poco_puffs

I'm a person who really responds to the smell of a place, so the first thing I like to do is start with a base of "clean" smell (getting rid of dust, stinky stuff, must, mildew, anything distracting) and then adding a candle or oil or incense that just makes the place feel lived-in. Take whatever knick-knacks or personal decorating items that survived the big move and don't keep them boxed up! Unpack them, put them out, keep them visible in your most used spaces and that will go a long way to making the place feel familiar and more like a home that you're used to. My last suggestion is to take $20-$40, or whatever you can afford, and indulge yourself in some second-hand or discount shopping where you find a cheap set of curtains with a tension rod for the window, some new organizing boxes/racks, pictures for the walls-- preferably things that are useful, so you're getting your money's worth, but at least things that will make the space look less like a room and more like a lived-in home. Something that can be really inexpensive, but still make surfaces seem less barren in a new place, is to invest in some cheap cloth placemats and runner cloths for the top of shelves, tables and desks. They add color and texture, and you can sometimes even find them at places like The Dollar Store/Dollar Tree. I really can't emphasize this enough if you're on a budget: Don't start at places like Target or a department store unless you're shopping deep clearance and you KNOW what something is worth-- those stores charge an arm and a leg for stuff that is neat, but also not all that special. Start at discount stores, dollar stores, second-hand stores etc, and see what you can buy for the least amount of money first, before moving up to spending $25 on a lamp or a clock at a place like Target or Kohl's.

You know, I hadn't seen anything of Pottery Barn's for years until you mentioned that and I looked at some of their home office collections on the website. Aris seems like a line that is right up my alley-- classic pieces with a lot of character and room for personal touches. You're right about it being too expensive, although my baseline of frugality means that damn near everything is too expensive. That's why I'm always combing through second hand shops and thrift stores where the staff doesn't know what kinds of treasures they have. My current desk is the standard kid's room style with the flat drawer over the chair and then three drawers stacked to the side. I used to have big furniture warehouse desks with room for printers and CDs and space for my PC tower and all that type of stuff, but they always took up too much room and they rarely had the drawers that I needed. This little desk showed up across the street from my apartment a few years back, sitting all yellow and scratched with a "free" sign on it. I just picked it up right there, carried it back to my apartment, and it's been my inspiration station ever since. One of the things I love about it, especially now that I'm getting a laptop, is that it's so dang small and light I can just move it around at will. I keep an old nightstand with the one drawer up top and a shelf on the bottom next to my desk, and that's where I keep the printer, extra paper, and some boxes to organize old papers and bills. I live for the day that I make enough money to comfortably invest in nice furniture like my parents do, but in the meantime I'm happy scavenging and modifying to fit my needs.

Here's a question: How many of you are buying furniture in stores (where you can try it) or online (where the selection is larger)? Do you buy new or used? Gsams comment about chairs makes me wonder what everyone's priority pieces of furniture are. I was just at an Ikea recently looking for a dining room table (which I found!), and my mother-in-law spent a great deal of time ushering me through the little sample rooms and apartments in order. I'd say that the organization and consistency of furniture design is impossible in real life, but her house is almost entirely decorated in Ikea, and her office has a little drawer or nook-- all labeled-- for every conceivable scrap of paper. I think some of the Ikea designs seem interesting, like some floating cube shelves for printers and books and knick-knacks, but there just is something about the style of most of their office furniture that I can't get behind. I used to love the Levenger catalog, with all of their uber-masculine classic leather and wood, but these days I also see that style not being quite right for myself. As it stands, the office I'm putting together is a hodge-podge of gifted or free furniture. I'll spare the detailed description for now, because I want to hear more about the look of other peoples spaces. Do you have photos up? Flowers? Knick-knacks? Reference material tacked to the wall? Bare table? Clutter-fest? Drawers or shelves or boxes? If another famous person or fictional character was using your current or ideal office space, who would that person be?

