Chande

I use it and just make sure to not buy things that I won't be able to pay off at the end of the month. Plus, if you're on any medications, you get a 5% off card for every 5 prescriptions you fill there and it stacks with the 5% of the RED card. It's been a huge help and I buy all of my groceries at the Super Target, so it really adds up.

Got my rejection email today. Passed my candidacy exam today so I don't even care really. Congrats to all who got it!

I got the "still being considered" email as well. Don't know exactly what it means but at least it's not a rejection!

Trying to be productive through depression and chronic daily headache is hardest for me. I'm never not in pain so there's never going to be a good time to do any one thing. I got off to a really slow start but I'm making more progress now.

I keep a pantry of canned and easily heated meals in my desk in my office. Having a microwave in the office is very helpful. Things like soups, microwaveable rice, etc. Snacks like a container of peanuts and fruit cups.

I'm married (like I said) and I still hang out with single friends. It's really not as big a deal as you seem to think. We talk about science, news, whatever, not really married life or kids or whatever. If you asked me in my freshman year of undergrad if I would be married by the second year of my PhD program, I would have guessed no. It wasn't something I was particularly looking for. But I found the right guy for me that I wanted to marry and lived with him for years first to make sure we were compatible, because I believe marriage is for life barring circumstances like abuse. I think abandoning friendships because of being married is troublesome. Friendships are an important part of a support network and I don't know how I would have gotten through my first year (it was a rough year of depression and a car accident and falling down a staircase and other such things) without both my husband and my friends, whether my friends are single, in a relationship, engaged, or married.

First question on the poll doesn't have an option for the currently married. I'm a second year female graduate student, got married in between first and second year. We got engaged in December of my senior year and he committed to move wherever I decided was best for me to go. We've been together since the start of sophomore year of undergrad and have lived together junior and senior year of undergrad and during my first year at graduate school before getting married. The year and a half between engagement and wedding date allowed ample time for planning, although it's a relief to have the planning all done. I don't know when we'll have kids, but we want to have at least two and my husband wants to be a stay-at-home dad while they're young.

I did not include my research experiences, but did include my teaching assistantship and tutoring jobs.

New Pokemon came out, so I did that for pretty much the whole weekend. It was awesome.

My husband told me he is going to surprise me and cook something! He won't tell me what it is he's making. He just quit his old job and starts the new one later this week, so he has a mini-vacation and is using it to experiment with foods and clean the apartment.

I got Fall Break as a first year since I wasn't affiliated with a lab yet (I used it to go on a field trip to tour a national lab, which was pretty cool), but beyond first year we're expected to be here doing research. It's a break from teaching though, since the undergrads are gone!

Ok, sweet! Thanks! I think I had it confused with the NDSEG...

Do we need to send our GRE scores again if we applied previously? (or am I getting this confused with another fellowship application)

I got an email just now saying I didn't get it, so I would guess it's a shortlist. Best of luck if you're still being considered!

I'm not at USF anymore, but I went there for undergrad. If you have questions about apartment complexes in the area, etc., I'd be happy to answer questions! I lived at Urban Place for 2 years and found it very affordable and a nice place to live. There are families there as well as undergraduates, and there is a community swimming pool. As far as fun activities go, there are a number of things right by USF. MOSI is a fun science museum that also has an IMAX theater that often also shows movies. It has a "sea monster" exhibit right now that I wish I could visit! Busch Gardens, which has a nice mix of roller coasters and African zoo animals, is a lot of fun and is only a few minutes away from campus. As far as clubs and that sort of thing go, most people go to Ybor City for that.

F/F VG/G One said that I didn't give enough detail on the proposal, but that I have good experience in research and with giving local presentations. The other said I described my proposed research well, but don't have enough experience disseminating my research. One said that my tutoring experience and local research presentations show a commitment to broadening participation in science, but my proposed research didn't clearly describe impacts to a broader audience. The other said that I lacked demonstration that I could integrate education and research, but that my proposed research would clearly benefit society if successful. I...just don't know what to think at this point, other than to just do everything better. I'm a first year graduate student, so at least I still have next year. This was my first time applying. Are the reviews always this seemingly contradictory? I guess just different reviewers put emphasis on different things? I'm not surprised that I didn't get it this time, I just don't know what to make of the feedback...

Weird. Mine defaults to 1.00. I have the 2010 version, so maybe they changed it?

I found that talking with a counselor who understood how I felt and went to great pains to make our meetings as comfortable as possible (we met in her home and, knowing that I am more naturally comfortable with cats than I am with people, let her cat sit in the room with us to help calm me down). I found that it was very helpful to have someone to talk to about how I was feeling without being judgmental about it. At my worst I felt nauseous and sometimes threw up whenever I was around anyone I didn't know well. I'm still nervous about talking to professors but at least no longer have the issue of extreme nausea to deal with along with it. Email is generally how I try to cope with it.

4-4.5 I enjoy TAing a lot more than I expected I would. My classes are really challenging me so I don't think I will have a very good GPA this semester, but it will hopefully be good enough. I don't have a project yet and am looking forward to starting research in January. I am enjoying myself socially as well and am making friends much faster than I did in my first year of undergrad.

InquilineKea, did you ever figure out what to do about that? I'm trying to figure out what I should put for scholarships and the like where the award came from an organization and I never had any person at the organization I was in contact with at any point.

Thanks. That does make me feel better. I had thought that this would be my only chance to apply, so I do feel better knowing that I will have another chance. I'm sure having made a previous attempt and having comments to work from will be helpful.

My deadline is tomorrow night. I'm going crazy and agonizing over every detail. I keep thinking that I shouldn't even submit it because it just doesn't feel good enough. I've been reading papers and writing but the more I do the less I feel like I have any idea of what I'm talking about. I keep having nightmares that they'll read my essays and just laugh and I'll get kicked out of grad school and then I'll have a heart attack and die (...that last part of the nightmare probably came from just hearing as I was finishing up the essays that one of my favorite professors from undergrad died of a heart attack at a fairly young age). I've deleted and saved over entire papers before so I'm concerned that I'll try to sabotage myself in a moment of panic, so I've sent copies of each essay to understanding friends as a fail safe in case I do. I feel insane right now and I don't know how to deal with feeling like this. How do you deal with it? I'm trying just to take deep breaths but I feel like I'm drowning.

It's doing both of those things to me, too.

If you do call them, let me know what they say! Mine say "VOID VOID VOID" all over the transcript, too, but you can still read everything so I'm hoping it's okay.

Thanks! That's really helpful.