winged orange

July was kind of an insane month. It started with Gaga and got crazier from there. There wasn’t a day I didn’t have somewhere to be that month, and unfortunately that trend has continued into August, between work, job interviews, and preparing to move and start school. Some days I think whether or not I find a job will be irrelevant because I’m convinced this schedule is going to kill me before school starts anyway. Some days I tell myself to suck it up and get used to it, because once school starts and I finally DO find a job, I’m not going to have a spare minute anyway.

It’s not all been boring, necessary stuff, though. I spent a weekend with Scott; he lives in Seaside (no, he is not a Jersey Shore guido; the thought of it makes me want to puke, not even kidding) and we went to the beach. I spent like six hours in the ocean, which makes up for not having been in the ocean at all in the last six YEARS. I also totally won a free game of Rooftop Mini Golf. Go me.

And I saw Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers with my dad, and they were amazing. Not in the same fist-pumping, foot-stomping way Bon Jovi was amazing, and not in the same flashy trashy way Gaga was amazing, but amazing nonetheless. I love Tom Petty; I kind of wish he was my quiet country uncle who would come to backyard BBQs and have a beer and tell me fun stories. I love that he can rock out and still be reasonably mellow. Plus they played “Learning to Fly,” which is my favorite Tom Petty song ever.

That, though…that was July 31, and that was kind of the last good thing. Sadie, my 1998 Ford Contour, needed new brakes, thermostat, water pump, and heat sensor, so I wracked up a good $800 in repairs. I had several job interviews, none of which have panned out. One of which didn’t actually happen – I took a day off work (and subsequently was docked for the day) to schlep to Manhattan for a second interview for a job I really wanted and was pretty sure I was going to get. I got there early. I waited. Phone calls were made. I waited more. Finally I was told that my interviewer was not coming – “something came up”. When I got home (4 hours later), I had an email from my interviewer saying she’d turned her alarm off and overslept. Really? REALLY? So you oversleep – unprofessional, but it happens. But if your staff are calling you (and they were) telling you that your 10:00 appointment is here, you get your ass out of bed and get to the office. My interviewer wants to reschedule, but not gonna lie, I have major reservations. If that’s how unprofessional you’re going to be before I’m hired, what’s it like to work for you?!

The whole “being unemployed” thing is really stressing me out. Not just because I’m unemployed because I’m going to school, but…well. I might as well put this out there, because I don’t think I’ve addressed this before, even though it was pretty major and happened way back before Disney. Remember that incident that happened back in February/March? That one with that terrible kid that tried to throttle me on two separate occasions and I was afraid to work with him? The one that ended with this statement:

I’m a little nervous about whether I’ll be asked to renew my contract. I don’t especially want to, but I can’t find another job and I can’t get into school, I’m going to have to, and I’m kind of afraid I won’t be recommended for rehire.

Um. Yeah. Turns out I wasn’t recommended for rehire, specifically because of that incident. Apparently I’m a liability. (It’s a long story, and if enough people are interested, I’ll post the whole “How I Got Fired” story in a protected entry. It’s kind of crazy.) Bear in mind, though, I didn’t know this until the end of June, about a week before I left for Disney. I’ve been looking for work in Manhattan since April, blithely using my bosses as references. God only knows what they’re saying about me. I’ve since switched to using my coworkers/head teachers as references instead, but it hasn’t helped my situation any. I am well over 100 applications submitted and still no closer to employment, and that scares the hell out of me, because I start school in, like, 3 weeks. September 8.

That scares the hell out of me too, starting school. In some ways, I’m so excited to go back. I get excited when I tell people that “I’m a first year PhD student” in the same way that I do when I tell people I’m getting married. It’s something that I’ve wanted since I was 11, to be a psychologist. I’m so used to being “not good enough” professionally – not good enough to get my doctorate right out of undergrad, not good enough to find a job with my MA – that I’m a little awestruck that I was accepted to a PhD program at all.

