Quit whining for God's sakes!

After reading over the last few posts I realize how absolutely whiney I sound, complaining about my grad school trials and my general ennui. I guess being chipper just isn't in my repertoire of emotions right now.

You'd think I'd have a little bit more insight into how incredibley lucky I am to live in a warm house with an abundance of running hot water. You'd think I'd appreciate my mom for giving me a place to live until I get on my feet and get things settled. You would think....

Whenever I start being hard on myself I always wonder if maybe I should knock it off and maybe give it a break. Then, before that thought gets too far I always think of all the people I know who've given themselves too much of a break and are doing nothing with their lives. People who have resigned themselves to shitty temp jobs scoring eighth grade standardized tests. People who have worked at Barnes and Noble as booksellers for 8 years. That's okay when you're in early to mid twenties. That was okay when I was twiddling my thumbs waiting to leave, but I'm starring Thirty in the eye. And she's a total unforgiving bitch.

I don't want to "put off" grad school again. Whenever I put shit off, or, when things ends up being religated to the back burner for reasons beyond my control, it always ends up biting me in the ass. I put off breaking up with Jason and ended up breaking his heart. I ended up leaving for Ukraine over a year later than I had planned and ended up in the hospital after a nasty car crash which very nearly kept me from leaving at all. I put off doing anything about my living situation in Ukraine and ended up living in less than ideal conditions. I know this and yet the cycle continues.

Damn it! I just got done going on and on about how I should count my blessings and here I am complaining again....I know I'll get over this slight set back--hell, I don't even know if this is a set back, I haven't heard anything from Marquette yet. In the meantime I just need to chill out and give myself a bit of break. I guess.

REJECTED!

I guess the upside to being rejected by Carnegie Mellon would be that I now know I won't have to contend with a whole summer filled with learning pre-calculus and statistics like I would've had I been accepted. It also frees up my summer to go to China and visit my dad. Who wants to go to an Ivy Leagueish school like Carnegie Mellon anyways, right? Right?

I won't lie: I'm really disappointed. I think I have a right to be too; over the past year I've corresponded with a guy in the CMU Admissions department who all but told me I'd get in, as did literally every other person I know (and when I say everyone I know I mean everyone). Was is something I said in an e-mail? Was it my goddamn quantative score on the motherfucking GRE? Is CMU so hung up on numbers that they won't let me in because I don't take tests well? I HAVEN'T BEEN SPEAKING ENGLISH REGULARILY FOR TWO YEARS, FOR GOD'S SAKES!

Needess to say, I'm really doubting myself and my chances of getting into ANY graduate school right now. I still have a month until I'll hear anything from Marquette (I haven't even begun my application to U of Minnesota), so I'll just have to wait. In the meantime I need to start thinking about getting a job....Being an unemployed grown up sucks.

Work

Yesterday was tolerable, surprisingly enough. Our team leader (I guess that's what you would call him) seems like a nice guy as do the rest of the people on my team. Of course, the project director is a woman I've referred to as "that stupid bitch" on more than one occasion in the past, so I wasn't super excited about working with her, but hopefully she'll disappear and not bother us over the next few weeks.

I wish CMU and Marquette would just hurry up already and decided whether or not I'm worthy of attending their fine institutions. Besides wanting to know because the suspense is killing me, I need to know so I can look for a job. By that I mean this: do I spend a few weeks looking for a job that I'll need to last me until August (when I would head to Milwaukee) or do I just stick with scoring essays until May? Unfortunately it looks like we won't have a lot of work until mid to late spring, when I would be heading to Pennsylvania, which means I may not be making the kind of money I hoped I would until a month before I left for Pittsburgh. This leaves me wondering if I should just suck it up and try not to spend too much money between the end of this project and the beginning of the next one in April or if I should look for something lame. Yet even more indecision. Will it ever end?

I can't wait for a time when I'm working at a job that I don't either hate or not really enjoy. I'm almost 30 years old and I can't honestly say I've ever had a job that I love. Peace Corps doesn't count. That wasn't a job, it was a life. I wonder how old I'll be before I work someplace where I enjoy the work and most of the people I work with. Does that ever happen to people or is it just their attitudes that make their jobs tolerable?

I heart the Olympics

Last night, as my mom and I were watching those crazy speed skaters fly into walls and each other, I had a flashback to the first summer I was in Ukraine, watching the Olympics and lying prone, sweating like a pig (believe it or not, it routinely gets to 90 degrees in July and August in southern Ukraine) on Oksana's couch. Actually, other than the opening ceremony and the same rhythmic gymnastics competition, I saw very little of the Olympics. It's funny how where you're at when you're watching the Olympics affects what events you see; in Ukraine we saw a ton of these random events you never see in the States because Ukraine never qualified or stood a chance of wining medals in events that U.S. athletes excel at, where as Ukrainian athletes did well in competitions that the U.S. didn't do well in.

