The Schwesterlein and the Jawness

Hey Hey my pretty babies-
i know, you were all like "ohmagosh- will she ever blog again?" and then i was all like "yes, i just had to work some this week" and then you were all like "well that seems unlikely" and then i was all like "SHUT IT!"
obviously that's enough of that...let us get to the point...the major points in my life at present are the facts that a) my little sister/best friend/single ally in our insane family is leaving for France for a year and b) my surgery may indeed NOT happen this year which may IN FACT prevent me from starting grad school THIS CENTURY/ prevent me from getting this pain-filled drudgery over with any time soon. so yeah. humph.
yep- the sister is leaving on monday for an entire year. it's pretty crazy. it's been in the works for years, and it's pretty crazy that it's upon us now, like RIGHT NOW. it was different when i went to Graz. she had been at the magnet high school for 2 years anyway, so we weren't that close and were used to not seeing each other. but we've been roomies and very close for two years now, so this will probably shake our worlds up a bit. but it'll be so awesome for her and i am ueber-ueber-excited for her. i mean obviously it'd be way better if she were going to Austria and were going to be speakin the deutsch, but I guess this is cool too.
as far as the jawness, the good news is that after roughtly 3 months of wrangling just about every day with doctors and insurance, I found out on my daily call to my good friends at the insurance company that my surgery has been approved. which means that they will pay for the first 10,000 bucks, leaving me with anything from like 5,000-10,000 more to pay on my own. but really- 10,000 is more than i could get on a lot of insurance plans- so it is a mega-huge help, for real, and I am thankful. the bad news is that they took so long to approve it that i might not be able to have surgery until like march-april-june next year because i have to have orthodontics first (the plan WAS to have it in December, which is what I still want- so now I am just dreaming and praying that it is still possible- and I have an appointment with the orthodontist on Sept. 15th). this situation, would, in turn, would probably prevent me from moving to wherever I want to go to grad school come August 2006. this also means that it would become very imperative that i get another job, seeing as my present job is a one year position ending july 3, 2006. so that's complicating my life-plans. for real. but i just gots to have faith-a-faith, faith.
ok- hope all is well in your worlds. if you live in NWA and want to help out the Hurricane victims - I know some people who are connected with people who are arriving from La and staying here in AR, so I can hook you up. They are collecting $ and clothing and shoes and toiletries for the families. By next week there will be over 200 families here! 2 families are related to people at the library...
k- later.
Effie