Wicked Adventure!

Yes, that's right. Jonathon and I just bought tickets to see the Broadway musical Wicked in London!!

Say, what?

Here's the low down. Jonathon and I were planning a trip to England next summer...after I graduated with my Master's as a way for Jonathon to say "Good job Kandace! You're so amazing! I'm the luckiest guy in the world to have married such an intelligent, beautiful, incredible, etc. etc. person. Let's go to England to celebrate!"

But life never goes as planned, does it?

As graduate students, we are all encouraged to apply to present 8-10 page papers we wrote (or will write) to academic conferences to share our research with the academic world and get feedback from other scholars in the field. The English department even gives a pretty good-sized stipend to help with the costs. (When I say pretty-good sized, I mean you can go to any conference in the U.S. besides Alaska and Hawaii and have your whole travel, hotel, food, etc. paid for. Unfortunately, however, the stipend doesn't even cover 1/2 the flight to England.)

Well, at the beginning of the year, I applied to a conference in Montreal. I later found out that it was a graduate conference, which meant that not a lot of academics were going to be there. It was mostly going to be graduate students from Montreal, and let's be honest. They don't know much more than I do about the field! So I had already planned on declining their offer if I got accepted, and at the beginning of February I started looking for other more professional conferences to apply for.

I came across a conference called "Reassessing Women's Writing of the 1840's and 1850's." Looking closer, the conference said from "Bronte to Bloomsbury." Well, I just wrote a paper last semester on Anne Bronte's The Tenant of Wildfell Hall...published in 1848. Perfect!

Now I had to see where the conference was taking place, because I wasn't going to go to some boring place like Backwoods, Tennessee, to present a paper. It needed to be someplace cool. The location: Cantebury, UK... England. Awesome! I was sold.

So then I looked at who was hosting it. It was legitimate, hosted by the International Centre for Victorian Women Writers. Sweet! Finally, I checked the deadline to see if I'd missed it. Well, turns out they had just extended the deadline and I had one more day to apply. Blessed serendipity! I wrote my little abstract and biography and sent if off, excited but not expecting to get accepted.

A couple days later, I got my rejection email from the graduate conference in Montreal. I was relieved I didn't have to write that awkward "Just kidding, I'm not coming" email. And then, a little over a week ago, I got the acceptance email to the conference in England. I could hardly believe it! A measly graduate conference didn't want me, but a legit, professional conference accepted ME. A little podunk graduate student all the way from BYU in good ol' Provo, Utah. I was shocked. And ecstatic!

Needless to say, Jonathon and I thought long and hard about our options and we decided it would be most beneficial to move our trip up to this summer. After many trips to BYU's travel office and much stress watching the airline tickets rise each day, we finally purchased our tickets.

It may cost us an arm and a leg, but hey. You don't get to go to England everyday. So the conference is 2 days, but we will be gone 12 days traveling the country. I'm so excited! And, I get to see Wicked in London...the other Broadway capital of the world!

Life is good :)

P.S. We will be accepting donations to fund our trip ;)

Updates!

Wow, it has really been forever since I last wrote. This just goes to show how busy life is. And to be quite honest, I read and write all day that by the time I come home and finish my homework, that is the last thing I want to do. So I've put off writing a post. I've had numerous ideas of things I wanted to write about--from BYU students' inability to dress professionally to some crazy, socially awkward people in my program--but alas, I just could not bring myself to sit down and write it all out. So, you will get a brief update about what's been happening the last few months.

Last Semester
Kandace
-Started grad school at BYU
-Taught Writing 150 to 20 students
-Continued working as a scheduler for an online business
-Edited a 260 page book for Ed J. Pinegar
-Wrote 3 10ish page papers in a 2 week period

Jonathon
-Only took 14 credits, but had 3 labs = incredibly time consuming
-Built a mini chemical powered car
-Mastered candy crush (not really)
-Elders Quorum Instructor

Christmas Break
Kandace
-Quit the scheduling job
-Started Mansfield Park but sadly did not finish it before school started

Jonathon
-Played on his new Windows Surface 2 that his amazing, wonderful wife got him for Christmas
-Introduced to Downton Abbey and loves it :)

This Semester
Kandace
-Still plugging away at those classes
-Still teaching--only 11 students this time
-Applied for an Editorial Assistant position. Still waiting to hear. Keep your fingers crossed!
-New Primary pianist
-Not any closer to figuring out what to write for thesis

Jonathon
-Taking a humanities class because his wife made him so that he could enjoy the art and architecture when they go to Europe
-Got a job as a Chemistry TA
-Still Elders Quorum instructor--twice a month!

We are taking a New Testament class together this semester. It's been nice :) In spite of our busy schedules, we still make time to go out to eat and watch all our favorite TV shows. Perhaps in a few months, I will update again...or find the time to write something more substantial.

But until then.... HANG TIGHT!