GirlattheHelm

Well... surprisingly I suppose both context work...which is... kind'a of creepy. Yes, raise - we will be raising 150 various meat chickens this year. And then we will "raze" them... (Raze = to level/to demolish)

Dirt don't hurt! Total dirt anthropologist here... 8)

22 right now; will turn 23 in August.

I'm really upset. I applied to schools that looked good - but I'm worried I sincerely don't have a reasonable chance at any of the universities I applied to and I now feel like I needed at least 4 low ball schools to shoot for. I mean, I have a lot of good things going for me: a 3.9 GPA in my major, an overall GPA of 3.7, anthropological field work experience for a month in a hole in Alaska*; a stellar statement checked over by 3 other department heads and the graduate committee for a program at my current school. I have in field experience with Historic Preservation, working with a guru in the federal government - who is my boss, professor, and friend (and one of my referees!). Plus, I have stellar recommendations from people I've worked closely with. But, sincerely, I can keep telling myself that it's going to work out by my GRE's were awful and they have doomed me. And they probably have, which sucks even more. I only applied to 6 schools - three of which are obviously out of my range. And even the other three don't seem that appetizing. But I'm at my quota and I can't spend anymore money. Life sucks sometimes. But, I suppose you can't say you've ever really lived life without having a little regret, right? :wink: * Note: It doesn't really mean anything for a road hog like me who daydreams about truck driving, but I drove 12,000 miles, across the US and Canada and back, for my field school - but I did do some cultural work in part of the Northwest Territories just because I love NWT - calling out to anyone from Fort Simpson and Yellowknife!

3 Rejections - UMass Amherst, Cornell University & College of William and Mary 1 Accepted OR Wait listed- University of Montana 2 Great Acceptances - Binghamton University & University of Vermont I don't know if I have a snowball's chance in hell at the University of Vermont, but I really want to get into their Historic Preservation program (since I most certainly won't get into Cornell's). I'm so nervous right now I might chew off my arm! I'm going to take a vicodin. Yay! for chronic pain and prescription opioids!

Just get a great incubator when you do. The new ones with the contact bladders are AWESOME... And they're humidity controlled with automatic turners, and are large enough to hatch an ostrich egg! Anyway... Yeah, the 300 Button Quail was a trip all its own. I had actually remodeled my parent's downstairs kitchen in my youth. I had various projects - first, taxidermy and bone salvaging; then making all sorts of stuff that could have gotten me killed or arrested; and finally, birds. I had a candling station, an incubation area, a First-24-Hours brooder. Then we brought in a huge cattle trough and used my mother's industrial plant light rack to string up the brooding lamps. I had dividers at one point, then as the chicks grew I put on leg bands to keep me aware of genetics so I wasn't allowing them to in breed, since I had 5 separate egg suppliers, though one of them kept sending me free eggs because she couldn't/wouldn't hatch them, which was sort of a pain. It was a MASSIVE undertaking as they started to grow - even though they only grow to a handful size, even smaller than a dove! They were so loud, even for being so small, that I could hear my house cheeping from outside. People all over town came to see my bizarre collection as these flocks of tiny birds were put out on my front yard (which is basically a field with a horse paddock in front of it). They were rotationally placed outside in makeshift cover cages during the day. I kept them in batches in our downstair's garage at night and some still in the furnace room depending on age and need for more heat. By the time the first egg was laid, however, I had people taking them home with them. Little kids started showing up on their ATV's and asking if they could have one (or a few!) and since we're a very-very-very small town I'd call their mother and ask if it was okay. Since it's mostly agricultural people they allowed it, and took more than one. I sent them home with some instructions on how to feed them and what to house them in. I think a few ended up at the local fairs for show, a few people bred them, and others I know are still alive and well today as general house pets across town. But that was only the TIP of what I gave away. It really started happening when I had strangers showing up trying to buy them. It ended up paying for most of the trouble I went through... But it also became problematic. In fact, the button quail were no trouble; it was, rather, the people that were the problem. I gave away every last button quail - and people still showed up! When there were no more, these folks bought all of my Cayuga and Peking ducks, along with our remaining bantam chickens! The comedy was good, though. I'll never forget a van full of five kids, all with a box, to pick out their respective quail to take home - and I never really started it; I just gave a few to my neighbors up the road and it turned into a minor boomtown for farmhouse pets through word of mouth. It was the cutest experience I've ever endured without becoming nauseated. And once they were gone I'm pretty sure my mother's bloodpressure fell. I'm buying an emu this year, though. I'm sure she'll be pleased. Note: We are going to raze about 150 various meat chickens this year, though. My family owns a USDA inspected meat processing plant and we are poultry licensed, so we're going to do some for our freezer - and everyone else in town. So it should be interesting. I'm also trying to get 10 geese too, though I'm not sure what kind I want just yet or if I want them to just hang around or if I want to eat them too...

