Please Let Me Know if You Would Like to Continue Receiving These Letters in Email Form

Hello Everyone,


Believe it or not, it has been a year since I started writing these weekly emails. I enjoy writing them because they help me write on a regular basis and they help me observe my life more carefully. However, I wanted to take this chance to update the format that they take. Like you, I get many emails each week and I don’t want to be adding to already cluttered inboxes. I have therefore decided to post these letters online on a web log (I am not calling it a blog because I think it’s a disgusting-sounding word). Some of you, however, may be like me and don’t remember to check web logs often, so I will continue to send the letters as emails to those of you who would prefer this. Please let me know if you would like to continue receiving these letters as emails. If you would rather read them on the web log, there is no need to respond -- feel free to check it at your own pace at http://mouseinthesouth.blogspot.com/.


For the next several weeks, I will send both an email and update the web log. As always, let me know if anyone you know would like to be added to the address list, or feel free to pass on the link to the web log. Most years are pretty full when you sit down and think about what has actually happened during them, but this last one was a real doozy for me. I went on 17 trips to one fifth of the states in the country. I went on ten long car trips, five buses and over 40 planes. This time last year, I had no hair on my head; now I have over three inches. I began both of my graduate programs and the people I met this year have first names that represent every letter of the alphabet except U and X (which is funny considering that the year before, those were two of the more popular letters for first names).


This has been a year of firsts for me, both exciting and less so: I got my first full time job and took out my first student loans. I got a cell phone (and then was knocked down by the veritable wave of approbation) and converted from a PC to a Mac. Perhaps to counter this sudden surge in technology, 2009 has seen my first complete paintings in mud.


Thank you for reading and for following the rather windy course of my last year. It looks like there are more adventures to come: I will be spending my spring term in a small town in France and then I will be heading to South Africa with my parents and brother to visit friends and family. I promise to provide updates on any salient, amusing or bizarre stories that come up.


I’ll leave you with my favorite anecdote since I have been back at school. I was reading my picture book, “When You’re An Explorer,” to some first graders at a local elementary school for career day. I got to a line that usually earns a few chuckles or at least some good ew!’s: “When an explorer gets a cold, she sometimes has to blow her nose in her socks.” One little boy raised his hand and said in all seriousness, “My grandma does that!” It’s been a long time since I’ve struggled so hard to keep a straight face.


Have a good week, and don’t forget to let me know if you would like to stay on the email list! Sarah/Mouse