Danger_Zone

How have you other international students dealt with filing taxes? There is help available from my school but their instructions are so confusing I can't even figure out what forms to bring to them for help. I haven't filed taxes before so I don't really know what the process is. But am I even eligible to go to a tax prep service? We can partly file through an online website but I am confused about if/how I would file taxes to my home country. Any advice would be appreciated.

@Neist I think that's normal and professors don't expect you to automatically know what you're doing and act like a grad student who has been there for a few years. I think I'm doing alright, though I do feel like other newbies know much more than me. But maybe everyone just wants to act like they have things under control when they are just as overwhelmed as I am. I felt really intimidated during one of my classes which is a mixture of older and new grad students. I feel like the students were much smarter and more prepared, but they just happen to have more experience and aren't necessarily more knowledgeable, I just have to try to remember that! I have to write a précis once a week for one of my classes. Are you writing one on a book? To my understanding it is just a short summary on the argument of the book, its sources, audience, strengthens and weaknesses, etc. My prof compared it to a book review and said write in enough detail so that you can reference the précis come prelims if you happen to be using that book for studying.

@janetjanejune I think white Christmas lights indoors are pretty! It also gives you nice moody lighting.

Well maybe not much anymore, but at the end of the day it would be a nice way to wind down a little! I also need something more than a Chromebook. It's a nice little notebook but it isn't really capable of much. Classes have been going well for me so far. Nearly all of my stress so far has been from traveling to and from school. The buses don't run near my apartment at night so I'm probably going to have to take a taxi when I have night classes, because I really don't feel comfortable walking nearly an hour in the dark. I walked home today because the bus wasn't supposed to be going near my house at that time, then I see it go right past me! Glad to hear everyone is doing well so far.

That sounds pretty nice! GTX960 is a great graphics card. A friend of mine loves to build computers and offered to build mine so I guess I'm not technically building it myself, but I've ordered a GTX1070, i7-6700, 240gb ssd, 2tb hdd, 16gb RAM, 144 hz monitor, and a mechanical keyboard of course (don't you love how loud and clicky they are )? Hoping to play games in my free time as well. The last couple of years my desktop hasn't been able to handle much of anything that has come out, so I'm really excited to run new games properly. I'd like to get two monitors eventually but I probably wouldn't be able to fit that either.. heck, I don't know how I'm going to fit a computer desk at my new place. Though my friend has a somewhat smaller place than me and has managed to fit three monitors (why he needs three I have no idea ), so it might be doable.

That's exciting! What kind of pc are you building? I just ordered parts to build one today as well. Good luck tomorrow as well!

That's rough. Guess I don't have it so bad after all. I still have other shorter orientations but that won't be so bad.

Already tired of orientations. Who thought holding a 7 hour long TA orientation starting before 8AM was a good idea...

@rhombusbombus Do you have a furniture row nearby? I got a super nice mattress for a reasonable price delivered to me in 2 days. They also set it up for me for a small fee. So I can't tell which has been the more stressful experience: putting together furniture or dealing with Comcast. After 4+ hours of dealing with them I went and did some drunk karaoke.

You could try to see if any place around you does same day delivery. If not sleeping on a bare mattress might not be the worst thing for a few days.

Well I'm about to spend my first night in my new apartment. Was a rough 3 hour drive then had to deal with ordering furniture. One of the salesmen tried to give us a "discount" but ended up charging us more and acted like he was confused about how his computer worked. But we ended up going to another place and finding much better furniture for the same price. It won't come until Friday so I guess it's air mattress time until then. Hope everyone's adventures are going well!

@sjoh197 Honestly I just find it fun to check out my own groceries, haha. @Effloresce that's good! During undergrad Target was the closest store to me so I went there all the time. Fortunately it did not close down until after I graduated.

I miss self-checkouts. A lot of places around my house got rid of them because people kept stealing items while using them. Speaking of stores, I'm glad to be able to go to Target again! It went bankrupt in Canada a while ago. There's even a Super Target near my university!

Headed to my apartment on Wednesday! I'm excited but also overwhelmed by all that still needs to be done. I have about a half dozen orientations to go to, and I'm having trouble with some forms that need to be filled out beforehand. I feel like I shouldn't be having so much trouble with the stuff before grad school even starts..

Just started The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut. Hoping to finish this book and maybe one or two more before I need to start reading for school. Was going to start on it early but I don't quite feel in the right mindset yet..