CaffeineCardigan

Thank you! Probably good fits. I feel like I know the area and the communities pretty well so I would be able to jump right in and start working on things that interest me. If I don't get into my 4th school, though, I'm leaning towards Trinity. Doing a masters abroad comes with a whole new set of stresses, but in the emails I've exchanged with the program director that feels like the best fit so far.

Valentine's Day gave me acceptances to Literature MAs at both ASU and NAU in my home state, but sadly my first choice school didn't send me anything. </3 NAU and ASU were my safe schools, but it's still validating to be accepted! I hope everyone else has an equally academically satisfying Valentine's Day in your respective time zones!

Congrats to all the recent acceptances! So great! Question: Does anyone have any experience applying to Edinburgh? If so, how long did it take for them to process your application and make a decision?

-Manufacture a 3 day weekend and go on a trip to a snow festival. Tell yourself you won't check your email at the festival even though you know that's a lie. Also @ThePomoHipster and @ChloeCriss, I totally understand. I took two years off, and while it was definitely the right choice for me it's also bringing a whole different set of anxieties into the process. We can't give up!

@siitrasn I'm absolutely not at all qualified to answer that question but I've had the same thought. Or if just adcomms are a little delayed because of everything going on politically in the US? I know most of the professors and faculty members I'm friends with on social media have been really caught up in protesting and trying to make a difference politically and a part of me wonders if that is affecting decision making time. 100% speculation on my part, however.

Received unofficial acceptance to the M.Phil in Popular Literature at Trinity College Dublin yesterday. After taking two years off since finishing undergrad, getting my first acceptance is an amazing feeling! Now I'm even more anxiously waiting to hear from Edinburgh, though. My Edinburgh application still says it's new and all documents pending verification so I wonder if they haven't started on it yet. I'm trying to prepare myself for a long haul but it's rough having no idea how long it might take.

Pulling from the existing list and expanding: -2016 Taxes -2015 Taxes (Yikes, I know) -Maybe do the job I'm paid for (teaching English to Japanese high school students) Instead of these three great options I've been reading GC posts and feeling like I've approached the entire process incorrectly and will maybe get no acceptances this cycle which is a problem because I've already given notice at my current job and so after July my visa will expire and I'll have to leave Japan and where will I even live--etc. I'm handling this process SO WELL*. Also panicking about Devos. *This is obviously not true. Edit: It's ok, past me! You'll get your first acceptance two minutes after making this post!

The international struggle. I don't know if this is feasible or not, but you could maybe try letting the school know you'd like to visit but have to return to Seoul on X day and ask if they'd be willing to let you visit on an earlier date. They might say no, but they might say yes and then you could get to experience the school culture etc. and not have to change your flight. That is if you want to go and can change your current US plans to allow it to happen...

How do people go about that? I applied for Trinity and Edinburgh this cycle (no results yet) but I've been wondering about what it's like going to PhD when the Uk/Ireland masters programs are only a year. Is it common to go through two programs to give you more time? Is it just a mad rush of adjusting to your first semester of grad school while also applying for PhD programs? I haven't made any decisions yet but any insight is helpful.

@DBear Ah the Monday thing. It's hard sending an email on Friday night and thinking "Well, I probably won't hear back until Tuesday!" It does make the weekend feel really long and makes me even less motivated to get up and go to work on Mondays. It's good to hear that just because the application status is "pending" doesn't mean they actually aren't looking at the application yet. Thanks! I feel like I'm flying blind doing all of this by myself from another country. I'm glad I finally joined this forum!

1984 and the other famous dystopian novels are really big right now, as others have mentioned. You could always read Utopia by Thomas More if you want a classic in that direction. I recently read The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert which I definitely recommend if you are interested in in-depth discussions on life, love, and botany in the late 18th/early 19th century. The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt is another more recent novel that's very engaging and gives you a lot to chew on if you want a story about art forgery and drugs. Those have been my recommendations in the last few months. I also recommend The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell if you like magical-realism and Native Tongue by Suzette Haden Elgin if you like feminism and linguistics with your Sci-Fi. These are the books I've read in the last year that I felt were really set apart from the rest and got me thinking. I've been on a Fantasy kick so far in 2017, but I also just read Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale which is cool if you want to read one of his lesser-known plays. It's also the play famous for the stage direction "Exuent pursued by a bear" so that's something. If you want just like some interesting information presented in a humorous way check out What If: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions by Randall Munroe.

@siitrasn The school where I did my undergrad actually still likes to send important things via snail mail. The admissions people emailed me last week to make sure my mailing address was really in Japan, which I think would have been a pretty big error on my part. It could just be for other promotional material. I guess I'll have to wait and see!

It's nice to see I'm not the only one obsessing over every email. My current struggle is time zones. I'm living in Japan and applied for programs in Arizona, the UK, and Ireland, so even though I know when I'm awake and functional during the day the admissions people are all not at work I still can't stop myself from checking my email 15 times a day "just in case." Three of my four applications are "pending" and just knowing they are currently making a decision or have already made a decision and it's coming snail mail to Japan is driving me crazy! I just had a panic because I got an email from a program director at my second choice school (at 11:00pm my time) but the email was just to assure me they're processing my application as quickly as possible. Nice to hear something but it's not the cure for my obsessive email refreshing!