rusty writing skills.

I sent off my application to the University of Washington on Friday, and they confirmed receiving it this morning. Now I get to attempt to be unattached to the results.

*deep breath*

I woke up this morning to an extreme feeling of anxiety, so I decided to take Dr. Raphaely's advice in the form of an extra Klonopin. That seemed to do the trick. Hopefully I won't need to resort to that too often.

I sent off my application to the UW early this afternoon. My personal statement was as frank and earnest as I could be without being soppy, and I think I managed to get across my genuine enthusiasm. So that's one anxiety-making task off the table. Now I just have to wait and see if they're as interested in me as I am in them. I'm hoping that the holiday season and upcoming school quarter will distract me from worrying about it too much.

"Vedic Influences on 19th Century America":
http://www.indiadivine.org/audarya/vedic-culture/190010-new-book-re-vedic-influence-19th-america.html

"T.S. Eliot and Indic Traditions":
http://www.hindu.com/br/2005/01/25/stories/2005012500131700.htm

"The Bhagavad-Gita and the English Romantic Movement":
http://www.exoticindiaart.com/book/details/IDE923/

I had my first class in Classical Literary Tibetan last night. Class officially starts on January 7th (along with the regular quarter), but last night's orientation turned into a quick beginning of the class itself.

We were introduced to the 30 consonants of the alphabet, along with their proper pronunciation and method of writing them. We are starting out with the uchen (headed) script, as opposed to the cursive umey (headless) script, which sounds pretty standard. Over the next several months, we will be slowly learning the text "The Twelve Deeds of the Lord Buddha" (which does NOT include a Partridge in a Pear Tree nor the Augean Stables), and several grammatical rules.

It will be interesting to learn a tonal language, as well as one where words contain "root letters," along with possible prefixes, multiple suffixes, subfixes, and superfixes. Oh, and then there are the vowels...

So far, it's a very orderly, logically-written language. Our instructor warns that there are a few exceptions to the basic grammatical rules, but nothing even close to meeting English's scale.

..is one major pain in the ass.

Last night I started reading David Snellgrove's Indo-Tibetan Buddhism: Indian Buddhists and their Tibetan Successors. I'm trying to get in as much pleasure reading as I can right now, because January 7th and the start of full-time school are just around the corner.

I still haven't told anybody about my decision to go back to school full-time, outside of this small group of people. I'm not sure why I'm being so private about it.

I am now an official student of Edmonds Community College, but am planning to transfer to the UW for autumn quarter next year for a post-bac. I can get some of my language and religion credits out of the way, and brush up on my paper-writing.

I am dreadfully excited. I'm sticking with my metalsmithing, but this is a big step towards a real goal.

I'm looking at all the stuff that has to be done on the way to going back to the U. Um, wow.

First things first: I need to make an appointment with Dr. Raphaely, to address all the breakthrough anxiety that I've been experiencing. It's not going to do me any good to jump through all these hoops if I'm just going to end up incapacitated every couple of months.

Sean is right: I have an incredible opportunity here to go back to university, and study the subjects about which I'm so passionate: devotional material culture, religious history, bodies/cults of saints, and the techniques/designs used to create personal and corporate reliquary items.

Honestly, I really think there is at least one book in there somewhere. Maybe two. If I could write, teach, and do research on these topics for the rest of my life, my contentment would be worth it all.

I've been wasting time taking a class here and there. I've really got to get serious, and stay serious.