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coyabean

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Everything posted by coyabean

  1. The CIVIC center? UGA is off the chain. Down the road we're having a sedate cookout and no word yet on department social events. :/ Wow. And kayaking sounds like loads of fun. I love it.
  2. I'm with other folks. I wish we were having wine and cheese. LOL Ours is a cookout on the quad. I'm wearing a tunic that will touch as little of my body as humanly possible and leggings to combat the Georgia heat. For an evening event I'd suggest conservative cocktail attire: a sport coat or polo and khakis for men and cocktail dress or dark pants and blouse sans sparkles and doo-dads for women. Or cross them up if you are researching gender norms and get started on your research out the gate.
  3. Do people really say 'Obamacare' with a serious face? To the OP's concern: that is a relatively low cat limit. It sounds like your provider is banking on your relative youth. As a former h&w licensee I think your Dad has been trained to look at every contingency. The fact is that every policy has risk. Looks like your's is catastrophe. The cost, weighed against risk, is probably going to make addt'l coverage unnecessary. If you can get it then you can probably do without it. Sadly, if you could benefit you probably won't be able to get it or afford it. Here, changes to public healthcare could benefit you. On the rare chance that you end up needing something above your cat limit you will probably qualify for medicaid or can go into the high risk pool. Barring some personal risk factors I would stick with campus plan. YMMV
  4. What you are is prepared, professional and employable!
  5. I think this is two different conversations. Business cards at happy hour are different from business cards at a conference. Also, why would first years be handing out cards to peers? I think detractors think it is strange because they are imagining contexts that the OP never specified. Also, speaking for all of humanities is pretty presumptuous. Things differ at very micro levels.
  6. I have received cards from students. I didn't think them presumptive arseholes for having them. As I was introduced to most of them by senior mentors their possession of a card had not hurt their credibility. Um, this is one long interview, grad school. A little professionalism could go a long way in a difficult market. My school offers a version through the school print shop with the official seal. I'd already planned to get them. But, I'm also old at 33 with a decade of work experience. I think standing out, within social norms, is a GOOD thing. And to copy pamphelia: Coyabean Thinker, Hellraiser Coyabean@letsgogetem.com Lol
  7. My friend recently told me that Staples delivers to your door for FREE! And because they are actual delivery guys and not UPS et. al they actually bring it inside. This is rather important for me since I'm single, female and don't know anyone. I also discovered that they do free office furniture consultations and have an online space planning tool. I'm using the former to find just the right height chair. I have decided that dangling feet is now on my list of things for which I am entirely too grown. It joings shoes that hurt and poor insurance. :/ For me it's about prioritizing. Comfort and convenience are key. I decided I could sacrifice on style and buying the kinds of pieces one keeps forever. I simply can't afford alot of things that fall into those categories. But, places like Staples, Amazon and Overstock have good intermediate quality stuff that can be functional. I've tried to cull my memories of every office I've ever worked in for little things I found useful. I'd live in a Pottery Barn catalog if I could. Alas, I can't afford it. Like you, I'm kind of cold on most of IKEA's style perspective. A lot of it is far too contemporary and cold for my liking. I'm a comfy, texture-y kind of girl. I like fluff and nubby fabric and soft pillows and real wood. But I have found some upholstered non-office stuff there that I like. But the office stuff has been horrid. I find that most stuff in my pricepoint is from a small group of manufacturers. So, just going to a local mid-range furniture store to get a feel for certain elements and then shopping for it online is my game plan. I've even seen some stuff that's on mainstream retail sites in stores like Big Lots! Unless you're buying very high quality stuff I think its all coming from the same country with lax labor laws. :/
  8. OMG! Me, too! I maintain that everything I write is really just a transcript of the conversation I had with the paper. Aural learners.
  9. Awww. Love this. I'm a bit nutso about the concepts of space and place. I thought it was my age and experience that put this concern so high up my priority list. Maybe its just personality. Anyway, I just made a huge journal entry about finding and outfitting just the right work space in my new apartment. I am also scouting local spots over the next two weeks of down time. The chairs and writing space have to be just so - I'm short; no dangling feet! - and the energy has to be pitched perfectly. Other odd things: water, coffee, salty and sweet snacks must be at hand. Basically anything my wayward physical form might demand should be convenient so I don't stop working to satiate the craving.
  10. May [deity of your choice] bless you! I have always been too ashamed to tell the story of the PERFECT blouse I found on clearance at Target once. I wore it and was so excited because it buttoned over my gigantic boobs and yet somehow still fit my waist and petite frame. I wore a few times before I caught site of the tag while doing laundry: Liz Lange Maternity for Target. I was torn! Do I throw out my perfect shirt in disgust or snip the tag?! I kept it...sans tag. But, it is true. I have a waist yet I have hips and breasts. This seems to confound clothing manufacturers who confuse plus size with one shape: namely very, very broad in the middle with normal sized limbs? Therefore, I'm somehow too small for all plus size manufacturers and too curvy in all the wrong places for most regular manufacturers.
  11. I don't have anything to offer, unfortunately, except commiseration and a suggestion that you also share this over at gradstudents comm on livejournal. You might get more feedback from current students. Best of luck to you.
  12. i move tomorrow & i'm scared i'm broken. no butterflies, excitement, nothing. maybe moving wiped me out?

