Paranoia; or, this one time, I bowed to parental pressure

As part of the build-up to the excitement of moving to Spain, I get to perform joyous tasks like applying for a visa. It's a pretty annoying, nitpicky process, but bureaucracy is, straight up, a feature of the world in which we live. An unfortunate feature, yes, but not one that's likely to go away any time soon, so it's best to just live with it. I applied for my visa a while ago, and was told it would take four to five weeks to get it back.

In the meantime, my mom embarked on a campaign to convince me to buy my plane tickets right away. She generously offered to fly over with me, to help wrangle my dainty little teacup poodle of a dog, so it's understandable that she wanted a concrete itinerary. (Also, if I'm a Type A over-planner, my mom is a Type A^n+18 over-planner.) I withstood her assault for several weeks, but at last, I caved, and bought a ticket for September 18.

However. This is not a thing that I was supposed to do. I was supposed to wait until I got my visa back, and then acquire a ticket, because oh my God, what if my visa application gets denied?

I'm not quite at five weeks yet. Still, the paranoia is starting to kick in. I've been trying to convince myself that it will be okay, even if I somehow don't get a visa, and therefore can't be an auxiliar. I can always change the return date on my flight, flit off to Europe for a month or two (I've certainly got enough money saved!), then come back to the coffee shop and keep working there until it's grad school time. Right? Right?

Yeah, not really helping me, either. Here's a picture of Gwen looking cute.

(because pictures of Gwen looking cute make everything better)