In Which I Almost Have a Heart Attack Not Related to Biscuits & Gravy

So I was sitting in a carrel in the Pontifical Institute for Medieval Studies Library, as one does of a Friday morning, taking a practice MA-level Latin exam when Kilt Boy stopped by to say hello. I took a short break to talk to him, and was about to turn back to the exam when I looked up to see Margaret running towards us, water bottle in hand.

"Is the library on fire?" I thought to myself. "Wouldn't she have her books, if it were?"

She was out of breath when she arrived, and I wondered if someone had died. "I just thought you guys would want to know," she said, "admissions letters... and rejection letters... are in our boxes. Well, I don't know about everyone, but I saw letters in your boxes."

Kilt Boy grabbed my hand and looked at me with some anxiety-- admissions decisions being something of no small import for our relationship-- and Margaret apologized as she returned to her class. Getting decisions this early is unprecedented. They've always waited for the results of the April MA Latin exam. I'd had a week of rejections from other programs, and Toronto was my last hope-- and I was pretty certain I couldn't handle another rejection.

I sent KB up to the Centre to get both of our letters, and I sat down on the floor in front of the Breviaries hoping to find something to meditate on (it was clearly ridiculous to consider doing the practice exam at this point). It felt like it took him forever to come back, and we opened our letters in the stacks of the library. In all honesty, I didn't get much further than "I am happy to inform you" before I made a happy noise and couldn't read the letter anymore because of the hug I was getting from the boy.

"Okay," I said, once I had verified through his reticent Canadian exterior that he, too, had an acceptance, "let's forget Latin and go celebrate."
"Dear God, yes," he replied.

Unfortunately, once we left the library, giggling and giddy, we realized that we hadn't the foggiest idea where we were going-- so finally, I said, "Over Easy is open until four-- let's go get pancakes."

"I like the way you think," he responded, and we were off, KB laughing at random intervals the entire way. Adrenaline makes you kinda giddy like that. When I pointed this out to him, he said, "Well, why shouldn't I be? We're two young, handsome, brilliant medievalists just accepted to the top program in our field, and we're going to eat pancakes. I like it."

After lunch, we came out into the faintest beginnings of the weekend's snowstorm and found ourselves in the Indigo bookstore browsing Children's books.

So, yes, that was my weekend and work has been shot ever since. We eventually dragged Platonic Boyfriend off to check his letter, and then had a midday half-pint to celebrate his acceptance. Because apparently our little trio is "pieces not sold separately", as Celticist Roommate put it.

("You three do come as a matched set," said the ex-Marine PhD candidate. "You're so cute together, I want to take you home and put you on my mantelpiece.")

(The half-pint, following half a carafe of coffee at Over Easy, was a mistake. We were attending the annual Etienne Gilson lecture and I spent much of the fascinating talk about Albertus Magnus and St. Tommy A wanting to go to the bathroom and drawing cartoons of sheep.)

I'm sure you're probably wondering about some of the other characters mentioned on this here blog-- Celticist Roommate was also accepted, although she tried to drive us all mad by not opening her letter for hours (HOURS!!). So was Margaret, and it took 24 hours of trying not to step on one another's feelings to figure it out.

There are some disappointments, of course, although not many, and I'm going to miss my long-haired, ear-ringed, wet-puppy-dog-like Welsh buddy next year.

So I've been procrastinating all weekend making my PhD student wish list. Number one on the list is a good magnifying glass, so I can stop making myself blind with footnotes, dictionaries, and eventually, palaeography.