But sometimes the thought of it all paralyzes me. It’s not even the job thing (although finding a job would be a huge help), but it’s just…I wonder if I’m cut out to be a psychologist. I know Fordham accepted me, which implies that they think I’m qualified, but when I read grad student forums and stuff, these people seem so well-spoken and together. And then there’s me, running around Disney World in my Captain EO t-shirt, saying things like, “Awesome possum”. I’m terrified that I’m not mature enough to do this, and I’m terrified that going through with this whole thing will change me into a stodgy, serious version of myself, and I can’t even handle that. I’m fun. I like being fun.

Besides, this whole thing is such a gamble anyway. It’s a calculated gamble this time, at least; I’m paying for 99.9% of my classes and expenses out of pocket, so I won’t be saddled with extra debt that I can’t crawl out from under when I graduate. But all of that is money I can’t save now, so it’s putting me farther behind. I feel so far behind my friends. Almost all of them are married or engaged (finally caught up there, I guess), own houses, have kids on the way, have great jobs that pay them enough to live on and have fun with, or some combination thereof. Scott and I have spent the last four years trying to manage some semblance of financial solvency. We can’t even get married for three more years because we need to save for the wedding and I can’t contribute nearly what I’d like because of school. We won’t be able to own a house or even think about starting a family until we’re at least 30. By that point, my friends’ kids will all be starting kindergarten. I feel like everyone else is swimming through life and I’m just trying to keep my head above water.

I know that it’s a trade-off. I know that, in theory, having my doctorate will make our lives easier. My choice is basically for things to suck now or suck later – if I pay for school out of pocket, things will suck now. If I take loans, things will suck later. I’m choosing for things to suck now, and I know that’s the right choice, but it’s hard and I wish it was easier.

I keep trying to think of A League of Their Own, when Dottie doesn’t want to play baseball anymore because she thinks it might be too hard. And Tom Hanks tells her, “Of course it’s hard. It’s supposed to be hard. If it was easy, everybody would do it. It’s the hard that makes it great.” He was right. He was 100% right.

I just hope that, at the end, the great was worth all the hard.

I’m going to be so sad when spring break is over. I’m really enjoying having a whole week off, even if today is the first day I haven’t left the house. So far on my spring break, I have:

Visited the Franklin Institute with Scott

This is one of those things we’ve been meaning to do for the five and a half years we’ve been together, and are only just now getting to. Neither of us had been to the Institute in about 10 years, and a lot of stuff had changed. We had a pretty good time, though. :) I even had my very first astronaut ice cream, which was much better than I expected room temperature, freeze-dried ice cream to be.

During our trip, we also learned that New York is better than Philadelphia in terms of public transportation and city layout (and everything, really), did a half-ass toe stand on the light-up Billie Jean floor (see photos), and discovered that I have the most awesome but ultimately useless Spidey Sense ever: I can correctly identify a Michael Jackson song from a block away within one note. No lie. There was an impersonator in a park about a block away, and while we were waiting to cross the street, I heard the very beginning of Smooth Criminal – the part right before the heartbeat – and I was all, “What? Smooth Criminal? Where?!” Scott thought I was hearing things until we got farther down the block and he saw the impersonator. “Honey,” he said, “that is AMAZING. One note.” I win. :D

Went to Fordham to meet my advisor

This was yesterday. Ultimately, it went pretty well. Turns out that my master’s degree isn’t entirely useless – out of the 11 classes I took for my MA, I can count 6 of them towards my doctorate. I may also be able to get a seventh, if I can argue it well enough, because APA just changed the requirements on cognition courses. I really hope I can exempt out of it, because not only would it save me $3,000, it would also save me having to take another cog course. It was such a bitch when I took it at Columbia. :P

Anyway. Six courses is a semester and a half, seven is almost a full year. That will save me between $18,000 and $21,000, which is FANTASTIC. I also learned that even though you have to register for some thing, like doctoral residency, thrice (I said it), you only pay for it once, and it’s only a $1,000 fee as opposed to a $3,000 fee. Also, the first three years are heavy coursework, and the last two are practica and internship, which means that those two years are lighter years financially. This is all good news. I sent in my deposit today, with the thought that if I can’t find a job to support myself before the semester starts, that I’ll either withdraw or try to defer my admission.

So in short, #DrWingedOrangePhD is a tentative go. :D (Guys, when I graduate, can I get a sign for my office with that hashtag on it? Please?)

