La Vie En Rose for 2006 October

Je ne m'ennuie jamais. Je traville trop.

For the last few weeks I have been dreaming about a scholarship that is so great, it pays for everything for a degree in the UK, from one's flights over to shipping one's "books and shoes". Today I sat down with one of my professors to go over a plan for getting into a PHD program & paying for it ("I like a challenge," says she) and browsing some websites I discover the deadline for this scholarship is not, like I thought, in November, but October 4. For those of you who don't know, that's TOMORROW.

A few telephone calls ascertain that they don't consider late applications, at all. Wailing with despair I left the office, kicking myself and saying this is just what I deserve for not paying closer attention. Sitting in the library, whimpering softly, I realised that everything is online except for the transcripts, so if I really rush, I could get it done, and have the transcripts arrive a day or so late, MAYBE they will look at it. MAYBE. Well it's better to try than not, I figured, so I have been running around frantically trying to do these things, calling in favors, making pleading phone calls, and crawling on my hands an knees into various offices. FOUR letters of recommendation in 24 hours. I guess a different way of looking at it is, what a lucky girl I am, having four people who are willing to do that for me. That's on top of the application itself, and an endorsement from the Dean. Aieeeee...

My new motto is "if pigs are flying then they already have wings." This attachment to sleep has got to go. Of course, I never sleep well when I'm stressed out. I'm tired now but by the time I get home my mind will be racing.

These early deadlines are insane, right? back me up here. Most people don't figure out their plans (if they are changing) for the next academic year until May. What I really hate most is the fact that I feel like I am going through my panic/clueless phases of life like a chicken with my head cut off, no idea what I am doing.

I think the irony of it all is that I DID manage to get all the application materials gathered in time... but it wasn't sent by the coordinator by midnight. Still, there's hope. It seems like such a small thing... Anyway, perhaps the really amazing thing is that I did something that seemed at first quite impossible.

Now I am working on all the other applications that are coming up, in between french homework, papers, reading... Luckily only two more this month, and hopefully I'll be done with the rest in November. The good thing now I already have all the references, personal statement, research statement done, though I'll have to work on a more detailed research propsal and writing sample. It's annoying that I'm only half-way through this program so only have half of what I'd like to show for it. It's so much easier to apply when one is finished with one's degree. Also wouldn't it make things much easier is transcripts transfered schools along with students? Then one would only have to order one set of transcripts, from the school one is currently attending, elimiating the need for frantic rush orders and running about the continent. But then, I guess, how would they rip you off?

Class, homework, reading, work, grad school applications, running around chicken-like, headless... this is what my life consists of for 12-16 hours every day these days. I just: finished a paper of Vera Brittain from Spring Quarter FINALLY (because I want there to be an actual grade on my transcripts when I send them to schools), realised how hungry I am, and checked my email for the first time all weekend. Still to do tonight: French composition. I wonder what would happen if I turn it in late. Tomorrow I have class from 9-12:30 and work from 1-9:30. So I'd really like to get some sleep. And there is still an article to read for discussion. Well, maybe I can do it, only 200 words (compared with the 4500 I just cranked out on women war writers, tho, in English). It would be jsut my luck to have this French class screw up my GPA.

The good news is I found my pen drive. (without it I can't print so this is really good news). It was in a purse I swear I looked in a dozen times but whatever. Maybe Tonks borrowed it and put it back when I wasn't looking. It wouldn't be surprising; he did that thing where suddenly he's outside but I don't remember letting him outside again. Or maybe I'm just going crazy... Everyone else in the "24 hour library hellhole room" is packing up so maybe I will too.

What kind of a deadline is the 15th? A Sunday? I have to stay up till 1 am to call & ask if it's ok taht my application won't get delivered until the following day since there aren't any postal deliveries on the deadline date. My guess is they just don't change the deadline year to year. Hopefully it defaults to the nearest business day and not the nearest business day previous to. Ridiculously early, anyway, says I.

I suspect that one of the cats has peeed in my room, but I can't find the habeas corpus, which leads me to suspect Tonks, but he has never sprayed before and I don't know where he would have picked up the habit or the idea that he could use it as revenge. JB is not known for her malicious tendencies, either. But perhaps it is a cry for attention against all the neglect with which I have been treated the poor kitties these weeks. I resorted to kicking them out of the room when I left this morning. Not too much of a disruption anyway since tonks doesn't sleep on my bed! Anyway it may have been my imagination.

