Because really, I'm a citizen of the WORLD.

It should be noted that I am officially on summer break. My dissertation is handed in, I've moved, and fall term doesn't start until September 21st.

(*insert a "WOOOOOOO, SUMMER VACAY!" here*)

Granted, it's not really time off. The PhD Year One reading list (for our novel seminar alone) is 62 required books, which are apparently "supposed to be read" by the time term starts. So I've got my work cut out for me. But if reading is ALL I have going on between now and September 21st, I can definitely handle that.

I can't believe I've been in Glasgow for almost a year (my anniversary is coming up in two weeks). Sadly, time spent in the UK on a student visa doesn't count towards the five years necessary for obtaining Permanent Residency. So I could be looking at an additional eight years before I get Permanent Residency, then I think it's an additional year before I can apply for Naturalized Citizenship, and then (and only then) do I get to apply for a UK passport that allows me into the superquick EU passport lines in airports.

Not that I'm contemplating giving up my American citizenship. Just that it feels weird to technically be on a track to actually allow me to become a citizen of another country. To even have the option. Living here is one thing. But to think it's technically very possible in the future to be BRITISH? Strange. Just really, really strange. Because as much as I love it here and think that I can hold my own pretty well living here, I'm a Yank through and through. There's no mistaking it.

See? This is the problem with "summer break." I have too much free time to sit around and think about inconsequential things like my citizenship.

My Misadventures with Virgin Media...

So, earlier this month, I signed the lease on my new flat in Maryhill. Even though I still have my flat in student halls through mid-September, I had to double up on the leases because I didn't want to lose the other place.

Back on July 29, I started the process of getting my internet hooked up with Virgin. Figuring Richard Branson's a good way to go. They have lovely planes; I had high hopes for their internet.

A month later, guess who's still not online at the new flat? If you guess THIS GIRL, you'd be right.

FIRST: the guy never showed for the appointment when he said he would; I wasted an entire afternoon waiting for him. Not only did he never show, but he never called to either A) cancel or B) apologize.

Then, a week later, a second guy came to take a look and tell me what was needed for installation. We set up an appointment for a week later to have an engineer come do the installation. I was excited. I was finally going to get internet in the new place and have it up and running.

Fast-forward a week to last Thursday. The engineer comes out and spends two hours installing the line. We test it out, the modem doesn't work. He goes back down to his truck and gets another modem. THAT modem doesn't work. He tells me they have to fix something in the office, and to wait four hours, but then it should be fine.

Fast-forward four hours: still no internet. I spend 20 minutes on the phone with Virgin, for the girl to tell me at the end I just have to wait four more hours.

Fast-forward to Sunday: STILL NO INTERNET. I call Virgin again. Am on the phone this time for almost an hour. Tech person tells me I have to now wait 24 hours, and that they'll call me to tell me it's fixed then.

Fast-forward to Monday, 24-hours later: no phonecall. Still no internet. I call Virgin again. The tech guy tells me that yep, there's a big problem with my account (on their end; it's nothing I did wrong), and that he's "putting a rush" on the order to fix it. And that the soonest it will be working is in seven days.

SEVEN DAYS. And apparently not an hour before then.

And that's the "rush." Seven days and then "if it's not working then, call us back."

I am livid. Beyond livid. Are there hamsters running on wheels powering the internet at Virgin? What kind of problem takes seven takes do fix, when all I need is connectivity? I'm not an IT geek, but I know enough about computers to know that SEVEN DAYS seems beyond ridiculous. And what if it wasn't a rush? Would I be looking at a month?

It's not like my internet broke. It NEVER WORKED. This is some of the worst customer service I've ever seen; I'm a new customer. You'd think they'd want to get it right for me from the get-go. They should be busting their hump to make sure that as a new customer, I'm happy with the company. Instead, my first impressions of Virgin is that they don't care about their customers, they seem to operate on a pass-the-buck system when things go wrong (I kept getting transferred and referred and told my account was being "passed on to someone higher," yet it's never FIXED), and that they're slow and incompetent.

This does not bode well for the rest of my time with them. What happens once I have service and the internet breaks? Are there going to be frequent outages, with them just telling me to suck it up for a month while they take their time fixing it?

We are now approaching a month since I contacted Virgin about getting internet set up. A MONTH. And I still don't have access in my flat. I have their modem, and all the lights are lit up and give the illusion of internet, but there's no actual CONNECTIVITY. We past the point of ridiculousness two weeks ago. This is now unimaginable. A month. To get internet. And it will pass the point of a month and I still won't be online, since the EARLIEST I've been told I'll be connected is September 1.

...which is cutting it close. Term starts in September. I cannot be without internet once term starts; it's not an option. And I 100% don't believe Virgin when they tell me it'll be fixed in seven days (because actually, they didn't. They prepared me for it to NOT be fixed in seven days, to be ready to call back then when it's still not working).

Right now, I'm soured to the whole Virgin empire: planes, record shops, gyms, mobile phones, you name it. I'm really glad I didn't book a flight home on VS. I don't care if they have some of the best IFE of any airline I could fly between LHR-IAD. I don't want to give this company another penny of my money.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My dissertation was due at noon today. I did not go to sleep last night. The timeline of the insanity of getting to noon went something like this:


4:30am: Print out first copy. It is 85 pages and 21,437 words long.

4:45am: Need to change ink cartridge. Realize that I only have enough paper for three copies, not two.