The way I looked at it during applications last year was this: There is almost always going to be someone else with higher GRE scores, a better GPA, an exclusive class or two that was unavailable at your school, study abroad sessions, amazing writing samples, connections at various colleges... resist the temptation to compare yourself to these people. They're always going to be there, and plenty of them will face rejection, just as plenty of people who lacked those credentials or experiences will get into great schools. There will always be someone with higher stats, and you with your scores will have higher stats than a lot of other people, causing them their own undue stress. There is so much more to your application than just those numbers, and if a person had to choose between the scored portions of an application and the individual written components (writing sample, letters of recommendation, statement of purpose) I'd put my money on the written components every time. Numbers need to be high enough to get you through that first slush-pile round (and yours seem to be more than adequate), but it's the other stuff that sets you apart from the crowd. Of all the things to worry about in this whole process, I'd rank your scores and grades as pretty low priority, especially if there is nothing more you can do about them at this point. Save the stress for constructive purposes, like keeping yourself on schedule and refining your SOP and writing sample. Side note: We imagine that applications are a numbers game in these forums, because numbers seem like they prove something and can be easily compared between applicants. We embrace this because the idea that adcomms are judging intangible and purely qualitative parts of our applications seems terrifying and so far into the future, whereas the scores arrive conveniently in our hands before the applications are even sent out. Keep looking forward to the next step in the process, keep your eyes on your own paper, and remember that this application is about doing your absolute best and letting the adcomms see your potential as an even better scholar than you are right now.

You should come study at the laundromat with me! I don't think talking to oneself is entirely unheard of within those paint-chipped, neon-lit walls.

I'm not specializing in either of those areas, though Medieval History was my thing for undergraduate. Anyway, I'm heading to University of Oregon this fall, and they have specialized programs in both Folklore and Medieval Studies, especially the latter. In fact, at the visiting week this last spring, I couldn't walk 5 feet at the department functions without running into a Medievalist. The people who were considering the program at UO were weighing it thoughtfully against lots of other colleges, including big name universities over on the East coat, so I assume it has a good reputation for those specialties.

I'm a big believer in space, and it's nice to see that others feel the same way. I work best in very well-lit places, though artificial vs. natural doesn't make a very big difference. Natural light is better for my mood in general, but I can study in laundromats and the coffee shop at my local grocery store equally well, which brings in the component of sound. I find it very hard to study or write in complete silence, but I can't use music with any English lyrics at all. I know that's why a lot of people study at local coffee shops, but I find the overheard conversations distracting and sometimes the music can be overwhelming-- not to mention the distraction of people I know sitting down and starting up a conversation while I'm trying to use a completely different part of my brain. This one Starbucks was upstairs at a Fred Meyer department/grocery store in the town I just moved from, and there was the perfect level of ambient chatter and music, plus very little danger of anyone I knew stopping by and chatting. The laundromat-- while sometimes uncomfortable-- has that same consistent noise level. Libraries are really one of the worst places for me to study, in my experience. Not because they're too quite, but because they're usually full of loud students playing music on their laptops, having annoying off-topic conversations, and opening noisy cans of soda (!), which I find the worst. Having my home laptop or the TV is distracting, so I've avoided studying at home in the past because of my small apartment and not having a place to work away from all of that business. This new apartment we just moved into yesterday has a second bedroom, which I am turning into my perfect office space. Good light from the window, plus a bright desk lamp, no TV, music if necessary, and I'm considering getting a white noise machine for next to my desk. We haven't re-assembled the bookshelves since the move, but pretty soon I'll have them all set up with my whole library at my fingertips. Then, after I set up my perfect study space, I get to wait a month and a half for school to start.