I have just a few hours before I go to work & I'm working how I should best spend my time: gym (not likely to happen), back to bed (more likely) or revising my writing sample (perhaps most practical). I'm so glad I don't have to work the rest of this week after today. This crazy lifestyle was a real kick in the pants that I thought I needed, but it's really starting to wear me down. I wish wish wish this stupid application that is due so early wasn't the one I cared the most about. All my other ones will be so much better because I'll have had more time, and have done ones before. It's the same with the scholarship. But maybe they have to make it so early because there is so much competition and they want to weed out the slackers! I really hope I luck out and my "original way of thinking," as one professor put it, and research experience wins me over people with better grades and perhaps more organizations skills. Blaaaah....

soo soo tired. And it's only 9am. And sick. Blah. I tried calling the dept of the school of the ridiculously early application and I didn't succeed. telephone technology elludes me. Oh well. I will just sent it to arrive Monday, there is not much else I can do about it, is there. I can't even care, I am so tired. Just class to get through, a french interview which I will probably fail, and then I can go home and have a nap in my pee-scented room before I start all the other thousands of things I have to do. Luckily tomorrow I don't work so I can really sleep in. I am sooo worn out. This is what I mean about not doing well on no sleep. Even if I get 5 or 6 hours a night this eventually happens. I'm sorry to be such a complainer, hopefully there will eventually be soem good news to compensate for this.

Only to arrive at Fed Ex at 5:10 when last call for express packages is 4:45. Oh well.

Here is the thing that bothers me most about the application I just turned in (besides the early deadline). They wanted my picture. Attached to the front page of every copy of the application I sent in. Which added like an hour to my prep time since I had to find a good one, print out 6 copies, and cut them to fit into the little box (actually I recruited Chaz for this job). But why does it matter what I look like? How do my looks have anything to do with my academic ability? I'm sure they just want to put a face to the words but it all seems a bit odd to me. (I used the picture of me on the train from Novi Sad.)

For details on the past weekend, see here. I am in the process of working on a wishlist for Christmas, as requested by Susie, but I still need to sort out some of the books I need for class before I post it.

Speaking of books for class, I signed up for this great website, bookmooch.com, where you can get books for FREE! Just by trading other books. So by giving away some books that I don't want or need anymore, I have gotten books that I do want/need for FREE! Including 3 books for class so far. Which is really great. Books for classes are generally so expensive, nothing beats getting them for the price of sending another book out on a swap. Even though I love all my books and like to have them decorating the shelves, I don't mind parting with some of them that I know I'll never read again, to give them to someone else who will love them, and get books that I haven't read yet for FREE! Yay.

I was at dagny's working on my french homework... which has to be done online since the workbook is on this website, and the connection suddenly expired and wouldn't let me reconnect so I lost all of the work I'd done. Fab. Of course, the work I had done wasn't very much, I don't know if that makes it better or not.

I convinced the people at Flame and Skewer to make me a gyro like I had in Greece & Albania, with fries, but it still doesn't taste right. It needs tzatiki, I guess, and perhaps the meat is not shady enough.

Then I spied a for sale sign on the home front! I couldn't believe it at first, I thought "bad news, the neighbors are trying to sell, too," before I realised it was in our yard! Of course this means I'll have to live as spotlessly as possible from now on (which may involve buying a new mop), lucky I spent Sunday cleaning. I do think I need to unpack the box of winter clothes, though. It's getting a bit nippy especially in the evenings, and I have only a few sweaters and light jackets to call my own. Everything else is in the *other* box, the one behind the bookcase & underneath several boxes of crystal. I may have to call for help. I barely managed with the box of clothes I did unpack Sunday. I dropped it twice. Those things can get heavy. Anyway, I had to be unpacking because my bottom sheet, from the set I have had for over 5 years, from when we first moved into the house, ripped. I have been patching them for a year now hoping to "mend and make do" but the damage was finally irreparable, and it spread even worse because I couldn't do anything about it & just slept on it anyway for a few nights. Still, I wasn't too worried because it was time for the flannel sheets that I got for Christmas last year, anyway. But of course, these sheets weren't in the bag that I thought they were in (I wonder why Susie labelled it "Rachel's sheets") nor where they in the easily accesible box of "Rachel's linens." All the same, it's worth it to have them nice and cosy on my bed, and Tonks was just thrilled to see the flannel sheets emerge. He likes them even more than I do & has been sleeping on them constantly.

