Tuesday, January 25, 2011

I'll pursue it with forks and hope

It was torture tearing myself away from my friends in MA this time, much worse than I remember it being the first time I left. I'm still happy about my decision to return to Peru, but a big part of me wanted to just sleep on the mattress on the floor of Mel's room all semester. I'm sure her roommate would've loved that as well.

But I couldn't mooch off meal points and oatmeal forever, so here I am again. Suitcase still packed on my own floor.

I've decided that one of the projects I'm going to take up to keep me from intense boredom in these last three weeks before I head back to Peru is The Hunting of the Perfect Grad School. I do indeed tend to "press the snooze button on life," as a wise old facebook sticker once described post-grad education. (whatever happened to facebook stickers? Is it no longer cool to send trite, witty, cute, and unoriginal sayings to your distant acquaintances? Except "penguin slap" of course. That was genius.) Bonus points (umm...in the game of life?) if you know what the title references, by the way.

So I was the girl that started searching for colleges freshman year of high school, but I'm finding this search much less exciting. Probably because I'm going to be entirely on my own dime on this one, which means I have to worry about tuition and scholarships and teacher assistantships and paying off student loans until I'm 40. Wait, I'll be in education, so make that 50.

I really hope that was an exaggeration.

But I found good news this morning: my former participation in an Americorp program means that many universities will waive my application fee! It may seem small, in the scheme of things, but it feels like the universe wants me to succeed.

Some schools I'm investigating:

My friend's boyfriend tried to get us into the education building at BU on Saturday night, but all we really saw were janitors leering at us from inside the locked doors.



Suggestions for grad school hunts, or suggestions for MA in TESOL programs? (I should figure out some way to sort of hint at these questions instead of asking them outright, cause for some reason people just shy away from answering direct question. Y'all's behavior patterns are very strange.)

These images aren't mine, obviously. But they probably originally came from publicity shots, so I'm thinking they won't mind.

9 comments:

  1. all the best in hunting for universities. I've a lot of friends who are in CALI and are enjoying themselves very much. Why not head to a college there??

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  2. I am in the same boat, and loving your "snooze button" expression. I am fighting off many well intended suggestions that I ... don't take this time for myself. I guess I just can't help it. Good luck on your search.

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  3. Yikes, everyone is going for grad school these days. As for my opinion on where you should go, I think you know what I would say =) However, I am biased.

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  4. RS: Great suggestion, and in college searches I did hunt in the west. But I'm afraid I've since solidified as a Northeasterner. And plus, I cringe at the thought of the cost of plane tickets.

    Shopgirl: Always good to know there are others in the boat!

    Trish: I do :) , but I'm going big city if I can.

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  5. aww that sucks. =( but you're an American citizen and u know best! I've only been to Florida, California, Las Vegas aaand Hawaii. Hehe.

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  6. Good luck with your university hunting :)

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  7. I don't intentionally mean to skirt your questions, I just don't have any suggestions. My suggestion wouldn't be based on you, but rather how it relates to me - I Heart Universtiy of Colorado, Boulder. (I miss Colorado so bad sometimes it feels like my eyeballs are going to bleed.) Though if you were to choose CU, it's guaranteed that you would be able to fulfill your need to produce snow angels a few times a year.

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  8. Which is, of course, the main reason why you would choose a particular grad school.

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  9. Starlight: thanks!

    Holly: it's definitely a factor....

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