Did no knitting, but lots of spinning

It was 90 degrees most of this week. For some reason, I decided this was the perfect time to play with all my nice, warm wool. I know. It doesn’t make sense to me either, but there you have it. The first thing I wanted to do was finish spinning this fiber I’d had on a bobbin for the last year. The way I screwed up the first half of it was such a disappointment that I couldn’t even touch the second half for the longest time. I wanted my bobbin back, so I just sucked it up and spun it. I’m not even sure how to categorize the final product.

It looks fine in the picture, I know, but see how many skeins there are? That’s a problem. I got that first good-sized skein done and was apparently at 240 yards before the yarn snapped. I was annoyed, but I just skeined up what I had and started over. After another 82 years, the yarn broke again. Nuts. Skein, restart. Then after another 50 yards, I had another snap. By that point, I was yelling, “OH, FOR FUCK’S SAKE!” every two minutes. I got one more 100-yard skein done before I had to stop. You should see what I had to throw out. Probably 50 yards, at least, of little 10-yard pieces that would snap off randomly between the smaller skeins.

I can’t bring myself to wash it. I’m convinced it’s going to disintegrate. The part that gets me is that all told, there’s enough for me to make either of the shawls I want to make. I just don’t know if I trust it. Spinning friends – thoughts? Should I try to use it? Should I treat it like The One Ring and try to burn it, because clearly this stuff is cursed?

In the meantime, I picked up something new so I wouldn’t hate spinning forever and ever because of the Yarn of DOOM. This is cormo/bamboo I got at MD Sheep & Wool last year. It has sparklies in it, which means that everything else in my little world will contain yellow sparklies for about two months after I finish the yarn. :)

I started this post yesterday and only got this far:

Since the last time I posted anything of substance (Gaga squeeing not withstanding), I have moved on from my depressed rage about how I can’t afford to do Fordham’s Ph.D. program to righteous rage because no one at Fordham is calling me back. I’ve emailed my academic advisor about four times in the last two weeks, and since that initial email she sent me from Africa – which led me to believe that Fordham was going to be helpful – I haven’t heard anything more from her. She hasn’t returned my phone calls either. I’ve been trying to schedule a meeting so we can go over my transcript from Columbia and talk about what classes I would hypothetically be taking next year if I registered, but I can’t even get that far. I gave up on financial aid and sorted THAT mess out on my own. It’s to the point now where I’m questioning if I even want to do a program there, because I don’t want to spend five years pulling teeth and beating down doors to get things done. I’ve already been in one program where I wasn’t supported financially OR academically, and that was only 3 semesters. In the words of our “esteemed” former President Bush, “Fool me once, shame on…shame on you? Well, you can’t get fooled again!” (Seriously, click the link. Watch it. It’s worth it. I’ll wait.) I haven’t made a concrete decision yet, but I’m starting to seriously entertain the possibility of walking away and applying again next year. It’s a risk. but I’ve heard this year was one of the most competitive in admissions history, so if I can get admitted this year, I can probably cut it next year too. I just don’t want to be stuck in a program where I’m not heard as a student, and if I walked away for this reason, it would be on my terms, not because I couldn’t scrape together the money.

Today I finally heard back from my advisor, and I have a meeting set up with her at Fordham next Wednesday at 3:30. I am not entirely pacified, because there was no explanation in the email as to why it took a week and a freaking half to get back to me, but I’m trying not to split hairs here. I’m still not sure if this is going to work out, but meeting with my advisor is a good start. At least I’ll be able to figure out a.) which classes from my MA will count towards the Ph.D. and b.) what my program will look like/if some semesters will be more expensive than others. I’ll also be able to get an idea of how my advisor…erm…advises, and how she views and responds to her students academically, which is very telling. There’s so much that’s iffy about me doing this program. Getting a part-time job while I’m in school is iffy, whether I’ll get any help from my family (not because they don’t want to, but they have another kid in school and all) is iffy, whether Fordham will ever cover more than one class is iffy, the helpfulness of the faculty at this point is iffy. Without some of those “ifs,” my ability to finish this program is compromised. I have hardcore warning bells going off in my head, so we’ll see.

