Surgery and Life Decisions

Early Monday morning I go in for surgery to clear out my sinuses.

My family will tell you this has been a long time coming. My brother theorizes that I have an extra set of teeth lodged up in my nasal cavity. I think he saw it on a freak documentary or something. My family doctor said (and I quote his medical assessment word-for-word) its actually just that I'm "all full of snot up there." Nice.

Anyway, I'll be put under for this, and will be there overnight. I've never gone in for anything like this before. I love how I'm not supposed to drink anything after midnight the night before, and we're talking nothing; not even a sip of water from a toothbrush.

And the real kicker is that they recommend I do not make any important life decisions within 24-48 hours of being put under. That's convenient, since my wife and I needed another reason to put off our decision another few days about where to live in the fall! We're literally weeks, maybe days, away from deciding (click for pictures):

Aberdeen?
Edinburgh?
London?
Nowhere?

Eight months ago when I started the process of seeking out the possibility of PhD studies I was winnowing down a list of 26 or so potential schools in Canada, the US, and the UK. I took the strategy of figuring out two topics I'd want to study and proposing them to potential professors. Based on positive feedback I'd go from there.

This got me narrowed down to a list of 6 schools I'd actually apply for. 3 in the US and 3 in the UK. One gong show of a GRE later (okay it wasn't that bad, but obviously not good enough for the US!) and I'm left with 3 choices: All in the UK.

Eight months ago if you told me I'd have even one choice I'd have been out-of-my-mind overjoyed! So I'm not looking a gift-horse in the mouth, whatever that means. But, still, its a tough call. To be honest it may yet be we can't go. Its an expensive move for a family of six. Maybe I should have thought of that back when I had my list of 26 schools!

But the momentum here seems to be that we may try to give one a shot (if moving across the ocean, incurring massive debt, and embarking upon a life-dream/majorly difficult goal can be correctly identified as the sort of thing you "give a shot"). We will have visa applications and all still to do, wo we pretty much have to decide by early May.

Just don't ask me for a decision in the next 48 hours. I'll be having the snot drilled out of me.