gadhelyn Posted January 27, 2009 Posted January 27, 2009 I've been wanting to make my chocolate cake lately. It's so chocolaty that when it's cut, the cake part of it sometimes actually bleeds chocolate. But after I have a slice there's the problem of the rest of the cake being there, begging to be eaten. Not a good idea when one cake requires 3 sticks of butter.
daddys_girl Posted January 27, 2009 Posted January 27, 2009 I do most of my work on a computer, so I'm constantly checking my email and this forum for results. I've applied to nine schools... and i"m just hoping that I get into one school with funding and I feel like my stress level will go down a lot! **at least I hope** I too have baked a lot... mostly brownies!
void Posted January 28, 2009 Posted January 28, 2009 I work all day, but I have my email open and halfway jump whenever I get a new email. I also check up on the results page every so often between tasks. I am both overly anxious but weirdly calm about it. This is my second time applying as I first applied for M.A. and I am now applying for Ph.D. and I have found that I am much less on edge the second time around. That said, my programs won't start notifying until more like mid-February at the earliest. I have actually found myself cooking more. Lots of fancy vegetarian foods. Well, fancy for me. This is probably just from the excessive free time I have found with just working full time, as opposed to my frantic M.A. program madness or the hell I put myself through for applying. (I literally don't know what to do with myself on evenings and weekends now..)
xuanie Posted January 28, 2009 Posted January 28, 2009 I play my instrument 10 hours a day till my bro screams at me, then I talk to him about how uneasy I feel till he beats me up... (he is preparing for qualifying so I felt quite guilty for doing that to him.. but that was what he did to me last year when he was waiting... :shock: )
duncandam Posted January 28, 2009 Posted January 28, 2009 I'm pretty much in the same phase as everyone here. I already got accepted to couple of very good programs, one of them is my top choice. But I'm still going insane with the waiting. I have been refreshing the results page like every 10 mins. I'm a college senior, taking 3 classes. One of my field, ceramics class and building a folk instrument class. I tried to spend alot of time in the studio, just for the heck of it. However, it doesn't seem to help me getting out of this addiction. I think I'm going crazy before actually in Grad school Peace and good luck to everyone
Md23Rewls Posted January 28, 2009 Posted January 28, 2009 My initial nervousness has abated some, but I still refresh the various blogs/forums pretty often looking for acceptances. Staying around the house has started to drive me crazy, so I'll go out for a while and try to take my mind off of everything, then come back and think about everything some more. On occasion I'll do some day writing (I'm more of a night writer, though). I'm trying to learn how to play guitar, which is time consuming. I'm also still in the process of looking for a job, which is annoying. I'm not much of a cook, but I've found that making myself a fried egg sandwich has a calming effect when all this MFA stuff is getting to be too much. Something about eggs on the stove is soothing, haha. Whenever I feel the stress building I listen to music--Bob Dylan has saved my life many a times throughout this process.
dragynally Posted January 28, 2009 Posted January 28, 2009 I started exercising 20 mins a day. I know its good for you but I'm just trying to kill time.I also check the forums and results daily.
fenderpete Posted January 28, 2009 Posted January 28, 2009 Well I'm currently working my way through the Oscar nominated films... I'd highly recommend Frost/Nixon and Milk - both awesome political movies and very engaging. I saw Valkyrie last night as well, which is very entertaining and gripping. Under no circumstances whatsoever should anyone watch Revolutionary Road. I've never wanted two hours of my life back so badly... I've got Waltz with Bashir and Persepolis to watch at some stage... So that's been my evenings. During the day undergrad is kicking off again finally, so by next week I'll be juggling Terrorism, Middle Eastern Politics and Arabic. I need to hammer out a couple of essays in the next few weeks to get to grips with my dissertation for three months solid. This is going to be pretty painful until 5th May. Like others have said, finding any level of concentration these days is a real challenge, I've got my iPhone connected to WiFi and checking for email any time I'm home, and doing the same via 3G at all other times. That combined with GradCafe and checking online status (I'm not even sure what an update on ApplyYourself or Embark will look like) doesn't leave grad school far from my mind.
jduds Posted January 28, 2009 Posted January 28, 2009 I have a Blackberry so email ultimately pop up. I spend most of my day at work. Then I go to the gym, and then I go home and watch some telly, or do some (pleasure) reading. The only time I think about it is when I'm at work. Otherwise, as long as I'm off the computer, everything is ok.
ohheygradschool Posted January 28, 2009 Posted January 28, 2009 I started exercising 20 mins a day. I know its good for you but I'm just trying to kill time.I also check the forums and results daily. That's a great idea. What a strangely effective motivator.
ewurgler Posted January 28, 2009 Author Posted January 28, 2009 Well I'm currently working my way through the Oscar nominated films... I'd highly recommend Frost/Nixon and Milk - both awesome political movies and very engaging. I saw Valkyrie last night as well, which is very entertaining and gripping. Under no circumstances whatsoever should anyone watch Revolutionary Road. I've never wanted two hours of my life back so badly... d. I too really enjoyed milk and frost/nixon, but I liked The Reader and Slumdog Millionaire much more. That sucks to hear about revolutionary road...I was looking forward to the Titanic reunion. Also, I have been re-watching episodes Arrested Development and It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia on Hulu.com. THe humor takes my mind off the horrible wait.
revrocksteady Posted February 19, 2009 Posted February 19, 2009 I was so relieved and relaxed after I finished my applications . . . for the last few weeks, I can say that I didn
Jakrabite Posted February 20, 2009 Posted February 20, 2009 February reminds of me Waiting for Godot.