On a lighter note, it’s spring time, and as such, I’m doing inventory of my knitting projects to see what stays and what goes. I’ve been more ADD than usual with my knitting this year, I’m guessing due to my astronomical levels of stress. Some of them I know are going to stay, but some I am undecided about. In order of seniority…

Handspun Aeolian shawl – Oh sweet jesus, the trials I have been through with this. Seriously, I was so damaged by the EPIC FAIL OF 09 that the other half of this fiber isn’t even spun up yet. I’ve only just now begun to finish spinning it. I think the new singles are going to be fantastic, but there probably won’t be enough of them to make even the Aeolian shawlette with the narrow edging. I don’t even know if the original plied and beaded debacle is usable. I’m inclined to think it is, just…not for this. My instinct is to make a smaller/different shawl (I was thinking Bitterroot, but don’t think it’s actually any smaller) with the new singles instead of forging ahead with Aeolian. And I’ll just make that…later. Out of something else. Something that I didn’t spin. Yes/no?

Winter Wheezes/Snowflake Mitts – THESE THINGS ARE OUT FOR MY BLOOD. They were really fun when I started them, but somewhere along the way, fun degenerated into being dissatisfied with the way the motifs show up. I could even get past that, but the thumb. THE THUMB. The directions for the thumb in this pattern make no sense to me, and I’m trying to just do it my way, but to do it properly I really should rip back, which isn’t going to happen because of my foolish pride the issues involved ripping back. The motifs look awesome in a from-afar picture, but up close, it’s really hard to make out. My options are to rip these out entirely for something like the Endpaper mitts, where the motif is more dense and repetitive, or to just suck it up and finish these even if I’m a hundred when they’re done. I’m leaning towards the last one because the thought of ripping all that out makes me want to cry. Thoughts?

Rhinebeck One-Row – Meh, this will get done. Possibly on my trip to NYC next week, actually. It’s just a matter of perseverance. There’s nothing wrong with it or anything, and I really do like the yarn. I’m just lazy and now it’s spring, so scarves seem sort of moot right now. :) I’ll probably wear it to Rhinebeck 2010, which is a full Rhinebeck after I planned to wear it (and like three full Rhinebecks after I bought most of the fiber), but it’ll get done. I am unconcerned.

Moonwalker – This one stays. Absolutely. It’s so imperfect, between me flubbing a row here and there and the yarn being so uneven, but I love it and it stays. No one will be able to spot the mistakes anyway, what with the lace pattern being what it is, the unevenness of the yarn, and the fact that where the mistakes are, the yarn is black. I love it even though it’s on size 2 needles and I’ll be knitting it forever; I love it so much that I would be happy to knit a few rows on it here and there for the rest of my life. I think it’s going to come with me to Florida in June so I can work on it during the flight and in the airport and stuff. I am still completely in love with the colors, and I don’t think it will look exactly like I imagined it, but I still firmly believe it will be amazing anyway. Moonwalker L.O.V.E.

It’ll All Work Out – Here’s irony for ya. I’m knitting this to work through my stress and my grad school application process and all that, and I was pretty far in. I was 5 repeats out of 7 on section 2 (so, what? 50-some rows?) and I saw a snag on the edge, so I went to put a lifeline in to fix it. While I was doing that, a bunch of stitches jumped off the needle and started to unravel. But it didn’t unravel across, it unraveled down and sideways! I looked at it, assessed the damage, shed a tear, and then frogged the whole bloody thing and started over. I’m presently two repeats (out of 7) into section 2, but I have Season 3, Disc 1 of Mad Men coming so I imagine I’ll make some good progress on it over spring break.

I have all these big projects going on. I need to start knitting socks again or something.

Other things I need to do: vacuum my car, bathe in the moonlight, and reorganize my tags here and on LJ. They are a hot mess.

The last time I posted, I had been having some work issues and had just been rejected from first-choice grad school. Some things have happened in between, but since one of them was good (and since nothing is set in stone), I haven’t mentioned them. There is still nothing set in stone, but it’s been such a long time, and this is really the only thing on my mind these days, so I feel the need to tell everyone…

…that I got accepted into the school psychology Ph.D. program at Fordham!

This means:

• I WOULD BE A FUCKING DOCTOR. :D
• I’d be back in Manhattan for 5 years.
• I’d have to move (!!!!!).
• I need to find a way to pay for it.