This is mostly in response to your follow-up post (#7) but also to earlier replies: I'm not saying that you have to write a whole new essay, but I do strongly advise you to polish the hell out of the grammar any errors that other readers catch, to make necessary adjustments to the structure of the paper overall to improve flow and address gaps in your argument, and to DEFINITELY take a step back from the original paper and examine how you could, as you say, incorporate more of your current scholarship as a framework or present the paper as a springboard to future research and related topics. Use every writing exercise and revising exercise you have ever learned, and every friendly or even not-so-friendly reader who perhaps owes you a favor, and go over your paper with an eye to all those special qualities upon which professors have graded your writing in the past. The single best thing I did for my own writing sample was to reverse engineer it. Other than the briefest of outlines with lists of in-text citations to use later in the paper, most of my actual composition/writing involves a natural flow from one idea to the next. I'm great with an introduction and thesis sentence, but I can't be consistent with topic sentences FOR THE LIFE OF ME. It's terrible. I just write as the spirit strikes me, and try to include the most relevant of the passages or ideas that I've outlined for myself on a piece of paper. So, after I got a good grade on this paper I wrote for a class and decided that I would use said paper for my writing sample, I read each paragraph on its own for some sort of topic sentence and then made a new outline of what my paper was actually saying. It was a new outline that was truly representative of what had survived previous edits and what had crept into the paper as the result of rambling or explanation that seemed truly necessary at the time. It became very obvious to me that the focus of my paper was somewhat skewed from what I had originally intended, because I gave altogether too much supporting evidence to certain passages or details and then completely omitted or glossed over certain points of my argument. Looking at a representative outline of a paper, preferably with fresh eyes and several weeks or months after you have written it, seems extraordinarily helpful to me as I try to figure out what on earth I could possibly cut out of my monster-baby of an essay. It also helped me say "Oh, now that I've cut that entire tangent of a paragraph, I have room to address that entire facet of the argument I forgot about all those months ago." If you do decide to use this particular paper as your writing sample, a process like this might help you figure out some natural spots to insert some threads of your more recent research or topics that are more relevant to you nowadays. Finally, if you do decide to add in some framing devices to tie this to your other work and interests, make sure you have at least one other nitpicky editor read over your paper to look for seams in the argument or language-- something that is very obviously tacked-on would probably go over worse with an adcomm than something that was simply its own piece of writing and consistent within its own framework and language.

Haters gonna hate, and everyone else can just get in line to appreciate a strong, intelligent woman with a sense of vision and authenticity. Dressing to impress may not be the *highest* priority in a lab, but it certainly shouldn't detract from anyone's opinion of your value and contributions. When it comes to conferences and meetings and seminars? You're obviously going to be on your game. Yours is a happy sort of story, methinks.

I really have no idea why I said "form-fitting" in those last few posts, and I'm too tired to figure out editing. I wore the one dress to the wedding tonight, and really the best way to describe the fit was nicely draped, but not too loose around the chest/shoulders. Just flowy around the hips and down.

Coya, I had bought *one* maternity shirt before, not realizing that it was a maternity brand. Today was really the turning point, though. At one store I tried on a "fitted" shirt dress with a belt, and for $110 I could have walked out of the shop looking like a maid at a hotel. For the same price, I could have gotten three awesome dresses at the maternity store-- all belted, form-fitting, beautiful border prints or nice embellishments, tasteful necklines, just a hair above knee-length hems, beautiful colors, and GREAT fabrics. In more ways than one, they were very similar to knit dresses that I had seen at Ann Taylor and Jones New York, yet a fraction of the price and with a much better selection of the flattering styles. A lot of Mad Men silhouettes, to tell ya the truth. The big thing I don't understand is how they are selling them at a lower price-- doesn't it seem like a cornered market where they could charge anything they want? Anyway, when I mentioned to the clerk that I wasn't pregnant, she told me that between 10 and 20 percent of their customers are just women who need the extra room in one area or another, with that option of nipping in the waist.