Overall it was a nice weekend of break from schoolwork, even if it was cleaning (I scrubbed the tub and used it for a bath!) and sucky Universal Studios (I have no idea why anyone would go there when all the other parks are so much better, and now I realise why I had never till this point in my life been there before. Nor will I go again. I would rather just go to the Citywalk. There is, after all, a LUSH there). I got to see Jess finally, and her cute house in Pasedena. We met up with her & Chris for a short time in old town. ("Old towns" are so different in Eastern Europe from places like pasedena... you won't find pottery barn there, unless it is a real one. Just walled, cobble stone, windy, narrow streets, into which cars are not allowed, but mopeds whizz down at a threatening speed, you'd better watch out or you'll get run over. Old men sit in derelict shops & bars & coffee shops, old women manage small markets or bazaars, people hawk their wares on blankets or tables, stray kittens break the hearts of tourists, old fountains leak puddles onto the uneven streets, calls for prayer are heard from the towers of mosques... perhaps the only thing the two kinds of "old towns" have in common is that they both make me think of the Corrs song.) After the park I went over to Rob's and we watched Curse of the Wererabbit while recovering from the crappiness. I fell asleep after the movie and when I woke up he was watching college football, so I stayed for a little while longer, hoping in vain to see USC lose. I wish my Bruins had a better football team but I suppose their day will come. I never used to care about football at all, but I find my pride vis-a-vis all things Bruin increases as time passes. I actually think it is a compensation for going to such an unknown, overall crappy school now. Walking to the history forumn with one of my professors, she observed that we seem to be hypersenstive about being "Bakersfield," and in compensation, viligantly read NY Times, and other such symbolic acts. It's like the British in India being more British than the British in Britain. I cheer for the UCLA football team because it's a way of reminding myself, and others, of a level of validity in my education.

Sometimes I think I think too much.

I hate being one of those people who holds phone conversations in the library... actually I never was till just now, but the lady from the finacial aid office called me about the frantic scholarship application of a few weeks ago. I had about given up, but apparently they have all my stuff & will look at it. Apparently they has 90 applicants and are only accepting 4, so I musn't get my hopes up, but it's nice to know at least I have a shot, so it was worth it to do all that franticness.

One month till my next application is due, but I'm working on it now & going to sent it early to avoid more franticness.

Also I am calling for a ban of the post office. First off, Leonard's packages of heirlooms disappear of the face of the planet. This is quite unacceptable. How does one lose a large rubbermaid tub full of scrapbooks, hardcover OEDs, baby blankets, etc.... I mean really, HOW? Earlier this summer I had a real spook when I recieved not one but TWO of Aunt Jeuney's yearly newsletters addressed to mom. I didn't really look at them, just wondered why someone was using Aunt Jeuney's address lables. Then I saw something that looked a lot like a younger version of myself. One of them had picutures from her 80th birthday party and had handwritten on it something like "Dear Frances, thanks for all the hard work you did for my party..." The dead trying to communicate to the dead through the living? No, just the post office delivering a few pieces of mail about 5 years late. So perhaps there is hope for Leonard's packages after all? And the silver earrings from Dublin that were supposed to be Jen's 19th birthday present? I haven't forgotten, USPS.

Then I stopped getting my mail recently. I was so absorbed in franticness that I didn't notice for a while, but when the $160 worth of transcripts never arrived I suddenly realised that I also hadn't gotten the book and DVD I'd also ordered, or any bank statements, or anything AT ALL. I had my mail forwarded to SF for the summer, and stopped it when I got back, but I never got my mail until I spoke to the postman in person and he said he hadn't gotten anything, but he'd give me my mail. Thanks. I spoke with him again after the crisis, and he said he's gotten another forward for me. It must have been my stop forward, put through as another forward, only about a month after I submitted it. BRAVO, USPS. I stand and applaud your incompetence, which has managed to reach a level beyond comprehension. Is there any other company that would get away with this kind of crap? I'm afraid this may get me taken off Bush's communist alert list, but perhaps what needs to happen is the PS should be privatized. I don't know, I'm not an economist. But if nothing else, going to the competition will show the USPS what's what, and maybe they will be motivated to change their ways (yeah right). It may be a bit like, to borrow from a really old Newsweek that I read recently, cleaning my house with baking soda and vinegar while everyone in China is lining up to buy a car for the first time... but doing something is better than doing nothing. From now on I'm going to reduce my use of the postal system to the bare minimum. I will pay all bills online if I possibley can. Packages will be sent via UPS or FedEx or DHL. Especially important ones like grad school applications. I don't want them showing on the doorstep of the board of graduate studies when I've already recieved by degree from somewhere else because the first place never got my application... till now. Anyway, who's with me?

