West to the East

Last fall, I applied to four graduate programs in linguistics. I was rejected by three, accepted by one. The one was at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. In July I am moving to Honolulu.

I have never been to Hawaii before. In fact, Hawaii is much further west than I have ever been before. The idea of moving to a place where I've never even visited before is slightly terrifying. I don't know where I'm going to live or how I'm going to afford living there. I will have to take out a student loan, and I've never been more than a few hundred dollars in debt. Reggae and Spam are really popular in Honolulu. And people have planted seeds of fear in my head that I will constantly be beaten senseless by angry Samoans and Guamaniacs.

That said, it is also obviously extremely exciting and good and wonderful and nice. I'll get to study linguistics in a place where the native language isn't English, at a university that studies language preservation and native Esperantists. I will be doing something with my life that I have real interest in, in a place like none I've ever been before.

Anyway, for at least two years you guys will have a place to crash in Honolulu. In the meantime, I guess let's hang out here in Seattle.