Time to make the list

Resolutions and things I want to accomplish in 2011:

Get packed up and across the pond with the cat.
Get into teacher training so I can teach in England.
Get back into an exercise routine.
Go back to Weight Watchers.
Take trips around the UK.
Visit Steve's folks.
Have 1st anniversary at Disney World.
Take Education classes online in the summer.
Get a television for our bedroom.
Have an awesome post-Christmas.
Have an awesome Christmas in Dec together.
Keep up on my blogs.
Graduate from TWU with my Master's in Library Science.
Get a Windows 7 phone once my iPhone contract is up.
Have a great first year as a married woman.

Feels like Christmas

I love that it's 79F degrees again. I want to enjoy my Floridian lifestyle the right way for the next six weeks. I'm fine with having a sunny Christmas this year.

I also found out that one of the UK colleges where I applied for the teacher training courses has offered me an interview. (If you'll recall, the first place I sent my application was all worried about their high school test scores, which may be the case with all their college entry requirements.) Anyway, I'll have to request a rescheduling of the interview as they want to conduct it on the day I'll get to England. But if I can get it for a couple days after, Steve showed me how easy it will be to get on the bus and take a 30 minute trip to the University. The idea of learning to ride the bus, not to mention the metro, will be a whole adventure in itself.

Right now Steve's at his Christmas work dinner and I'm contemplating what to have for dinner myself. I tried to get to the gym yesterday but I did my Christmas shopping instead. (Got Mom a green Christmas sweatshirt for her to wear now though.) I knew that school was out today and more people would be in Wal-mart and Target. I have what I want for everyone now. I still have a few things to get Dad for his birthday and Steve for our post-Christmas (both in January.)

I'm still working on setting up my online education classes too. I still like the idea of taking classes that count toward an MEd degree.

A very good year

Today I finally got my UK Visa.  It took a little over a month to process, taking into account the Thanksgiving holiday.  After getting the papers together for two months so a one month turn out rate from the British Consulate isn't bad at all.  (I think they deserve a Christmas card.) 

Now that the hard part is over, the paperwork part, there is the planning to think of.  By the end of January, I'll be in the UK.  It will be a great start to the new year.  While I hate being away from Steve for Christmas, it does make the holiday much easier to get through knowing that I'll be there soon enough.  This means two Christmases!  We'll put up the tree and open presents and watch A Christmas Story just like it's December 25th.  I still like to think that this will be a great story for our grandkids.  2010 was a wonderful year and starting off 2011 with my official move to England will make it another wonderful year.

So that gives me about six weeks to enjoy my break from school, have Christmas with my parents, get myself packed up, and my money saved.  At least I won't have to fight the holiday crowds at the airport (I can only imagine what the lines at the body scanners will be like next week) and I can have a better pick of flights.  I thought about going over for Christmas, then coming back to get Jake, but that will be a whole plane ticket's worth of cash that I need to get Jake to London.  I was thinking it would be $400-$500 for a cat to travel across the pond but online I'm hearing an estimated $1000 to bring a pet.  That, along with my own plane ticket and the extra baggage fees (I have a lot of sweaters to bring) is going to be a bit pricey. 

Still, I'll be headed to my new home soon and that's made me feel way more Christmasy.  Today I went with my parents to the mall, ate Chic-Fil-A (and the rest of that gingerbread I made at home, thank you very much), got a candy cane from Santa, picked out some new Nike + shoes (purple!) as one of my Santa gifts and had an all around nice outting.  I won't start my new classes until the 18th, and then I should be headed across the pond a week later.  That makes it way convenient to not be travelling and having big, important assignments due at the same time.  I'm still looking into the Education classes I'll take next year too.

Dear Santa

I know what Santa's bringing me this year.  I have wanted an Amazon Kindle or something similar for over a year now.  I investigated the new NookColor but there was a better review for the Kindle on PCWorld, so I asked my parents for it instead.  While I love books and I love browsing books and feeling so happy to carry armloads of them out of the library or bookstore, I really like the idea of a Kindle.  Since I'll be moving (sometime...more on that later) I really can't cart a bunch of books around.  Granted, yes, I have some and I'll always have books I find to pick up, but the majority of them can be housed in one convenient little gadget.  And everyone knows how much I love gadgets. 

The benefits as well will be that I'll be a city gal once I move.  I'll be spending my time taking the bus, the metro and the train.  Instead of worrying that I've forgotten my book each time I step out of the house, I can have this with me.  The battery life lasts for 1 month, it holds 3,500 books, tons of the classics are free or 99 cents and whenever I want a new book, I just download it and start reading.  I also like the idea that I can start up on the page of the book where I left off, turn on the audio reading option and listen to the book for the few pages I need to while I'm on the bus or at the gym.  When I get home, I can have it bookmarked where it left off, and go back to reading it.  That's very cool. 

It reads PDF files too.  Not sure if I'll need that for any kind of work/school related thing but it's nice to know.  I'm not sure how the web browsing works either.  If I can figure out how to update my Twitter and check my email, that's enough for me.

So I wrote on my "professional"  Endeavours in Librarianship blog that I'm getting some future plans set up. I have my MLS degree final term around the corner, then by finding out that I have my Professional Teaching Certificate in FL, I can take classes at University of Phoenix so I can keep my certificate valid while I'm gone.  Now, the problem is going to be getting work in the UK.  I just wrote a post to the TDA Facebook page saying, I was just rejected from a PGCE program because I did not have GCSE scores. I'm in the US and gave them my information on my high school transcripts. I have a professional certificate, teaching experience and am working on my second Master's degree. Why are my qualifications not enough? What should I do? Thanks.

If by not taking their high school exam (this is comparible to the FCAT or the SAT), despite the graduate degrees and teaching experience I have, I can't get in the program, it makes me wonder what else I'll be shut out of.  I don't understand that when the program is called the Post Graduate Certificate in Education.  I've graduated college, so I'm eligible, right?  Anyway, if I can't get a teaching job, I'll have to wait around for the "0" library job listings to raise to at least 1 or 2 so I can have a chance of having a decent job there.  Otherwise I'll be working at Starbucks (which isn't at all bad, mind you) and volunteering at the library (another not so bad scenerio.) 

We're still waiting on the UK Visa anyway.  If I don't get anything by the end of the week, it pretty much means I'm not going to be able to get to Steve by Christmas.  We have that whole 10 day time frame to get Jake ready to go with his Pet Passport and I just don't know if I can get him there during the week of Christmas.  It really is disappointing to us both.  We have plans to visit his family after spending our first Christmas together as a married couple.  The UK Consulate may very well take that opportunity away from us.  But we'll manage around it, I know, if we can't be together on Dec 25th.  It's just a bummer to be married for 2 1/2 months and still not know if you'll be able to spend the holidays together.  I was even going to cook a turkey and we were going to go to our church to Christmas service.  I'm already not going to the work Christmas party or the Christmas lights in the park.  Major, major bummer.

So aside from my Kindle for Christmas, I'm asking Santa for my UK Visa, my plane ticket, my cat's Pet Passport and my train ticket home with him and Steve.  I promise, I've been really good this year!