That last one is the kicker. Fordham is not a cheap school; it’s $1,000 per credit. Doctoral program is 96 credits, and that doesn’t include college fees and things like rent and food and books. If school psychologists didn’t only make about $60,000 a year, and if I didn’t already have $60,000 of debt from my useless Master’s degree, and if I wasn’t thinking about getting married in two years, and if Scott and I didn’t actually want a family, all of that would be fine. But those things exist, and they’re real concerns.

I got an assistantship from Fordham, which pays for one course (~$3,000) in exchange for six hours of work a week. I figured out that if I can get Fordham to give me a scholarship (which pays for 20% of tuition) in addition to the assistantship, and if I work part time at a job that pays me roughly what I make now (which is not a lot and wouldn’t be difficult to do, I’d imagine), I can afford to go. The fourth class each semester would have to be put on loans, but if I take no more than $40,000 for loans, my payments when I graduate would be manageable. I’m not worried about my ability to find a job. I’m worried about Fordham coming up with the scholarship. It’s based on GPA – mine was a 3.95, so I qualify there – and need. I don’t know how Fordham defines need, but I know how I define it, and I qualify. ;) I filed my FAFSA the weekend I got accepted, so I’m just waiting for someone to make a decision.

In the meantime, I’ve been applying for jobs and making phone calls to get questions answered. My advisor at Fordham (or who will be my advisor if I go) emailed me back on a weekend, during Fordham’s spring break, FROM AFRICA. Congratulations Fordham, you guys are already a million times more helpful than Columbia ever was. She said I may be able to transfer several of my classes from my useless Master’s, and I could potentially test out of intro to stats and experimental design. If everything that I would like to transfer does, that’ll knock a whole year of my doctoral program.

She also forwarded my email to the professor that handles scholarships, and for that I am so grateful. Hopefully someone will have good news for me tomorrow.

Right now, I’m trying to find ways to make this happen. This is my Tim Gunn “make it work” moment here. I’m trying not to focus on how shitty I will feel if I have to walk away from this, and how, if that happens, there will never be a time in my life when this is okay. I’m just trying to GET IT DONE. I have until April 15 to make a decision, so at some point between now and then, I will be busting my ass so I can go. If this works out, guys, this will officially be the best year of my 25-year-old life.

I used to be a reader when I was younger. I was never, ever without a book in my purse and often had a spare in my locker in case I finished a book in study hall. As I got older, the only reading I did was in class or when a new Harry Potter book would be released, and the ever-present book in my purse was replaced by the now-ever-present knitting in my purse. I’ve been trying to get more into reading for pleasure, but my ADD kicks in, and I’ll read a few pages and stop to do something else. After a night or two, the book gets discarded, half-read.

Scott likes comic books. Well, I use the word “likes” loosely – he “likes” comic books the way I “like” yarn. So by “like,” I mean, “love and adore”. He’s been trying to get me to read comic books for the 5 years we’ve been dating, and he’s failed miserably. I know a little about a lot of comic book characters, but I am not a good versus evil superhero kind of person the way that Scott is. One of our friends, though (who has a boyfriend who is AT LEAST as nerdy as Scott, and I only mean that lovingly and in a good way), is reading this series called Fables. The link will tell you what you need to know, but basically, it’s about characters from fairy tales and fables being forced out of their Homeland by the Adversary and are now forced to live in New York City (and upstate, for the less human Fables) in exile. Remember how, in Shrek, all the fairy tale creatures showed up in Shrek’s swamp when Lord Farquaad banished them? That’s kind of what Fables is, only with lots of snark and badassery. Scott brought me the first 4 volumes to try over the weekend, and I polished off two of them in an hour each. It’s fantastic.

So when we went out with friends this weekend, we stopped at Borders and Scott bought me some presents:

I got the most recent issue of Spin-Off magazine and volumes 5, 6, and 7 of Fables. I’m set for a while, I think. :) Also, I feel the need to point out that one of the Fables is Frau Totenkinder, who is the witch from Hansel & Gretel. She knits, and her knitting needles have names – and they are Hunger and Judgment. This made my life in so many ways.