Shopping story of the day: Part of my budgeting strategy is finding pieces that will work in multiple scenarios-- one of my best buys ever was the little black dress that is appropriate for cocktails, weddings AND funerals. Today, I was on the look-out for a dress that I could wear to a wedding this weekend but also use as a dress for going out or looking nice at work. I went to some factory outlets and tried on dresses at every shop there, but in so many cases they were just too expensive for how poorly they were fitting, or how short/low-cut/unprofessional they looked. So, on the advice of a good friend who is similarly endowed, I threw hang-ups to the wind and popped into the maternity store that has ALWAYS had such cute details on dresses. I'm not pregnant, and not planning on it for a while, but I went for it. Seriously-- if you ever struggle to find a good fit for your hips or bust, try a maternity store. At all of the other stores I tried didn't have a single dress that was both appropriate and attractive, but at the maternity store I found 4 dresses right away that were not only well-made and very attractively detailed, the fabric was unbelievably comfortable and in a lot of case the dresses had some sort of belt or tie that helps define your waist (the hope being that you could wear the dress over several months of a pregnancy by just adjusting the waist as needed). These dresses are designed with curves in mind, and a lot of the fabrics are knit and draped in such a way that they will stretch in whatever way you need. The smalls and mediums are still sized for women who have a small frame, but man are they ready if you need some room! The necklines are attractive, but rarely so low as to be inappropriate for a workplace. I left the store with two dresses, both priced at $35 and both perfect for a cute wedding outfit or belted with a sweater and boots/heels for a very nice work look. Just another idea, for those frustrated shoppers like me

Yeah, that's a part of my plan as well. My SO and I are moving into a place about twice as big as the one we're in now, and we're hoping we don't accumulate twice the mess. In the year that I've taken off school, my housekeeping skills have improved dramatically, but I'm worried that being a full-time grad student and TA (along with my guy now working a full-time job) will mean bad things for keeping our place presentable. I'm wondering if, with all of this departmental socializing, if I'll ever be having people over to my place. I'm happy it's not terribly close to campus, which means fewer people would be randomly dropping by, but I still want to be prepared to host some people for cocktails and a potluck here and there. I like your list in general-- a lot of it seems like stuff I've been mulling over but never really able to articulate

I've been doing this for the last year or so. I actively invested in a full spice cupboard, where I bought a new spice every time I went to the store until I ran out of new ones (except cardamom and saffron, which run about 10$ for a normal sized container, yikes!). I'm working on building up my tupperware-type collection as well. My reasoning is this: I figure I'm going to be spending a LOT of time on campus, especially if I can't create a really good work space in my own apartment. Rather than spend 3$-10$ every day for lunch, and even more for snacks, I'm going to go grade school retro and start bringing my lunch to campus to save money. It will probably be somewhat healthier, as well. I've been learning how to make endless variations of noodles, couscous, and other grains/starches mixed with cooked veggies, beans, lentils, tofu, chicken etc. It's a SLOW process, and I haven't mastered everything, but I hope to save a lot of money by bringing tupperware containers of tasty, healthy, filling whatever to school to reheat at my department. My tips on the long road toward self-sufficient cooking: - Either invest in a simple, basic-stuff cookbook OR keep your laptop open to about.com, which has step-by-step instructions and even videos on how to do stuff like fry an egg. - Check out recipezaar.com, which is a search engine site filled with user-submitted recipes. It's gigantic, and always good for ideas or guidance. Lots of nutrition-specific stuff (for gluten-free, diabetic, whatnot) and food from ALL over the world. It's truly amazing, and completely free to use. - Start building up your spice rack. If you ever get bored with the basic chicken noodle soup, you can always add some garlic and paprika! Or cumin and turmeric! Or ginger and sesame oil! - Every time you go to the grocery store, try buying one type of vegetable or meat or anything that you've never tried to cook before. Then take it home, look up the recipes, and give it a shot. Beets weren't a huge success for me, but I discovered how easy asparagus is. Plantains, though, damn. They are my new obsession. - If you are at someones house and they've cooked something delicious, ask them about it. I think tasty food is a big quality of life issue, and I hear ya on the bagels and soup thing. We're all going to be on budgets for the next few years, and eating out every time we need delicious comfort food won't necessarily be an option anymore

