Round Robin, v. Applications Have Been Submitted

[gellert]

All right, so, let's play a game to while away the days/weeks(/months) while we wait to find out the results of our labors.

You know how to play Round Robin, right? Someone writes a sentence (or a few sentences) of a story to start us off. The next person continues the story (preferably logically) in a few more sentences. The next person picks up where that person left off, and ... you get the picture. Eventually you end up with a complete story, usually pretty funny or full of weird twists.

I'll start us off!

--

"Thank you for submitting your application to the University of Awesomesauce - South Epic. Your application is being processed, and you will receive a confirmation email shortly." There was no going back. No more last minute edits to her statement of purpose, or harried text messages to her adviser wondering if she should or shouldn't list all the other schools to which she's applying. Just done. Finished. Well, not finished, not really. Because now ... now, she must wait.

[starstuff]

"I can handle this", she reminded herself. Perhaps four years of time were enough to dim her memories of the months-long wait for admission into college, or perhaps the previous wait was easier because her fate was simply more certain. Regardless, the onslaught of emotions upon submitting her last graduate school application felt entirely new. She finally un-peeled her eyes from her laptop and slowly stood up from her desk chair.

[LLajax]

Pushing the chair in, she wound her way to the door of her room, avoiding the neglected piles of laundry and stacks of books that littered her floor. As she reached the door, she looked back, her anxiety growing as she walked farther away from her laptop. She scampered back to the desk and snatched her phone- just in case.

[litjust]

Someone might call. But what would she say? She shifted the phone uneasily in her hands, while nervously sifting through unspoken thoughts concerning a phone conversation that had yet to take place. Tremors of agitation fluttered beneath her skin in a moment of consternation. "Calm down," she whispered quietly. She understood the apprehension of applying, yet this anxiety precipitated by the impending call was new. How would she avoid merely regurgitating details expressed on paper?

[dispositif]

Looking out her bedroom window and into the dark winter night, she realized that such a call was unlikely to come in the next few hours. She loosened her grip on her phone and set it aside on her bureau, and then became tickled with herself after realizing that today was the unofficial beginning to the university holiday season. Administrators and junior faculty alike were already abandoning their desks and office hours, heading for warmer climates--or bourbon.

[gradapp2012]

"You really need to get a grip on yourself" she scolded herself. After all, how many others were out there who must have submitted the applications before she did and were biding their time? Could'nt she do as much? Forcing her mind away from her recently submitted applications, she started thinking about the next day. What were the things she needed to do tomorrow?

[Gvh]

"Oh, crap" she remembered as she looked at her Outlook Calendar. "Send thank you/holiday greetings cards to LOR writers" read under reminders for today's date. But what am I supposed to write? Do I address them as "Dr.?", no, perhaps that's too formal. After all, they were my tutors for years. "Hi, David!" she pictured her top LOR writer reading the first line to a potential Christmas card; "UGH!". "That's it, I officially need to find a new hobby", she mused. "...but what about those thank you cards..?"

Edited December 19, 2011 by Gvh

[gellert]

"Whatever," she decided at last. "I'll make a topic on TGC later today and ask a whole bunch of internet people I don't know for their opinions and then arbitrarily choose one of the three inevitably contradictory answers and do that." It's as good a plan as any. She tucked her iPhone back into the pocket of her jeans and vowed not to check her email at least for the next hour.

[gradapp2012]

Goodness gracious , where was she? As she slowly got her bearings she realized, she had fallen asleep in front of her laptop yet again...something she had been doing the whole past week. Though she had wanted to forget all about the applications and had made it a point to enjoy her holidays the whole of the past week, every night had found her as usual checking her mails and pouncing on any morsel of information she could get on the internet regarding the admission season.Just now, she had been rudely awakened out of a beautiful dream in which she had been expounding on the possible applications of her research ideas to an appreciative audience by the by the thrilling sound of her beeping phone...