I also did a different kind of reading today. A few years ago, when I was unemployed, I picked up a learn-to-read tarot set for $10 at B&N. I thought it would be good for me to learn, since a.) I had nothing else to do at the time, and b.) I thought it might help me be less Type A. I like everything really clear-cut and concrete, and tarot, by definition is not that way. I learned, did a few readings for Scott that were accurate but not necessarily positive, and I did one for my mom that told her she was going to get a windfall, and later that week, she won $10,000 in the lottery. Then I got a Real Job, moved, and forgot all about it. While we were at Borders this weekend, the craft section was right in front of a display of tarot decks. Scott told our friends that I knew how to read them, and it totally reminded me. When I got home from work today, I dug them out today and did a reading for my week. This grad school thing is stressing me out, and since I’m not getting any answers anyplace else, I figured why the hell not?

Here are the cards I drew:

According to the book that came with my cards, it says that in this spread, the card in the middle is the significator, and it’s supposed to give you the flavor of your week. Mine is The Wheel of Fortune, which the book says means a major life change and is generally a fortuitous card.

I started reading from Tuesday going through next Monday. In the Tuesday position is The Star, upside down. According to my book, it can mean either turning away from creative opportunities, or having unrealistic expectations. I don’t think I like that one – unrealistic expectations about getting into grad school? Do not want.

For Wednesday, I got the Knight of Cups, also upside down. The book says it can show you an individual who will let you down badly, or can represent the end of a project or relationship. Also, in the context of this week – DO NOT WANT.

Thursday’s card was The Moon, which the book says means I am doubting something (no kidding, cards. No kidding). It also says, “A risk is involved that could take you away from familiar surroundings.” So…am I going to grad school here or what, cards? :P

Friday’s card is The Lovers, upside down, which the book says means weakness and temptation, or taking an easy option I may regret in the future. It also represents a lack of commitment. I don’t think I appreciate this either, and I don’t really understand it. My actual relationship is very committed, and I can’t figure out what this means in terms of other events.

Saturday’s card is The World (I will not sing We Are the World, I will not sing We Are the World…). My book says this represents a successful outcome, and that one chapter of my life is closing so another can open. This card I like. :) I’m confused why it’s on Saturday, though. The university faculty aren’t in on Saturday and therefore won’t be making calls that day.

For Sunday, I got the Two of Swords, upside down. The book says that this shows deception in a partnership and a lack of trust and that hidden lies may be distorting my views of a life situation. …? I have no idea what to make of that one.

And lastly, for next Monday, I drew the Nine of Wands. The book says that this means that I am a strong person with a good support system, which I find to be true. It also says it could represent excessive demands on my time, energy, and finances, which grad school would totally be, if I got in. (Even though I drew it right-side up, I find it interesting that the interpretation for it upside down is “stress and intense pressure”.)

I know that interpretations of the cards are open to more finessing than I know how to do at this point, and also that the cards may mean different things depending on which interpretation of the tarot as a whole that you follow. So I don’t know really what to make of this besides the lame interpretation I offered up, but I like some of the more positive influences I pulled. I’m just talking out of my ass here, but it’s nice to have something to look at besides my phone that’s not ringing with an admissions offer.

I’m back from my interview at Lehigh! It was a pretty crazy couple of days. I got lost in every possible way – on my way to PA in the first place, from Scott’s uncle’s to the university, AT the university, from Lehigh to Kate’s…everywhere. It was pretty insane. Scott has a wonderful uncle, though, who used his wonderful sense of direction and guided me all over the Lehigh Valley by phone.

So apparently Lehigh University is on a mountain. ON. A. MOUNTAIN. No one told me, until Scott’s aunt mentioned it the night before. I’m from New Jersey. We don’t have mountains. Also, when I heard “on a mountain,” I took that to mean a mountain that had been flattened off and had a school built on it. Yeah…not so much. The undergrad campus is built at the foot and into the side of the mountain, but the graduate campus is called “Mountaintop Campus,” and it’s aaaalllll the way at the tippy-top of the mountain. I was almost late to the interview because I had terrible directions from GoogleMaps and couldn’t find the building I needed to be in and I kept getting lost on the very wind-y, steep mountain. I mean, this thing is like a Mount Krumpit, “the Grinch-tried-to-stop-Christmas-from-coming” mountain. I’m afraid of heights, guys. I was doing really well driving up the mountain until I looked to my left and saw…well. I saw all of Bethlehem, PA. I almost had a heart attack. And when I had to do a U-turn on the mountain to go back in the right direction, I almost rolled my car and I think I have TRULY had a mini heart attack. Not gonna lie, it was scary as hell.