    1. bgk

      bgk

      Probably just tired ... Good luck with move in!

  13. You guys laugh and I do too but I seriously want some kind of talisman like this! A friend gave me one of those stretchy bracelets with all the catholic saints images on them. I'm thinking of rechristening each with something grad school related and wearing it.
  14. I love this board! So many like minds. I actually have such a list in my journal. It includes: 1. Keep the end game in mind at all times. This is about having a meta-value that orders my priorities. If I know that the end game is to be a proficient, useful scholar with work of which I am proud? Then all of my other priorities line themselves up accordingly. If something competes with that then it should be excised and avoided. 2. Remember that my dissert doesn't have to change the world; it need only pass inspection. 3. Honor my process. I can really punish myself by constantly worrying about getting things done, excelling, etc. But when I'm being rational I realize that I almost get things done and I usually do them well. I have to respect my writing and learning process and enjoy the lulls that invariably happen between my moments of hyper-productivity. 4. Respect differences of opinion and perspective but do not let anyone marginalize me or my work. Never. Again. 5. And on a more personal note I want to keep an eye on my budget. My last year and a half have been bohemian and I've taken a break from being as responsible as I used to be in my "before life". While I don't want to go back to being OCD about every little thing I do realize that this is real life time. I need to keep an eye on money, debt, planning, etc.
  15. Ooooh, good question. As a non-trad I have written here, extensively, about the importance of space and place in my decisions and my mental health. That is to say that, yes, I've thought about it! I am a college town girl all the way. Even when not in school I'm in school. It's where the world makes sense to me. So, ideally, no commuter schools or, God forbid, one of those schools in an office park or building. That pretty much makes Chapel Hill and Ann Arbor my dream places. But, being a Southern girl and having so much of my research tied to some of the demography and history specific to the region Chapel Hill is the real dream. I love Chapel Hill. Them not having a competitive program in my fields of interest was a big disappointment. BUT, I am going to a peer institution so maybe there's hope that I'll end up there again one day. Although, I can imagine falling in love with Atlanta when I get there soon and maybe making it my home. Beyond that a walkable community is becoming more and more essential to my general well-being. Walking is how I manage my weight and my stress level. Being able to incorporate that into my daily life so that I don't have to spend hours on a treadmill like a trapped rat would be nice. I also like temperate weather, diversity and the typical idyllic kind of community: clean, accessible, amenities. I was born in NY and have lived in Chicago and spent a great deal of time in DC. All of that taught me that seeing the beauty in urban landscapes is a particular talent with which I was not blessed. I mean, I can see the beauty in the people and the resources but the idea of living in an old, cramped, decaying building and struggling to find space in a place with such limited space makes me crazy. Three days in Manhattan a few weeks ago and my sinuses were closed, my nose hairs were half singed by the stench of garbage and I would have killed to hear a "hey!" as I walked the streets. I love the energy of an urban place, though. So a place with some balance between energy that comes from good planning and critical mass without all the ugly stuff. And three bookstores on every four corners. LOL As far as work in the future goes I am flexible...to a point. That point is my mental well-being. Some snark but I have lived a little while and I have learned that you have nothing if you don't have your health. I interpret health broadly to include my well-being. I would absolutely take a less prestigious offer in a great place over a high-powered one in a stressful area. For example, I know some won't believe me but I hate Duke and Harvard. I've done work at one and have been to the other and something about both the area and the culture make me ill. Now, this is being said without an actual offer to contend with but I think I'd be hard pressed to suck it up for either locations even though they are two of the crow jewels of academia. I think I'd go into private sector or non-profit work first.
  16. I'll participate in the bumpage because this thread was immensely impactful early in my process. So, thanks bunches to belowthree for his or her candor and genorosity. If more of us were honest and open like this I think fewer wannabe grad students would feel so isolated and defeated before they even begin. I'm not as far along as belowthree but here's my update so far: With the "interesting transcript" (as it came to be called by mentor) that you can find in posts upstream I made it into four good to stellar programs. All but one was a PhD program and even that one was an MA/PhD. Two of the four were fully funded and I chose one that, while not an Ivy, is a Tier 1 private school with 5 years of guaranteed funding, a conference budget, and additional named fellowship on top of the standard stipend. In the social sciences. In a horrible year. I met a women at a conference this weekend who was on the committee that read my app and she remembered me! So, not only is it possible but it is very possible. We have to work a bit harder to find the right fit and the right people to give us fair consideration but it's out there. So, chins up to all of us! The best part? Remember that the minute you start your doctoral program no one seems to care about your UG. Some snits might be comparing pedigrees but it is, for the most part, a clean slate. Take full advantage. I intend to!
