Happy New Year!

I don't want to end the year with a post on identity fraud (thank you, by the way, for all your advice, lovely readers!), so I thought I would take a moment for a nice end-of-year message.

While I continue to love Oxford every day that I'm there, the latter part of the year has been full of hurdles: laptop stolen, visa delayed, cancelled email/library card/phone when I arrived, injury, illness, broken glasses, death in the family, and now this credit card fraud. But as my friend Seth said, maybe this is all out of the way now to make room for a fabulous new year.

Despite all this crap, I am still very happy. I am so thankful to have been given the chance to stay in Oxford for another year, allowing me to see my lovely old friends and to make some lovely new friends. I love the fact that I sent just as many Christmas cards to Asia this year as I did to the United States. As I've said before, the people I've met in Oxford are the people with whom I'll want to stay in touch for the rest of my life.

I am excited about the chance to pursue a doctorate in Oxford, which I hope will open up opportunities for me when I am looking for a teaching position. And I love having the chance to play such an active role in the college life - while planning parties may not seem very scholarly, I feel like I've learned so much from it.

I hope I get a chance to travel in 2007, to get a good chunk of my dissertation done, and perhaps to write something for a conference or publication. Things are very optimistic in terms of finances and scholarships for 2007-2008, which will take a lot of pressure off of me and give me time to focus on my studies.

I wish you all, wherever you are, a very happy and healthy 2007!
Much love,
Kaitlin
xxx

PS - Keep your fingers crossed for me as I start teaching on Tuesday. It's a new course for me teaching-wise, but it's a course I took as an undergraduate. I'm very excited (finally, no more intro course!), but very nervous...wish me luck!

Just when I thought this year couldn't suck any more...

...I open the mail and find out that I've been the victim of identity theft.

Yes, that's right, someone in North Carolina opens a Lowe's credit card in my name and buys a $1000 gift card.

I've never shopped at Lowe's, ever. I've never been to North Carolina. Hell, I was out of the country when the whole thing took place. Now I have to get a new social security number and notify my other credit cards, my job, and about a dozen other people that I've changed my social security number.

This sucks.

From the Department of Profoundly Cute Utterances

A while back, I told you about the funny things my brother PJ says at church. He's 13 and autistic, so he's not much of a conversationalist, but sometimes he says things that are so true and funny that you wonder where he got them.

Ever since we - my brothers in particular - were little, my mom would sing You are my sunshine to us (I'm linking to it here in case my non-US friends do not have the song in their home countries). She would sing the first part of each line, and we would sing the last word.

Tonight, my mom and I went out with PJ and Maggie for dinner. As we were leaving, my mom and PJ and I stopped at the bathroom. To make sure PJ wouldn't wander off, my mom started to sing the song. She started with, "You are my..." and waited for PJ to sing the rest.

His response? "Mom, I'm your son. I'm not your shine."

This is one of the things I'll think about at random from now on, and it will make me start giggling. :)

Feliz Navidad

Wishing you all - wherever you may be in the world - peace, love and happiness in this holiday season, and all the best for 2007.

Much love,
Kaitlin
xxx

Because I'm too busy to produce any actual content...

...I'll do what all the cool kids are doing and put up one of these voice recorder thingys. C'mon, leave a message, and I'll leave one too if you have one of these.

Sorry to all my friends from the Land of Ox, I'm afraid this only works if you are willing to dial a US number. But if you are stateside, leave some audio love! :)

Peace out,
Me
xxx

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