Last night I gave my first "presentation" about my experience in Ukraine. I think it went well, although the on-campus recruiter talked a really long time (longer than I expected, actually) and I didn't get very long to really to talk about my experience. I realized I'm going to need to find a way to be both realistic and positive about my experience in Ukraine. My service wasn't completely awful, but there certainly were parts that were. I was pretty damn sick my first year, I had nothing but problems with my school the entire time I served, my housing situation frequently sucked and there were times I was a mess emotionally. That being said, I met some amazing people--both Ukrainian and American--and was able to try different things and ended up finding meaningful work while I was there, in addition to discovering what I wanted to do after I left.

If I'm honest other RPCVs might dismiss me as bitter, plus I'll scare the newbies. But who am I helping by not being honest? Being a Peace Corps volunteer is a wonderful growing experience, but like most experiences that test your persistance, patience and resilence, sometimes it's a real challenge. Peace Corps is not summer camp. If you want to just chill out and relax for two years get a good job, work your ass off and stay home; don't join Peace Corps.

Another day alone

Ah, another Valentine's day alone. If I remember correctly this is my third Valentine as a single woman. My goal next year is to, at the very least, have a date on Valentine's Day. That would be sweet. Maybe it'll even be with someone I care about.

In about an hour and a half I have an appointment with Dr. P, an orthopedic surgeon, to evaluate my back and hip. This is all related to my impending lawsuit against the old fart who hit me, of course. The doc is basically going to poke and prod me. Goddamn it, I am so sick of being examined and evaluated by doctors. Between my cholesteatoma (that would be a painful benign ear tumor in layman's terms) and the numerous problems I've had related to my accident, I've seen....let's see....three physical therapists, two orthopedic surgeons, one clinical psychologist, and a partridge and a pear tree.

Speaking of my lawsuit, I had my deposition last week and it looks like Allstate will not be contesting liabilty. This is, of course, a relief to both my lawyers and myself seeing as how I would've picked their lawyer up and thrown him through a window had he even suggested this was an act of God (that had been suggested once, right after my accident). That means that before we make any sort of monetary demand I have to go through this crazy PTSD treatment (I was diagnosed with PTSD last week after my visit with the shrink I saw a few weeks ago), along with being evaluated by a whole buch of doctors for both my side and their side. It should be tons of fun. I'll keep you updated on my progress in the next few weeks.

I wish I had something really exciting to blog about, but right now that's about it. I hope this turns out to be a tolerable day.

Five whole days without blogging

I’ve been a little lax on writing lately. Honestly, I haven’t always been in the mood, plus my computer completely punked out on me last week. It seems I managed to fry the motherboard somewhere in my travels around Europe (or maybe it was Ukraine that did it in). It rattled when you picked it up.

It doesn’t matter now though, seeing as how I’m now the proud owner of a Dell 610. I love her—she’s so much better than last laptop. She makes absolutely NO noise whatsoever, she burns CDs and DVDs. Plus the sound is excellent. I’m so glad I decided to bite the bullet and buy a new one.

In other exciting news, I turned in my Marquette application. I’ve had mixed feelings about applying to Marquette; originally I had an apply-if-you-want-to sort of e-mail from the head of the program and was a little turned off. Then, I received the application in the mail and was surprised and dismayed with how extremely confusing and long it was (they require 4 letters of recommendation and 3 different essays—it’s ridiculous). But then, I talked program co-ordinator (who had sent me the aforementioned e-mail) and was impressed. She seemed really interested in what I wanted out of the program and was pretty encouraging.

That was all before I found out they receive 60+ applications for 10 spots. Now I’m a little discouraged. I really just want to get into either CMU or Marquette, but I’d much rather be in a situation where I’m choosing between them as opposed to waiting for them to choose me. We’ll see.

Regular week

It's been a good week so far. I've been in a good mood, more or less, all week, and have been productive with regards to my grad school applications and doing all the boring crap I hate doing like making phone calls and stuff. Yesterday I even took two fitness classes at the gym; one Pilates class and then a Kickboxing class with the hottest MILF I have ever met in my entire life. Of course, this week has not been without its annoyances; for some reason when I'm on line typing an e-mail my computer will not recognize when I hit the return key. It's so weird! So if this is like one long paragraph, please, forgive me! I understand the basic concepts of how to write a proper paper or blog entry; my computer just won't let me.