  17. I am seriously thinking about it. I owned a condo once. It wasn't the best decision then because I did it because I could and without any long-term goals. Now that I am more solid in what I want out of my life I am thinking it's a good time to try it again. It doesn't hurt that there are some incredible deals right now in a market I consider a relatively safe bet (Atlanta). My parents have even discussed matching my funds and maybe buying a REO for cash! Even if my career takes me away from ATL after 5 years if I purchase well in the right location I think it could be a great rental and investment. I've seen condos near Emory for under $150k!!!! Jeez. We all said we could put that together. My mother calls it my inheritence. I think, secretly, she's considering it her retirement plan but whatevs. It would let me live rent free for a few years and could be a place to always come back to. I'm thinking about it.
  18. Ditto. It and a similarly funded Mellon program -- MURAP -- changed the entire trajectory of my life. I cannot credit it enough for clarifying my interests, proving I could do it, providing superstar references and getting me into a stellar program. My mentors and cohort are now among my dearest friends and having a supportive environment in which to explore ideas and culture has been invaluable.
  19. For real! LOL I love all of the complaints of the impoverished graduate student life. I've worked -- I mean HARD work -- for that much, if not less. To make that to do something I would do for free? Is insane! I tell the students I currently mentor in the program I attended last year to remember the importance of contextualizing this kind of typical grousing. When people say things like "hard", "poor", etc. they should ask what they mean by that before internalizing that message. I wish I would think 75k a year is a slave wage. smh
  20. Ah, that does suck. I have the inverse problem: I am ignoring every fledgling toothache, lingering pain and reoccurring headache in anticipation of the good medical care and health insurance I'll have again in about 45 days. :/ I've been without for about two years and was too much of a mess before then to really attend to some things that need to happen. Until then I walk gingerly, don't split poles, knock on wood, and try my best to not tempt karma.
  21. We are on the same wavelength, poco. This entire journey has been one long lesson in perseverance, maturing and working hard. And that was just to get to the part where I begin to do the actual work! LOL So, yes, thinking of clothes is something I can both manage and enjoy. This is also, for me, an opportunity to really reinvent myself. Or, rather, be more myself than I've ever been because I've always been a reflection of my family, my school, my peer group, my own image issues, blah, blah, blah. Now I'm like, hells yeah, bring on the cowboy boots and quirky jewelry! No one there will know me from a piece of dirt and I am very excited about that. Style icons...ooohhh. Ok, lemme think. While I think about it let's share some polyvore scenes, shall we? LOL So, it's casual but if I could find a cute little denim jacket like that with some personality I would be happy. And here's a doctoral student I actually know with a killer sense of style that I covet so. I'd love to pull something like this off.
  22. Of course this is all nitpicky and overblown...BUT IT'S FUN!!! LOL I, too, have considered my "first day of school" outfit. Granted, I set the bar pretty friggin' high with the acid-washed denim dress jumper and shell pink blouse I rocked on the first day of Jr. High. So, I love beautiful things...but I refuse to be uncomfortable. I'm too old for anything on me to hurt -- my feet, my teeth, etc. -- itch, chafe, or poke. I have bought some nice sandals this summer to start off with. Lots of the dressier Clarks and Aerosoles. I also saw the most perfect boots from Nine West at the mall tonight that I am emailing my Mom about. Easy gifting. They are comfortable but quality leather and a good sole and can work with dresses and slacks. Speaking of dresses, I love them as they are the easiest dressing for my...excessively female frame. I've got nice ones from Soma for the first time this year. Easy, one step dressing that can work dressed up or down and layered through seasonal transitions. I am also a fan of perfect jeans, stacked heel shoes and a knit top or nice collared shirt (often accessorized with a funky belt and jewelry as my waistline has to be defined lest you think I'm a 360 and because they make me happy). The problem is that I haven't found perfect jeans! I've been trying. I want dark wash, good fit, no gap, perfect length. I've had great luck with DKNYs and Hilfigers but right now its all crops and slouchy boyfriend fits. Slouch doesn't work for me. Again, see: importance of waistline. My biggest issue are shoes. I plan to walk to school as much as weather permits and I am hard on shoes. I wear a good pair all the time and I walk alot and I apparently walk very hard, so, I cannot do poorly made shoes.
  23. I debated putting it here when I posted but couldn't decide. Thanks, mods! Also, my friend had a paid Prime account at the time and when she signed up they refunded her and honored the free student account within minutes of signing up. Oh, Amazon, how I adore thee.
  24. I've had a prime account in the past when I was a gainfully employed adult. I found the shipping was pretty much worth it. Looks like this also comes with book discounts. Sign up here .
  25. Just realized I move in 19 days. Shouldn't something be packed? I thought so.

    1. Show previous comments  1 more
    2. sepiasizemore

      sepiasizemore

      I move that weekend too!

    3. Riotbeard

      Riotbeard

      Same here, haha.

    4. diehtc0ke

      diehtc0ke

      If you're anything like me, nope.

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