I went from being a VERY lazy student in high school (Probably only read a page of every assigned reading, and less than 10% of my homework was turned in on time) to being a selectively-lazy student as an undergrad (Read about 90% of narrative stuff, and sometimes nothing of the theory or history, depending on the class; went to almost every class and always got my homework turned in on time, though). Just that sort of improvement meant that my grades went from Cs and Ds in high school to mostly As in college. I figured out a formula for success in my English and History classes, and part of that formula was making sure I was at least working harder than all the non-majors and less serious people in the class. (Edit: It sounds terrible, and I'm not proud of it, but it kept me going through school long enough that when I had the turnaround and started busting ass, it all worked out.) Someone, I don't remember who, made the very excellent point that grad school is going to be full of people who were *chosen* to be there. That includes us, now that we're admitted, but it also includes all the other people that worked very hard to get in to these programs. I'm preparing myself for a serious attitude adjustment. I know that I will need to buckle down and do as much of the reading as humanly possible so that I can a. )really get every last drop of academic goodness out of grad school, with hopes of eventually landing a job or making a name for myself, and b.) not get a rude awakening of embarrassment and/or some professor chastising me for my work ethic. I do think that not having a job outside of the university is going to allow me some good chunks of time to just sit and read and annotate my little heart out. Gotta make it a habit! What coyabean and you have said really rings true. I've been looking down the long road for a few years now, and even now I have a decent and what seems like a fairly realistic perspective of what might be going on after I get my degree. I *do* see the possibility of getting bogged down and distracted by the trivials, or by anxiety about individual classes and papers, and that worries me a bit. I thought about making myself an academic version of a WWJD bracelet, but I can't come up with a catchy acronym that encompasses an entire thread's worth of goals and reminders.

I never really made any New Year's Resolutions at, well, New Years. In fact, I haven't for years. I never saw the difference between one year and the last, and I'm not one for supposedly big but really arbitrarily-timed life changes. Grad school, though. Hoo-boy. This really is a whole new world, and my life is changing a lot from years of undergrad and a food service/cocktailing job. So I've been working on a sort of list in the back of my mind, and I'm calling it my Grad School Resolutions. Things are going to be substantially different for me, and I really WILL be turning a new leaf in a new city at a new school around new people (as opposed to just a new month when I sign checks). This definitely calls for some conscious effort to remedy some bad habits that won't be getting me anywhere in grad school. Mine include: 1. Actually finishing reading assignments, or at least completing 75% of them instead of just 50%. 2. Saying "Yes" to invitations to happy hours, hang-outs, study-sessions, and lunches, instead of just running off by myself. 3. Listening more in class, and not raising my hand to contribute on every possible thread of discussion (probably my worst school habit of all time). 4. No more negativity about ANYONE. Too many awkward moments have resulted when I accidentally insulted someones friend, relative, or significant other with some off-handed remark. I'd like to avoid that sort of faux pas when I am getting to know a whole school of people. So, I'm curious if anyone else is gearing up for some self-administered habit/outlook changes as well? Is this the time for it?

I have really bad social anxiety as well, though mine tends to manifest itself as nervous bravado and wise-cracking for a few minutes before I get overwhelmed by people and decide to hide in the bathroom (really). I ducked out of a lot of undergrad orientation type things, and my visiting weekend at my school was marred by being really unfamiliar with the city and campus-- which upped my nervousness upon meeting the others. Come hell or high water, I plan on going to as many orientation events as possible to make positive connections with the rest of my cohort AND to get a better handle on campus resources, since I always seem to miss the library tours.

Seeing as I miss kindergarten, I'm okay with this. It'll be kindergarten with Kipling and Tolstoy. I can dig it.

I agree with matcha. I had a coworker who shaved her head (it was a solidarity thing for an aunt who had cancer) and she got SO many compliments. Personally, the look wouldn't work on me, but I really think that women who can pull off shaved heads rock really really hard. Plus, if you aren't worried about standing out, I say go for it. Hair grows back, and this is a great chance to try something new. My vote is yes.

