T-88 Days, On Being Impatient

I have to very seriously ask myself what it says about me that the most exciting things to happen to me recently are these: 1) I now know that my tier-4 sponsor school is in fact Swansea and NOT Chico, and 2)I am now in possession of a money belt.

Of course, neither of these things mean ANYTHING to me for another month at the earliest.  I can't apply for my Visa until I have my CAS (conformation of acceptance to study), which supposedly won't be until July, and I'm banking on mid to late July.  My money belt doesn't really mean anything until I am hosteling it, since I don't even really expect I'll use it while I'm in London.  Maybe I'll use it just to prove that I need it.

I recently also acquired a copy of the Rough Guide to Wales, a jewelry roll, a foldable travel day pack, Rick Steve's Europe Through the Back Door, and a Streetwise London tube map which is about a third of the size I expected it to be.  In all, I'm doing pretty well for the things I need to buy, though I am beginning to think maybe I should have bought a rain shell instead of a jewelry roll and tube map, but in the end I'll need them all, the only difference any of it makes is when it arrives.

Mostly, I'm just sitting on my hands wishing I could be doing more to prepare.  I can't set up housing or apply for a visa or do any packing.  I'm horrifically impatient, but forced to wait.  It's unbearably frustrating.

In the meantime, I am making lists up the wahoo and making phone calls about selling my starbucks stock for a few extra dollars to last me until I get my finaid, or maybe for a bit of extra spending money in London (okay, let's face it, its almost certainly to keep me going until finaid gets here, but hey, a girl can dream, right?).  I'm also dealing with some, shall we say, less than brilliant people with the office, who has continually sent me angry emails claiming I have failed to submit a form that was most definitely submitted, forcing me to send several duplicates of the form until at last they sent me an email explaining that it was missing a certain signature stamp, which apparently they couldn't tell me the FIRST time it was submitted incomplete.

So I guess what I'll really do for the next month is troll an Amazon and keep a running track of all the things I can't afford.