That's ok, I don't mind travelling alone.

to becca!

I have a constant headache. Actually it's a sharb, throbbing pain at the top of my head. A double dose of asprin has done little to dull the pain. I am convinced it is a brain tumor. Perhaps it is from eating too many Chester fries.

Yay I made it through another week! There is something liberating about a Friday afternoon. Even if I have a million things to do, I have all weekend to do them in (even if I don't, cause I hafta work) so I can ignore them for a little bit and have fun for once! and maybe a nap! I am really, really hungry.

I like to have a little book that I can read in the bathtub, on my breaks at work, or before bed when I simply can't take anymore of the Cambridge Illustrated History of the British Empire. A few days ago I finished Persuasion which I picked up for $.50 at the SF Friends of the Library bookstore after having been influenced by a viewing of "The Lake House" in Belgrade. Movie-watching in Belgrade is actually a very satisfying experience because it is invariably either hot or raining, and you are invariably tired with sore feet from sightseeing. Sitting down in a cool, dry theatre is a very pleasant way to spend two hours. It only costs $3, and you can get popcorn and drinks for about $1 more, because the movie theatres have not yet comandeered the concession business, and they are instead provided by little guys with carts outside. Unless the movie is for children, it has subtitles instead of dubbing so you can pratice your Serbian and at the same time understand the movie!

Anyway, I was enchanted with the climax of romanticism that only Jane Austen seems to be able to pull off (though Charlotte Bronte does not do too bad for herself) and when I had finished with it I felt almost betrayed that it was over. I read over my favorite parts a few times, and it was all I could do not to dig through the boxes of books in the garage until I came upon that treasured inheritance, the Oxford Illustrated Jane Austen, to satisfy my need for more Austenness.

Now I am reading The Story of an African Farm. I first learned of this book (and relatedly started to want to read it) in my first post-graduate run-in with women & colonialism. Then the book & its themes were beat mercilessly against my head, over & over again, when I read Testament of Youth. My battered dover thrift edition of this book travelled with me across the Balkans, but the journal-writing, out-of-train-window-watching, Serbian-learning traveller will find but little time for reading on a trip, and Dracula seemed more appropriate at the time. Now I am studying women and colonialism again, african farms seem more appropriate, and I finally beginning to understand V.B.'s obsession with Lyndall... I meant to have some quotes, but the book is at home, and I am at the library, and I will be here some time.

I went to Target today for an eye appt. I really needed new glasses since they got scratched somewhere along the line and I decided to get contacts too... It took me almost two hours to put them in and take them back out again. I have to practice again when I get home tonight. I figure I will get better at it with practice... I have never been too good at touching my eye but I guess you can get used to anything.

Yesterday I was at Becca's carving pumkins and watching Prarie Home Companion. Now I am at Becca's to make a red cross armband for tomorrow--I'm going to be an ambulance driver! I have two halloween costumes this year because I went to a gypsies, tramps & thieves themed party on Saturday, so I was a half-hour gypsy (that's how long it took me to throw together my costume and I must say it looked pretty good). All this in between French interviews, research proposals, and getting ready for my lecture on colonialism during WWI for my British Empire class. I think it's time to go watch Gallipoli, I want to see if there is a good scene from that movie to show in class, since last time I gave a lecture I ended about half an hour early.

I was feeling quite down and discouraged last week, but I think I was having an allergic reaction to Bakersfield. Now I am quite pep & chipper, and I have lots of hope, if I'm as busy as ever. I always alternate between thinking I am special stuff & of course I'll get into all the places I am applying, to thinking I am second rate at best & just dreaming, and I'll never be able to pay for it anyway. I'm sure the answer is in the middle and anyway the best I can do is apply & see & that is what I am doing. One only has so much control over one's future, and I have done the best I can and I think that is a pretty good job. For example taking French because I know it will help my career. Well, nothing keeps me grounded and happy like school, so I will just be glad to go on in my little way. Quite the opposite of "a striving, and a striving, and an ending in nothing" (African Farm).