MDLee Posted February 20, 2009 Posted February 20, 2009 My typical day looks something like this: Get up in the morning. Check email. Check status reports. Check phone. Check email again. Post three to ten times to GradCafe. Work or school. Contemplate rejection. Contemplate acceptance. Talk to people about both. Check email. Check status reports. Check phone. Check email again. Post to GradCafe. Over lunch (which is probably ramen noodles since I'm a broke college student), decide what my call sign would be if I became a highly educated cross country trucker. Go back and forth between "Dr. Driver" and "Mother Trucker". Check email. Check status reports. Check Phone. Check email again. Post to GradCafe. Try to do homework/be productive at work. Go home. Once there, check Idealist.Org and wonder if it would just be best to join the PeaceCorps. Contemplate taking the LSATs and doing international law. Contemplate joining a band of gypsies. Contemplate the truck driving again. Go to bed. Start over. Its exhausting...
waitinginohio Posted February 20, 2009 Posted February 20, 2009 February reminds of me Waiting for Godot. YES! Except the acceptances/rejections tend to actually show up.
Dinali Posted February 20, 2009 Posted February 20, 2009 Contemplate joining a band of gypsies. I already looked into this. Apparently you can't just join, you have to be born in. Dammit.
Jakrabite Posted February 20, 2009 Posted February 20, 2009 YES! Except the acceptances/rejections tend to actually show up. Haha.. What I meant was that in my case I keep waiting for acceptances that never come along. Rejects are arriving in abundance like rednecks at a Dolly Parton concert.
feisty Posted February 20, 2009 Posted February 20, 2009 I work from 9-6, email my friends from high school and college a lot, come home, maybe call my mom or another friend, watch TV-shows on various Asian bootleg sites, read a little bit. Try to do yoga or exercise before work every day, usually don't. When I was applying I was definitely stressed--I'd go straight from work to a coffee shop, work on my applications, then pass out every day. Since then, though, I honestly haven't been that stressed. It's out of my hands. I think about it a lot, but with a distant sort of nervous curiosity.
fortiesgirl Posted February 20, 2009 Posted February 20, 2009 Wake up to "alarm" around 7 am (my two-year old) Take son to daycare 8:30 am teach at college from 11-4, meet with students, grade, prep (mondays and wednesdays) Check email/status intermittantly Pick up son from daycare Make dinner/Straighten up house Husband home 6 pm Family time "me" time (either at the gym or prepping for courses) - depending on the day Son goes to bed 8:30/9 pm adult time, watch movies, discuss, etc. Home all day with son on Tues/Thurs/Fri.
void Posted February 20, 2009 Posted February 20, 2009 Get up, check email, go to work, keep email open and check results on grad cafe every couple minutes, try to function at work and fail, check results, maybe post something in the forum, go home or go to exercise class first, check email, dinner, teevee sometimes, bed, repeat.
livinitup Posted February 20, 2009 Posted February 20, 2009 Work, surf gradcafe at work, facebook at work, http://www.fmylife.com at work, gym, dinner, tv, bed. The only thing keeping me sane is that I boycott the internet after 5 pm.
psycholinguist Posted February 22, 2009 Posted February 22, 2009 Get up, eat breakfast, go to class for between 1 and 5 hours, have a snack (optional), go to a meeting, think about working on thesis, work on thesis (optional), go buy groceries (optional), get back, have dinner, read a bit, do homework, surf the 'net, and go to bed sometime between 9:30 PM and 4:00 AM depending on a) how tired I am and how long I spent on both of the previous items on this list.
fuzzylogician Posted February 22, 2009 Posted February 22, 2009 (It's the semester break here so I have a lot of free time on my hands). This was today's schedule: Wake up. Check my email. Check posts on thegradcafe. Drink coffee. Refresh inbox. Prepare breakfast. Refresh inbox. Eat breakfast. Refresh inbox. Finish grading students' exams, check email intermittantly. Input grades into computer and calculate final scores. Refresh inbox. Cook and eat lunch. Check email and gradcafe postings. Randomly post something on some forum. Work on thesis, keep inbox open and check it every so often. Get frustrated with thesis and surf aimlessly for a while. Go out for a walk in the neighborhood, get some fruit at the supermarket. Worry about not checking email for an hour. Go back home and check email. Be disappointed that there are no news. Meet friends for drinks/dinner. Yearn to check email. Get back home, check email and gradcafe postings. Be disappointed again. Watch some TV. Check one last time for good news, get none. Go to bed hoping that tomorrow there will be news. Never mind that it's saturday and there won't likely be any news.
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