McMurray has the process down pat - and their Mary Poppin's filled boxes are awesome too. I can still hear them cheeping madly when I close my eyes, sigh! See, any time I need to lift my spirits I send a batch to my parents - the mail order days when 100 Baby Chicks showed up at random addresses doesn't work anymore (which is slightly disappointing for the farmers prank community - though it doesn't deter us as much as they like to think it does). But, hey, stock up on money and you can buy an incubator if you don't all ready have one. It's my -favorite- side hobby. And the second best thing to raising chickens: Hatching Button Quail Eggs I hatched 300 one year and didn't know what to do with myself - they're the size of a bumble bee when they hatch!

Isn't it wonderful? This website should be made illegal. It's so depressing and yet remarkably amusing to feel better about myself at the expense of a comic book character. I absolutely DIED. I made everyone in the office watch it. I am so getting a set of Rapist Glasses at the dollar store tomorrow. Keep 'em coming folks! Lists are grand... 38. Watch all episodes of Bones, Scrubs, and House. 39. Get out that old collection of marbles and jacks. 40. Subscribe everyone you know to free tranny porn snail-mail advertisements and watch the horror unfold. 41. Go to McMurray Hatchery and buy birds - or, if your parents live on a farm, send them to your parents farm house - that 4am phone call to pick up your chicks at the post office is super hilarious. [Note] 42. End up at Sotheby's to tour superb luxury real estate and daydream about "What if I won the Mega Millions Jackpot..." : SOTHEBY REAL ESTATE!

Yeah... and I realize now I'm kind of a funny bitch when being cruel and ripping hearts out.

Heh...

I... yeah. I should so not drink right now. It's a bad emotional roller coaster and crying at the bar is so cliche. But I've been refraining since Valentine's day went to the dogs when my ex showed up the day after. Why? Well, to claim the anonymous flowers that were sent to me with a creepy and cryptic message: "I hope you find Mr. Wright. Love, Mr. Wrong". He sent them because he felt bad we broke up like 8 months ago... and wanted to ask me to get back together with him. I went off the deep end. I think I even said dating him he was like "the worst yeast infection I could ever have - CONTROLLING and IRRITATING - and even after it's gone the experience still terrorizes me." All while I was sitting at breakfast, which he paid for, at a really nice resturant. Sigh. Add alcohol that and the words, "I'll accept you!" ... I'd probably have done do something regretable

Several [not very constructive but wonderful time wasting] things you can do while waiting! 1. Post on the Grad Caf

Yeah, It's all like one big bad joke. Everyone has class today at my school but I'm skipping. Namely because so does all the administration, so... screw it. To worked so hard to just be played with... that's the story of all of our lives, I guess.

I have an unattractive twitch that has presided over my right eyeball since the day I finalized all my applications. I'll trade...

I've been running around, groaning, "I'll never get in anywhere..." - I'm annoying myself. I'm taking today off because I am somewhere between a Valentine's day nightmare, sick off Chinese food, and perpetually in the dumps about my graduate crap. Worse yet? Today there's no mail because of some freakin' Federal Holiday nobody remembers, save for the fact they put it on the calendar! Curses. Tonights, I'm really glad you recognize this. It took me a long time to figure it out. They, being the graduate admissions committee, have power over us. Hence, we feel like crap. But it's surely not supposed to surmount the joy of the last few years (for those of us who've enjoyed it). And if we're facing the hardest points in our life, intellectually, we need to keep the brain-muscle in top form. We can't be too presumptious into the land of "what if's" to make ourselves feel better. That opens us to a maddening world of infinite possibilities; I see that as no more fun than sticking a pencil in my eye. What if, what if, what if, what if, what if, what if, what if, what if...! It's exhausting - like worrying but worse. We have to understand that they have the ball in their court. We've done what we can. Now we need to learn to take deep breathes again, and keep our blood pressure down. It's not easy, but who said trying to do anything constructive was? Best case scenario? We get in. Worst case scenario? We do something else. There are lots of adventures out there to be had. And, in some creepy way, I'm totally okay with becoming an alcoholic.... :? I'm going to order pizza.

We're all feeling it. I'm so down right now I've decided that my 3.7 sucks, my golden statement has super flaws, my recommending third parties are too old or too crazy to mean anything, and my GRE's finally took the ship down. But, regardless, I go about my day. I'd say 'don't worry' but you're gonna. I'm gonna. We're all gonna. Except for the best of the best - and even then, a few will have actually decent egos and nod solemnly with us, understanding how fickle and arbitrary the selection process is. No one can prepare for it adequately without having some kind of 'prior knowledge' or 'in' which - in some ways - defeats the experience (though I know most of us wouldn't have minded that at all). In the end, it's a waiting game. Keep your head screwed on straight and wait and see... I mean, if you are invited to attend somewhere, you don't want to be a puddle of goo by the time the real adventure starts, right?

