So Saturday morning, April 5, Mike and I arrived at the Oakland airport all prepared to take our Skybus flight to Columbus, Ohio, only to discover that as of 12am that very day Skybus ceased to exist. They were #3 on the bankruptcy train, and we were almost SOL. We asked the lady behind the United ticket counter if they happened to have any tickets to Columbus for that day. Of course they did! And they were only $862 per person, each way.... So I was about to have some sort of breakdown/temper tantrum, when I was instructed to head to the Southwest ticket counter. They were honoring the tickets, and it took them a long time to book our flight, but when they were finished we had all of 15 minutes to get onto that plane! One woman walked our checked bag to the plane to make sure it got on, and the other walked us to security where they (incredibly) let us cut in line so we could make our flight. But then...because we were flying standby, they had to do the full search. Dump out the bags, pat us down, the whole nine yards. By the time security was done with us, we had less than 5 minutes to get on that plane. I was wearing heels that day (of course), having thought to myself, "They're slip on -- this should make life easier for us when we go through security." So here we are, running through the terminal (me in my bare feet, heels in hand) to our gate, which is, of course, the very last gate in the terminal. Halfway there, I tell Mike to leave me behind, and just make them hold the gates for me. He takes off, and I guess he arrived at the gate just as they were announcing the final boarding call for our flight. I came up panting, massive sideache, shoes still in hand about a half a minute later. We got on the flight, clicked our seatbelts on, and the plane was in the air within minutes. Craziness!

So, why were we going to Ohio you ask? Well, I'll tell you. We were going there to check out the Ohio State University, and I'm glad we did. The people were great, the city was interesting, and the campus was incredible. Of course, now you'll be wondering why we were checking out OSU. I applied to some PhD programs this fall, and I got into two of them: University of Oregon (Eugene) and Ohio State University (Columbus). Both offered me full tuition waivers, a fellowship for my first year, and teaching assistantships for my remaining years of study. Basically, they wanted to pay me to get my PhD! I'm not foolish enough to say no to that, especially when OSU's program was so perfectly suited toward my goals.

So it looks like Mike and I are moving to Columbus this summer! Finishing our degrees this May, getting married this June, going to Jamaica on our honeymoon this July, and moving in August!! :) Wish us luck!