The interview itself went as well as it could have gone. Mountain aside, I like it there. I introduced myself to all the faculty, talked forever with a lot of the current students, and was in general a lot more comfortable with the process than I was when I interviewed that one time in undergrad. Aside from a couple of off-the-wall interview questions, I felt like I knew what I was doing. The interview committee said that they have one more day of interviews on Monday. They’ll deliberate on Tuesday, and let us know if we’ve been accepted by the end of next week, so now the trick is just to breathe and get through the week.

Meanwhile, I have another interview at Fordham on Wednesday. I’m not as stressed about this one, partially because it’s in Manhattan and I know where I’m going and how to get there. The other part is that even though Fordham is a Ph.D. program, their funding is nowhere near where Lehigh’s is for their Ed.S, so even if I got into Fordham, I might not be able to go. When I was applying to schools in the fall, Fordham’s funding looked to be all partial, whereas Lehigh is full. It would be easier to go to Fordham just location-wise, but it’s 5+ years as opposed 3 at Lehigh (and really, the 3 years is 2 years, because the third year is practicum and I can do that anyplace). I wish I had interviewed at Fordham first, so I could go through what I consider to be a lower-stress interview before I got to Lehigh, but it is what it is. I was charming, I sizzled, I did the best I could have done, so it’s on Lehigh at this point to make their decision.

In any case, this is also a short week for me at work, which is good. I’ll be out on Wednesday to go to Fordham and then Friday, my class is taking an all-day field trip to Adventure Aquarium, which is arguably one of my favorite places in the world. And hopefully I’ll have good news to report by then as well. I kind of can’t wait until this business is over, because it’s wearing me out.

Clearly my brain is a black hole, because I totally though it’d only been a week since I last posted, but apparently it’s been two and that missing week is somewhere in the recesses of my brain. In the last week,  have:

• been driven crazy by my students
• knit a mitten
• watched the entirety of Season 1 of Mad Men
• been entertained by the Golden Globes
• got invited to interview at my top choice grad school

See that there? That last one? That sort of made my week. I’m amazingly excited, and I’m a little on the edge of my seat waiting for Feb. 19 so I can go knock the interviewer’s socks off with my charm and pizazz. ;) It’s a really good sign in terms of acceptance (and usually funding) to be invited for an in-person interview, so I was happy-dancing around the house like nobody’s business. Even if I don’t hear anything from any of my other schools, if I get into this school with funding, my life will be a place of gloriousness and joy. I went shopping today with a friend to find some interview clothes, and was modestly successful – I found a great skirt and some adorable shoes, but struck out on the top half because my Boobs of DOOM combined with my shortness makes it difficult to find things that fit. I did, however, discover that I dropped a size when I was buying my skirt. I’m officially a 12 again. :)

I was also pretty pleased with the finishing of the mitten. I really should be knitting other things, like my Moonwalker scarf, but I used up stash yarn and I really love the mittens. They’re Bella’s Mittens, but I found some modifications on Ravelry to make them flip-top mittens. I finished one this week, and hopefully will finish the other next week so I can still wear them while it’s cold out.

I sort of love this mitten. I need to knit a second one, and for once, I’m not having “second [insert item] syndrome”. Hopefully I’ll have new mittens before February rolls in. :)

I’m glad that I’ve chosen this point in my life to pursue a doctoral program…

I feel that my experiences make me an ideal candidate for…

I would be right at home in the school psychology department of…

Based on the program website, I think I would contribute nicely to the atmosphere..

I really dig the vibe y’all have going on over there…

Look, I really love kids and I’ve been doing this for three years…

I’d be awesome in a doctoral program because I’m a huge nerd.

…Just let me in and give me some cash, okay?

(This personal statement stuff is getting old. Is it December 1 yet?)