Strangefox

Terrible story So if I get a modem with WiFi I must codify (cipher?) its signal? Has anybody here done that?

Exactly my point!

I can only hope that I will live in the right area of the right city!

Everybody, thank you very much for the advice! Actually I was thinking about forwarding emails from my school's account to my gmail account but I was not able to do that at first. However after all your explanations I did it. Yay!

I think that if people who know you would find it hard to believe that you have this fear, it means that you've conquered it! I don't think that conquering a fear means not having it - like at all. It means being able to surpress it when necessary, even if deep down inside of you it still survives.

This reminds me of my fear of roller coasters! Not that they are high but that they move so fast! I guess I need to try a not very fast one when I get to an American amusement park...

I think you should call your airplane company and ask them because regulations differ.

Thanks! You are lucky to have reliable snail mail. It's certainly not the case in my country. Therefore the very idea of sending a passport via snail mail sends cold shiver down my spine

Cool! Congrats!

Hi everybody! Here is my question. I have a gmail account which I have used for several years and I really love. Now that I was accepted to a grad program, I have an account from them too. And I have a dilemma. When exactly should I use each of those? I understand that it's very subjective but anyway I would like to hear your opinions. Of course I will use the school's account in situations when it is important for me that a recepient would see at once that I am affiliated to that school. But frankly I don't want to switch to the program's email account completely. I will not be in this program forever and I assume when I am gone the account will be gone too. And all important correspondance will be gone with it, which I of course would like to avoid. Don't get me wrong, I am absolutely going to use my program's email when I send letters to profs outside the program, for business cards if I get those and so on. But for less official stuff inside my program and even outside it (let's say, if I become friends with somebody from another school, be it a student or a prof) I would prefer my old gmail account, I guess. So what do you think? May be I get it all completely wrong?

Exactly! And congrats on conquering your fear!

Ok, this will be a funny example. I am really afraid of spiders. Yesterday I saw a spider that had fallen in a bath tub. Well - thought I - I am going to travel the US in two months - can't a touch a tiny spider?? And I took it out! I even let it walk a bit along my arm. To tell you the truth, the spider was not very big, 1 centimetre may be (with its legs, of course!). So it was not that of a challenge really. But I am proud of myself anyway. May be the next step will be to hold a slightly bigger one?? (But not a black widow!! ) In fact, I have conquered many of my fears within the last two years, some of them much more serious than holding spiders. And I found it really liberating and empowering. The very fact that I am going to study in the US is a result of me crushing a number of fears that made my life very difficult. One of these fears was that of problems (not a math problems, - life problems!). I was afraid that things would go wrong and I wouldn't be able to pull my act together. But the really funny thing is that when things did go wrong, I coped! And it was such a nice feeling. And now, though I am worried about different things from time to time, it's by far not the same as before. I may be uncomfortable thinking about some problems I might encounter, but I am not that afraid of encountering them, really. Actually, I want to have to solve some of them whereas several years ago I would have preferred to hide into my imaginary world of white unicorns. I am not saying that I am strong like a superman or something. When things go wrong, I can panic and I can be depressed but in the end I always win. And each time I do it, it is a bit easier. And what about you? How many fears have you conquered recently?

I will tell you what happened to me. I contacted my program and was able to find another incoming student who was extremely helpful and looked at apartments for me. It is indeed a bad idea to rent an unseen apartment because you may run into a scam. What you can do is to contact your program and ask if they can help you somehow with your apartment hunting. They must understand your situation and may be somebody - who knows - will volunteer to help. Or may be other options will arise. Anyway, the sooner you do it the better. It's better to grab an apartment now becaue by mid-August all good ones may be gone.

So was it as bad in Florida as it is in Southern California?

Ok, we'll see I will let you all know

I got in with 3,5 AW and was rewarded a nice fellowship. I am an international student so it may have been a factor there too. Like others said, your quant and verbal are cool and schools mostly look at them. There is definetely a high chance for you to be admitted to some schools with this score. Look for fit and apply to at least 5 schools to make this chance higher. This way I am sure you will get into a nice program. Good luck!

Thanks and congrats to you, too!

BTW, I remembered that when I was choosing schools I used a map of most tornado prone zones in the US But I admit, I did not look at seismic hazard maps Somebody should create a map which would show earthquakes, tornados and PhD programs

Thanks!

I hope too! But being realistic I think it will be only for one year... Oh, well, it would be better if I paid extra $200 dollars but got the visa for 5 years intead of only one... But of course it's not something to be really worried about I got the visa!! I am coming to the US!!! Yay!!!

Ok, now that I know that I will get visa I have started wondeing if I will have to get a new one when I come home next summer. I know that I need to wait just a couple of days to see if my F-1 will be for 1 year or longer! But I am impatient So Bhikhaari, you are saying that they gave you a new F-1 for 5 years! And the first one? For what period was it? I used the link that Newms had given in this thread (http://travel.state..../fees_3272.html) and for my country it says that the validity period is 12 months... So it means that I will have to get a new visa each year??? For five years??? (I am planning to go home each summer.)

I agree with your point. I think that hyphen is necessary.

Yep! I've got the visa!!! Well, not in my hands yet, they will deliver the passport in about two days. A consulate officer talked with me exactly one minute!!!

Thanks! It seems I won't have to pay extra $200!

They won't dare!