Trin

Alright, I am tired of moping! I applied to one school, because I knew it was the best fit for me. I put all my eggs in that basket, and I was admitted! Hurrah! This funding is just another one of many obstacles I've over come. I have a 2.67 cumulative GPA, people -- and I just got admitted to HDS! OMG! I attend a big public non-selective university, and I got admitted to HDS! So, I'll just have to take this wonderful admission as an invitation to do yet more hard work towards my goals. I *will* give the Gifford Lectures some day, after all! "And have a little trust in us when fear obscures the path You know we got this far, darling, not by luck, but by never turning back Some will call on destiny, but I just call on faith That the world won't stop, and actions speak louder Listen to your heart, to what your heart might say Everything we got, we got the hard way." -- Mary Chapin Carpenter, "The Hard Way"

You know, I was admitted in the Comparative Studies focus, but it was a toss up between that and RLC for me. Lots of what I do is Lit/Culture related. :-)

Yes, I'm sad. I feel like I've worked really hard for this, and being admitted with clearly a package I couldn't accept is just an admit/deny -- a sort of polite brush off. Part of the problem for me is that I have one child who has a gapped financial aid package as an undergrad, so I took out a smallish PLUS loan for her last year and might have to do it again. My hope was that I would get enough aid that if I needed to help her, I could. Now, there's no way I could possibly take this without telling her "You either get them to increase your aid/find the money to pay for it yourself, or else you don't get to return to college next year, because I want to go to grad school instead." I can't do that to her. When the rush is over, I'll draft some sort of appeal request to HDS Financial aid, explaining more fully my situation and asking for a reevaluation. My commitment to my daughter didn't appear in my FAFSA, because she's not considered a dependent on the taxes, or something.

Like I said, admitted, but with too little aid to accept, almost certainly. *sigh*

Email in my box says HDS decisions are available, but I'm afraid to look at it. Admitted! Yay. Alas, the aid is half-tutiion, so I am not sure how I would be able to afford to attend. Honestly, I had expected they would be a bit more generous with aid if they accepted me.

Yay you! Woot!

That's going to be unbearable, actually. I'm hoping to get closure one way or another today, in part because I have stuff to do with my weekend that I won't be able to concentrate on otherwise. AUGH! *laugh* I also just had a thought last night -- what if I'm *waitlisted*, and the waiting just keeps going on?

Oh no! That's horrible! I know it's making you crazy!

Things I'm doing right now: Catching up on Tivo'd reality shows (Top Chef, Survivor, etc) Looking at Tumblr about art students Twitter Flipping between Gmail and HDS app site Things I'm not doing right now: Working on paper on historical Muslim-American responses to evolution/creation debate Working on paper on Cartesian dualism Working on paper with undetermined topic for RELS & Anthro Rehearsing monologue

My first performance went well, but there's still no HDS word! I'm gonna stay up late, because maybe it will happen in the middle of the night, like Santa coming! :-) BTW, what time zones are we? I'm Pacific.

I created a separate thread for us to fuss and pass time until there are results to post here. :-)

I didn't want to add to the MTS results thread because it would look like there had been results. I know a lot of us are waiting on HDS results, which could happen Real Soon Now. I've been reduced to refreshing my email and checking the app site. I'm also in class where we're talking about Hobbes' Leviathan. Oh,a nd I have that performance in 3.5 hours! What are yall doing to pass the time?

Only applied to one program, and it should be putting out results Real Soon Now, but definitely by the 15th. Yes, it's hard watching other people having positive stuff, when I have nothing but more waiting.

Yes. It's now owned by Amazon, actually. BTW, want to second someone else's recommendation of Newegg.com. We also use them. Woot! takes a while to get the hang of -- it helps if you look at the archives to know the sort of thing they're likely to offer, and then pay attention to the comments when something like it comes up. So for example, I'm in the market for a 32-37" LCD TV, preferably 1080p; I want to spend less than $225. So I'm waiting for a refurb or similar deal on Woot to come up. It takes patience. I also recommend FatWallet.com, which is a forum like this one (only flashier) devoted to sharing online deals. I get leads on good deals that way, too, especially around the holidays.

Srsly, I am NOT a Quaker. Really! I mean it! *laugh*

My top results: 1. Unitarian Universalism (100%) 2. Liberal Quakers (90%) 3. Neo-Pagan (87%) 4. Reform Judaism (79%) 5. Secular Humanism (79%) 6. Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (74%) 7. New Age (71%)

Oh! I had a prof explaining this to me the other day. She was telling me the story about how she got into her PhD program, and that because a friend was an assissant, got to hear what happened. Basically, in the politics of processes in departments like these, a professor has to be careful not to use up too many 'favors' and cause friction in the department. So, it sounds like the POI is communicating that he/she may be willing to use pull on your behalf, but doesn't want to waste it if you don't really want to be there, or there's some other factor. The thing is, if the POI pulls in favors on your behalf and you don't go, that's a time when when the future, the POI won't be able to advocate for someone or something else as easily. Quid pro quo, all that.

I've only applied to one school, and if I am accepted, of COURSE I am posting -- it will probably be the second thing I do once I know. There are folks on my FB friends list who have been waiting for me to do this for 20+ years, not to mention all the friends who have been rooting for me while I've been applying. Posting to FB is the fastest way to let all those people know. :-) OTOH, almost none of my FB friends are applying for grad school, because most of them are errrr, done with that stage in their lives. I'm a late bloomer.

Yeah. I was thinking especially of deals on woot.com or similar things. I'm an aggressive bargain hunter. YMMV. :-)

Down to the wire! Now I have nothing left to do with my week except memorize my monologue, perform, and remember to breathe. :-)

I use a combination of an HP netbook and a desktop machine at home. I love the netbook because it's small and highly portable, and also because it has such a small footprint and low profile that some of my professors who hate laptops in class are okay with me using it for notes. (It's also pink, and matches my pink and green Timbuk2 bag and gear, but that's a personal preference thing.) I love it in part because it doesn't do a lot of stuff that creates distractions. It sucks at showing video and is really, seriously, a dedicated Internet and writing machine. I use Open Office on it. That said, I do drafts on it, but I like to do my final editing on my desktop machine. It has more bells and whistles and can provide more distractions, but I also like the big screen for editing and related work. The good news is that you can get *both* of those options for about the same cost as many of the Macs. A good netbook can be had for as little as $250, up to about $4-500, and a reasonable destop machine bundle starts at around $400-500, depending on what you're looking for.

An argument could be made that I am also "Baptisty" in the sense that one side of my family are Southern Baptists and have been for generations. As a result, though I claim to be culturally Episcopalian (the other side of the family!) I am as much culturally Baptist. I "speak" Southern Baptist fluently enough to be mistaken for one, I suppose. OTOH, aside from rural Southern Baptist folkways, there isn't much of that influence in my life, thinking or academic work, so I don't usually mention it. :-) I do love many of the hymns, though...

Yeah, what is that? I am very much about communication skills and fostering dialogue and cross-cultural communication. It appears that if I want to work on those things as practicalities, I'll be taking classes outside of the MTS coursework. OTOH, I have met plenty of scholars who simply do not "get" my focus on communicating ideas, so it's clearly not the norm. Curious!

I'm working to pull something together to submit and was amused some of my professors were last minute about it, too. Anyone else already submitted or in the process? We don't have to talk topics, I just thought yall might like to commiserate. :-)

As a Southerner, I find the adjective "Baptisty" excellent. :-)