4:50am: Do a quick (and sloppy) edit of my other paper due, make changes, and print it out. Realize that I don't give a crap about it, only my dissertation.

5:30am: Other than finishing printing, am done. I set three alarms and get in bed. The sun is up.

5:50am: Realize I can't sleep because my mind is racing and the adrenaline is pumping.

7:09am: After drifting off for a little bit, I wake up on my own, a whole ten minutes before my first alarm.

7:10am: Switch the coffee on.

7:11am: Pee.

7:15am: Begin coffee consumption.

7:30am: Print out second copy. Watch as my paper supply dwindles dangerously lower and lower and lower.

8:00am: Go over regulations and specifications for the hundredth time. Decide that I am finished.

8:30am: Take a shower.

8:41am: Get exfoliator in my eye.

8:57am: Realize that no amount of makeup in the world will make me look like a functional human being today.

9:16am: Am in mad scramble to leave the apartment. The goal is to make it to the copy/print shop next to campus when it opens at 9:30am.

9:25am: Am walking to campus when it starts raining. I use my umbrella to protect my box of dissertations. Not myself.

9:39am: Get to copy/print shop. It is closed. I have heart attack.

9:41am Sit on the stoop of the closed copy/print shop in the rain. Text K in Edinburgh frantically about potential back-up plans, as I have none, and only 2h19m remain until my dissertation is due. Am entirely too tired to cry. Feel like I am in bad movie. Hear my dad's voice echoing in my head about not leaving things till the last minute.

9:47am: The lady who runs the copy/print shop shows up. She was stuck in traffic. Of course she was.

10:09am: Leave copy/print shop with three bound copies of my dissertation.

10:14am: Arrive at SESLL building, at 6 University Gardens.

10:15am: Turn in dissertations! Sign drop-off sheet!

10:20am: Have long talk with departmental admin about PhD program. Ask incessant questions. Have lost ability to speak coherently. Am quite sure she thinks I'm mentally deranged.

10:30am: Swing by M&S for celebratory breakfast.

10:35am: Run into classmate on Byres Road. He looks in worse shape than I do.

10:45am Go up to new flat to get mail and get K's suitcase that I'd borrowed to start moving stuff. Catch bus back so I don't have to walk in the rain.

10:57am: Instead of pushing the button to signal my stop, I accidentally push the handicapped emergency button, setting off a massive bus-wide siren. Have thoroughly embarrassed myself in front of full double-decker bus.

11:07am: Arrive back at my old flat to realize that I have almost an entire ream of paper in the form of drafts on my floor. Realize that I'm done. Update blog and Facebook instead of crawling into bed.

Now, I crawl into bed.

And just in case you were ever wondering how I'd look at 5:30am after pulling an all-nighter to finish my dissertation:

T minus seven days...

I have exactly one week until my dissertation is due.

Actually, less than one week, since it's due by noon on August 18th and it is currently 2:09pm.

Can coffee be administered intravenously? I think I need to walk around with a constant drip for the next few days.

Wherever you wander, wherever you roam...

Since one can't do upper-level graduate coursework without a roof over her head, I am now proud owner renter of a sweet little one-bedroom flat in Glasgow! It's located in Maryhill, a diverse area in every sense of the word, be it economics, skin color, or nationality. Maryhill has its rougher edges (understatement), but also has really great bits about it too.

Or at least it does where I am (in the decidedly/hopefully not-as-rough fringes of the notorious G20 postcode). I am three blocks from the Kelvin Walkway, which follows the river as it winds from Dawsholm Park, four miles north of the city, down to the River Clyde, and the walkway feels like another world away from the noise and the grime, rather than something that's smack in the middle of a large city. I am five minutes from the Botanic Gardens. And only half a mile from the top of Byres Road and Great Western Road, the two main drags of the West End, chock full of pubs, restaurants, shops, and two subway stations. It's about a 20 minute walk (which is nothing) to the university, and if the weather's terrible or I'm feeling especially lazy, there are three major bus lines right outside my door to take me to campus and another two to take me directly into town.

But the best part of my new place? Minus being on the third and top floor with a big bay window, high ceilings, hardwood floors, walk-in closet, gas cooking, electric fireplace, and views of the Campsie Fells (though admittedly, I'm much, much further away from the Fells than that picture)? It's that I am 100 feet from the big Maryhill Tesco! Which is one of the super Tescos, containing a housewares and electronics section, in addition to being a gigantic, US-style grocery store! It doesn't get more convenient than that, and I'm sure once the weather gets bad again in the fall, I'm going to be insanely thankful that I have food and toilet paper just outside my front door.

Also, the flat is on the final approach path for one of the runways at GLA, which means on a good-weather day, I can sit in my big bay window and watch (though luckily not hear) the planes go by. It's a pretty cool view, between the occasional 777, the hills, and an overview of northern Glasgow. I like being on the third floor. I like being removed a bit from the street.

Overall, I'm a little in love with my flat. And really excited to be living alone again with a kitchen to myself. It is so hard to cook properly in a communal kitchen. And not cooking properly makes me ten types of antsy. But this place has a good kitchen. It's one of the things that made me fall in love with it. That, and the windows. I really, really love my windows.

Fun UK fact of the day: My gas bill isn't a bill at all. It's pay as you go. Like my mobile phone. PAYG gas works with a little card. You top up the card at a pay point, and put money on it. Then you insert it into a little box in your utility closet. When the card runs out of money, you don't get any more gas.