Actually, from all the hiring I've seen done here at my institution: they hire by age, race, religion, creed and sex. Why? Because they need to meet quota for equality with the Human Resource Center. It's illegal to not comply with that measure, which means you cannot ignore all those pesky factors in order to make a diverse group of teachers. So, illegal or not, it's done to prove that, "We are equal, really!" In fact, it's stopped most Caucasians from even getting interviews in the last four departments I've seen hiring in since we, "have too many white people." As far as my department is concerned; I've seen it vary. I work with a lot of graduate students because my advisor is co-chair of my anthropology department and a graduate program. The age range is between 20 - 70.... which is huge and not including the age of the zombie like auditors that take the classes as refreshers. Now, they more often then not give any of the research/academic jobs to graduate students of the 'fresh out of college' group - In fact in both labs I don't see anyone over 40 working in there, but there have been students around the age of 30-35 working there. Financial need, I have seen, is also another factor since the program loves to know if you have some kind of other moneys they can tap into to pay you rather than their budget ... I wouldn't say age rules you out or keeps you in the game either, though. Capability is going to be the biggest thing when real 'work' is concerned. If it's manual labor intensive, can you pick up 50lbs repeatedly for however long necessary? Or if its research heavy, can you stay on task and get work done diligently rather than eat pencils or doodle the day through? Etc-etc. And hopefully you have past experience that proves whatever they need proven; especially if it's a graduate program. They don't like to train from the ground up every rotation. But, granted, I just help steward the lab I work in and see what I see.

Is there an echo? 8)

... I would be unscrupulous and unethical by funding my education habits by living off an older man in return for sexual favors and selling my eggs. In actuality... I'm not yet that desperate. However,I would do all the above given the worst case scenario. The worst-worst case scenario is that I don't get in at all and then I'd simply run my baby sister's new bar business and drink until I finally drop over (not that I've not been trying to do that throughout my undergraduate career).

Good luck to you as well!

It depends. I was an absolute idiot after I came back from a semester off -- had to have my ACL reconstructed -- and my boss/advisor was ready to shove dynamite up my bum - and so not in the fun spanky way (assuming there is such a fetish). He spent nearly every day in the office with me threatening me, in a failed attempt to get me to do something other than hang out and sleep on the laboratory sofa. Then I went into panic mode the last three weeks and learned my lesson. It was way better once I had that semester over and I returned my nose to my mostly active grindstone the next semester... This semester I'm doing as much early as possible, which is amazing. This is namely occurring because graduate school applications make me cringe and I'm hoping if I work hard time will pass quicker. It hasn't been working but my work is getting done quickly. I'll call it a win-win 'cause I also learned I have to attend graduation (though I told my advisor he has to take me because I'm going to be obliterated and don't feel like getting a DWI at 7 am... or ever). I do not want to attend that rite of passage - lameness - because, well, I have no relatives worthy of attending such a festivity and my 'family' I will be leaving after this semester so it's going to be sappy and depressing. I only hope I can get into freakin' graduate school so I can go somewhere else and do something else. Sigh.

I am terrified to look at it. Terrified. But I have to for my next application going out on Tuesday. I figure it's just punishment for trying to attempt to get into graduate school, though... I put about 4 months into designing and editing mine. I was bound to become sickened with the damn thing - working so hard on two pages of brown nosing and self inflation. I'd rather drink out of my toilet than have to re-read the damn thing. Ugh!

Ooo... Nifty!! I'll check it out. Yeah, I caught that you were applying to the Urban Planning program at Cornell too... Cornell is actually a long shot for me since my GRE scores are craptastic in their eyes. Everything else I've done is worth its weight in gold; just not my GRE's. So I figure I'm screwed - for the $70 dollars in an application fee and about $30 dollars in transcripts and paper. But my boss is a guru and well known big-wig within in the National Historic Preservation Act "world", so I'm hoping his clout, and the fact I'm his little prot

I'm totally supposed to be writing stuff for my professor right now. But it's been a craptastic Valentine's weekend and the fact I've heard from no schools, and have one final application to go out to the school I want to get into but keep telling myself I can't/won't get into, I've gone off the deep end! I want this to be over so badly I'm not functioning. At least here I know I'm not alone in the waiting game... :|

I have a 3.75 GPA. I've always considered it kind of lame; it doesn't take much for me to get an A+ and I could have had a 4.0 - but the downgrades I have had are due to the need for an attitude adjustment. There are some professor's I'll go out of my way to please and others, well, if I have them tomorrow I'll probably drink another pint, or four, skip class and tack on a point to my very wanting 0.25 Social GPA.