withoutdoing

I'm not a current student, @ABCDneuronaut, so I doubt I can be very helpful to you, but I am super excited to start there in the fall -- if I ever get the official email from the graduate school! My department says they'll go out eventually. 

I just got my funding offer as well, for East Asian linguistics PhD - I'm so excited! I was also offered a little over 20k per year, which comes to about 1,660 per month for rent, food, etc. It'll be a big drop in income, but I figure I will do some translation work on the side if I need to supplement it. I'll also be moving cross-country, so I'm probably in for the longest road trip of my life. Anyone else looking to move there from the east coast? Congrats all around!

Zhaonini - I honestly have no idea. Some professors I contact, I thought would be a good match, but they suggested I apply elsewhere, while others I thought were more long shots were surprisingly receptive. I've decided I'm just not going to have a good idea about things until the results come in. 
As for applications, I mailed in the final envelope of materials yesterday (to Hawaii) and am looking forward to relaxing a bit over the holidays. I saw on a previous thread that some programs began to contact students as early as January, and others as late as early March. Fingers crossed for hearing as soon as possible. How is everyone else doing?

I've been continuing to send out emails, even though it is getting closer to turn-in time.  I contacted two professors yesterday and both got back to me within 24 hours, which is much quicker than any of the earlier replies I got. Maybe it's a good time, since it's after midterms, before the end of the semester, and later than most other applicants are sending out feelers? Although I definitely feel like I should have started this whole process sooner. GRE was OK, and most importantly, it's over! 
Good luck, fencergirl! Hopefully funding is negotiable - I know someone who said she talked to her preferred school about better funding she received elsewhere and they were able to find her something to match it. I think we overlap by two now (USC and UCLA) so maybe we'll meet in LA someday!