Beck

I have three seminars, each of three hours, and one of them has an associated film screening. The seminars are Monday afternoon, Tuesday morning, Tuesday afternoon; film screening is Thursday evening. Then I have TAing responsibilities - attending lectures for an hour first thing on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and leading two discussion sections (an hour each) on Monday mornings. I also hold three office hours a week, split into two 90 minute blocks, which I've set last thing on Wednesday evening and first thing on Thursday morning. My idea was basically to try and get into as regular a daily pattern as possible, since left to my own devices, I will happily stay up til 3am and then sleep til noon. I knew that if I didn't give myself an unnegotiable commitment (one where I'm accountable to someone other than myself) on Thursday mornings, I would do nothing and then throw off my sleep patterns for Friday, and it would all spiral out of hand. This is for an MA programme in Women's Studies and I TA in the English department. I am learning all about American literature! My undergraduate English-overview course, ten years ago, focussed on Australian and British, and the American stuff I have done has been contemporary (my background is cultural studies and critical theory, which is kind of a present-ist field in a lot of ways).

I'm going to be biking everywhere, just as soon as I manage to find a bike. I'm also going to try keep up playing roller derby in my new town. I played sports through childhood and high school, but when I got to uni and everyone started going to the gym, I discovered that actually I'm kind of a poor self-motivator when it comes to working out. I never really managed to get set up with a gym buddy, which would probably help, but I'm REALLY GOOD about team sports. Something about the guilt of staying home and eating M&Ms when your whole team is relying on you to eat something that's recognisable as food and then turn up to practice.

+1 to both of these. I bought my bed new and I'm intending to buy my desk chair new in the next week or so. Everything else can be second-hand. I had a super-cheap Samsung laser printer that was awesome - so cheap to run.

Well, getting a phone number turned out to be pretty painless. Just walked on into the T-mobile shop near my hotel and walked out ten minutes later with a functioning mobile - sweet! The girls at the counter had me try the sim card out before activating it without me asking, too. Easy. I just went with a prepaid thing to start, with the idea being to switch once I've figured out how my phone usage corresponds to the billing system (mostly this 'inbound calls matter' thing). I'm actually almost disappointed that it didn't take longer. Waiting around for the six hours between when I had to check out of the hotel and when I have to report back to the airport for my next flight is BORING.

Hmmm. I find all this really kinda strange. Band thing, no drama. But this only-works-with-two-carriers, only-works-on-contracts, no-prepaid-data thing is nuts. I could understand - but still not like - the idea that a phone company could tell me I had to have a data plan if I had an iPhone that they were subsidising (it's true here, too), given that it's partly theirs until you finish paying it off. But I own mine outright! It's mine! I bought it, unlocked, from Apple! It's crazy to me that a phone company can tell me how to use it under those circumstances. I'll be cut if I wind up with a choice between treating my iPhone like a super-expensive iPod and carting round a cheap phone, or spending a bomb on some OTT plan. Ugh. Oh well - I guess I'll see how it all plays out next week. Thanks to all for your help.

Dumb question time: is it just your outgoing calls that count towards your minutes? I had a weird conversation once with an American friend who was here and using a prepaid phone card, and she all but hung up on me because she was worried about running out the 'minutes'. Catch is, our call amounts are measured in $ and only charged to the person calling, and I'd called her, so it would've had no effect in Oz. Is that true there, too. Totally does! Thank you! I'm so over asking totally obvious questions. I spent my whole afternoon setting up a webcam and teaching my parents how to use Skype, so hopefully the international calls can be kept to a reasonable level!

So I'm getting on a plane to the States on Monday night (yowzers! I swear that just last week, the trip was still two months away!) and I'm starting to think about the list of things I need to sort out pretty fast on arrival. One of them is a cell phone. I'm coming into Texas (I'll be studying in Austin) via a week or so of travel, so right now my plan is to get a very cheap prepaid card when I arrive and buy myself a bit of time to figure out what will actually work for me longer-term, in terms of usage, budget, coverage in the area, etc. However, I'm using the process of researching the first two as a way of putting off packing .. and I'm kinda lost and confused. Can someone give me a rundown of US Cell Phones For Dummies Australians? What's this 'minutes' thing? And a related question - I'm bringing my non-carrier-locked iPhone with me - how prevalent is public wireless in the States? Would I get away without data on my phone, just relying on wireless? (And yup ... I know this is likely to be geographically dependent. But maybe somebody can give specific advice.)

With respect, I think you're overthinking this one. I sent all mine still formatted as A4 or printed out on A4 paper (I'm Australian) and nobody raised an eyebrow - which is to say, I got into a bunch of schools with no worries. I also didn't weed out the Commonwealth spellings or remember to change the dates to US format. I did consider doing all those things, but only fleetingly; I figured I had much better things to focus on than paper sizes or getting rid of the extra u's, like making my writing sample awesome and chasing letters of recommendation. And as my flatmate put it, "If they even notice, they'll just think it's a charming colonial eccentricity". My writing sample was a very pared-down version of my undergraduate Honours thesis, which was about the same size as your Masters one (a little shorter). I cut it down to about 8,000 words, which came in at 21 pages 1.5 spaced, including bibliography. Worked fine.

My solution to that - sorted out today - is totally plain black Converse.

As in, they'll weigh hand luggage? I've never had that happen anywhere (but equally never flown to the States before) and my handbag full of books always weighs a tonne. My biggest concern is getting sporting equipment over there that would be tough and expensive to replace (skates and a bike). Plus books that I'm emotionally attached to.

I put "self" on mine (am also on a full ride from my school) and got my visa with no problems. My interview literally went like this: "What are you doing your Masters in?" "Women's studies" "What was your Bachelors in?" "Women's studies" "Have you been on an F-1 visa before?" "Nope" "And who is paying for your-- oh, I see you have a scholarship. Right, well, we'll get these documents out to you in two days; you just head down to the cashier's desk and pay the issuance fee." Painless!

I'm going to UT-Austin to do my Masters in the Centre for Women's and Gender Studies, but my TAship is in the English department. So I'm on an incoming English grads mailing list that's buzzing with introductions, but no idea about who's in my cohort in the CWGS. It's ... a little weird, actually. But cool. Such varied interests and backgrounds.

I'll send you a message I'm just filled with paranoia that renting in America works differently to renting in Australia.

That's awesome, thanks! I've done similar stuff here in Oz, so would be open to doing it there, too. Still thinking about my bike, though ... my mind is boggling thinking about moving for two years with two bags. Can anyone give an idea of what the rental market is like in Austin? Do I need to start looking NOW?

I'm also headed to Austin on a $13k stipend ... kinda nervous. I know the town is bike-friendly ... can someone give insight on how easy it is actually laying hands on a cheap bike? I've got a great commuter here that I picked up cheap and looks much worse than it is (ie, it's got a good frame and good-to-great parts, so it's a dream to ride but it's three shades of fluorescent and looks like it's not worth stealing). I'm kinda kicking around the idea of boxing it up and bringing it over, since there are some airlines where sporting equipment won't destroy my luggage allowance. I figure this has the advantage of knowing that I'll get there and immediately be mobile and able to explore much greater areas than on foot, but might not be worthwhile if it's super-easy to get something equivalent. Thoughts? (I'll probably have many more questions about many different things ... this is just the one I'm worried about today).