This is just from hunch and not from experience, but I'd recommend mixing up different silhouettes of skirts and cardigans. I know a lot of knee-length skirts run in the same shape and fullness, and same with the generic cardigans and shells, but if you can introduce some slouchy cardigans or fitted blazers or flirtier/straighter cuts for the skirts it will look like you have built up the wardrobe over time. I'm all for finding cuts that look great and work for your body shape, but there is always room to try something new-- especially if you feel uncertain about the image you're projecting. They say it's half-attitude anyway, right? Maybe this new stuff that you have already will give you the boost to throw your shoulders back and show the freshmen who's in charge. Also, experiment with scarves, brooches, chunky bracelets or necklaces-- haunt second hand stores and places like TJ Maxx and Ross, where you rarely drop more than $10 per piece. It's an inexpensive way to play around and find out if something leaves you looking a little more polished than your students. I'm well known at my former workplace for my taste in earrings, which always garnered comments and compliments, but I don't think I ever spent more than $7 on a pair. In fact, the pair that probably gets the most attention are some 1 1/2 inch carved jade-looking earrings I got on the sale rack at Old Navy for $2. On a slightly different and more generally general note: I've been closet shopping lately in my own stuff since I've been sorting out the piles to donate. A lot of it doesn't fit anymore, but I did find a few things that surprised me in their suited-ness for grad school. If you haven't thrown anything away for years, give your clothing reserves a second glance and see if there isn't something you can alter or maybe just wear in a new way.

Love that blog! The outfit from the previous day is one of the looks I am very comfortable embracing-- nice jeans, nice shoes, and comfortable tops that are both stylish and appropriate. I can see wearing that top/necklace with maybe a darker pair of jeans or khakis, with ballet flats or clogs, and teaching as a grad student without any worries of being confused with my students. I really don't imagine myself wearing a blazer everyday, and cardigans are certainly an alternative I'm familiar with!

Good article about Dress Codes Specifically for interns, but it seems applicable. The comments are also interesting.

I seriously doubt I'll go full-out for anything more than the first week and special department/academic occasions. For example, one of my classes is at 9 in the morning and I'll have to commute by bus to campus. I am NOT a morning person, and beyond a new cardigan and some non-scuzzo shoes, I don't think I'll be looking like a fashion plate either. Buuuuut, I do know that I only have enough professional stuff in my wardrobe right now to make it to two "events" before I start repeating myself. Thus, the bargain-hunting begins. Side note: In my efforts to pack for moving, I came across all the clothes I used to wear for this high-end retail job my freshman year of college. Surprise surprise, none of it fits me seven years later

I'm in the process of moving to Eugene myself, and I think I ended up finding this particular place through Craigslist. Keep a window of Google Maps handy, to check for how close the location is to campus, and there is a lot of Eugene area covered by the Streetview function on Googlemaps as well. There are some great listings, but I agree with the previous poster that you might have to sift through quite a few listings. The great thing about Craigslist is the sorting function, where you can narrow down the results by max/min rent, number of bedrooms, whether they allow pets etc. I had NO luck with other apartment search engine type websites. Be diligent, and check once a day Also, while some listings may seem far away from campus, there is a pretty decent public transportation that caters to students especially. Plenty of neighborhoods like Coburg, Kinsrow, Bailey Hill Road etc have bus lines that will drop you almost directly on campus. Eugene LTD (www.ltd.org) has some maps that, in conjuction with Craigslist and Googlemaps, should help you find a place within your price range where you can commute pretty easily. It might be worth your while to check with your Director of Graduate Studies to see if there's some sort of rental listserv through your department. I got tips on a few places through the English Department, though I ended up passing on them. Hope something works out!

Amen to it being fun, coya. I think in a lot of cases here, this is a big change of life. Lots of responsibility, new cities, and new people, and worrying about what we're going to wear on the first day DOES seem fun and much more manageable than all the packing and moving I should be working on. Not to mention the fact that I'm viewing this as a new chapter in my life, and no one will know me or have any preconceptions. Sounds like the right time to punctuate some equilibrium and embrace a lot of new priorities-- including spending more than $10 on a piece of clothing at a time. Just for funsies, lets talk about style icons: I'm aiming for some sort of balance between Mad Men and the ladies of Indiana Jones.