crunch time.

It's crunch time in Boston--on so many levels. The past few weeks have been crazy busy with preparing for Christmas and all that entails at Casserly House, grad school applications, my own personal Christmas preparations, community commitments, and so on and so forth. Don't get me wrong--a lot of these things have been fun and wonderful--but I am looking forward to life calming down a bit.

However, after two and half more days of work, I get to board a plane bound for St. Louis (well, for Baltimore first, then St. Louis!). I could not be more excited. It's been a wonderful first four months in this city, but it's also been a long time since I've been home. Since I've really seen the stars. Since I've slept in my own bed. Since I've been surrounded by my family and best friends. Since I've been around people who appreciate the state of Missouri the way I do. (This is when I am tempted to begin calling Missouri "God's country"... but I'm not there yet, no worries.)

I mentioned this briefly in my last point, but the honeymoon phase of JVC is definitely over. Boston's not as new as it used to be. Not that I'm necessarily disenchanted with it--especially when we've had the second warmest November on record!--but it certainly seems smaller now than it did back in August... or at least, it feels different. (Let's not talk about the irony of a girl from a town of 8,000 calling a metropolitan area of 4.5 million "small.")

(Side note: people keep asking how I feel about Boston, life on the East Coast, etc. Let's just say that I have a lot of thoughts on this city and life on the East coast--both good and bad--that I am purposely not going to delve into at the moment. We'll save that for later.)

Needless to say though, I'm ready to be home... at least for 10 days. Now, if I can just make it through the next two and a half...!

P.S. On an entirely different note--yet completely related at the same time--exactly two years ago today was my last day in Rome. That day is still one of my most cherished memories of all time. I don't think I could have imagined then where I would be today, and ironically, I'm thinking about a lot of the same things, as another trip home after months away approaches.