gradschoolhaiku

I am still alive
but fingers don’t want to type
placeholder haiku

I’ve been meaning to update this for a while, but haven’t had the inspiration. The next entry has to be a good one to accurately convey just what the situation was like. On a current note, I’ve applied for one school’s fellowship program. I have to fill out the FAFSA form for another school. I certainly hope that I can get some financial aid. It would make things a lot easier. But I haven’t received word yet if I have been accepted to any school, so I am just waiting.

while biding my time
others decide my future
a dead winter’s night

arrived in Kansas
and moved in to my new place
but all was not well

Recapping the story so far, I left home not feeling well. Ten hours later, my dad and I arrived in Kansas. When we crossed the border, I had a good feeling. There were some problems getting into my new living quarters. When I finally got in, two out of three roommates were there. They were both Chinese, but the local girl had not showed up yet. We carried the boxes up and I realized that I had too much clothes. (It was hard to pack, knowing that I was not going to be able to come home for such a long time and would need a variety of clothes.)

Next post will be about the apartment/dorm itself.

through long, moody days
I should have realized it
but it took more time

At this time, it still felt like it was going to be ok. I was tired but excited. The task ahead of me was a bit daunting (putting my clothes away, that is!), but I was tackling it. Because of all the stress of the day- waking up way early, traveling over multiple states, my missing paperwork, a building that was confusing to navigate, and the keycard that didn’t work… -I was a bit overloaded. Strangely, I wasn’t tensing up like I would normally during times of stress. Perhaps it was the adrenaline of starting a new adventure. Or at least that is how I am remembering it.

a burden relieved
forms are filled and fees are paid
except for one note

This past Friday was a big relief, mostly. It was the due-date of my third grad school application this time around, the last one I planned on. (I recently received an email offering an application fee waiver to their school- a tempting offer.) For that last school, I was trying to get the letters of recommendation taken care of and the system they were using was confusing. After trying a few different things, I finally found the solution, which was surprisingly easy. I had been emailing the professors who are submitting those letters for me, keeping them posted on what was happening. (They were all in different places- still in Whitewater, visiting family up north, and leading a travel-study class.) But one person’s letter was still unaccounted for as the deadline rolled by. Luckily, I had that person’s telephone number. But unluckily, she didn’t answer it. So I still have one floating request out there. Right now, it is my only worry about the whole shebang.

Coach! Where are you coach?
I need you help for grad school.
Write me a letter?

*Trying something new again. Writing posts of more than one hundred words didn’t seem to have an effect on my measly earnings, but now the website says that posts should be two hundred and fifty to five hundred words long. This might be to make a post more popular, but I’m willing to give it a try.

less than a dollar
it’s not even pocket change
far from a pay day

a new round of forms
the second chance at grad school
keeps me occupied

I haven’t been updating this quite as much lately. I’m still aiming to finish the Kansas saga, but it is taking a while. So I’m interrupting that with a bit of current news. I’m in my second round of grad school applications- filling out forms for schools that I wanted to last year, but the due dates had already passed. I only have dial-up at home, which makes this difficult and very frustrating. Even simple forms take forever to load. Last month was Madison and I just finished the application to Minnesota yesterday. Michigan is coming up this week.

hope continuing
but technology hates me
more than you can know

Aliens, Marines
fought epic battles that night
and I was the queen

I had a fun night yesterday, but am feeling the after-effects now. I had a reunion with some friends from a camp I attended for many years. It was a constant fun ride, playing many games and telling stories. One game that we played was Aliens vs. Marines. To play, you need a few Nerf guns with flashlights attached to them. Then you turn the lights off. The Marines shoot the Aliens and the Aliens tag the Marines. There are more Aliens than Marines. Whoever kills all of the others, wins. You play in the dark and there is a psychological element to it. Intimidation and scaring the Marines is part of the fun. One variation is the queen goal- kill the queen and you win. I was the queen, by luck of the draw. So I got to hide and crouch for the whole game.

hissss….. aarrrrr….. silence….. growl….
the Aliens are creeping
Tag! You’re dead, Marines

a bell chimes the hour
in the year two thousand ten
Happy New Year, all!

We have now had a full decade in the new millennium. Last year was not how I planned it be, but it was not necessarily a bad year. But I still hope that next year will be better. It can always be better.

My New Year’s Eve was a quiet one, like it usually is. My sisters and I thought we might see a movie, but we weren’t quite motivated to make the matinee time. One by one, my family members left for their respective parties. It would have been fun to go to one myself, but I’m not feeling that well. (Part girly problems, part standing up for too long yesterday.) So, I got to have the whole house to myself and watched whatever I wanted to on tv while surfing the ‘net. My parents came home just in time to ring in the new year together.

Michael Jackson vids
midnight with my family
a blue moon new year

two out of three there
roommates foreign and local
nice and helpful folk

I was living in an on-campus apartment. Two of my new roommates were Chinese and the third, a local gal, hadn’t arrived yet. One of them helped me carry my stuff up. There was an elevator so it wasn’t that hard. We had a system- my dad would unload boxes and we would cart and carry them up. The place had some air conditioning, just enough to take the edge off. It was one of the few nice things about the apartment.

piles and piles
so much stuff for one person
I have too much clothes

open doors were closed
round and round the building go
how do I get in?

To get into the dorm/apartment building, you needed your ID card. To get an ID card, you need to be enrolled. I couldn’t get enrolled until I spoke with a professor the next day. Also, you need your ID to use the meal plan. So I had no access to my residence and no food.

After trying every door to what I thought was my building (it was, but there were three or four towers very close to each other and they were irregularly shaped), I headed back to the residence office where I checked in. They gave me a temporary ID card so I could get in. I didn’t move in on the official move-in date, so the doors that were supposed to be open for people were now shut. I try to use my card, but it doesn’t work. I even had people try to help me, but they also couldn’t get it to work. So they get me another card, which finally does the trick.

looking at my place
there were two Chinese roommates
what about TP?

last minute emails
lead to missing paperwork
but easily fixed

I had turned in all of my paperwork last minute, like the whole affair. When I went to check in, they didn’t know who I was at first. I had even talked to this guy on the phone before we arrived, but somehow forgot about that in a short time. It all got sort out quickly, though. Or so I thought.

While trying to get all this sorted out, I ran into a woman from Chicago. She was in a similar situation to me, new grad student, recently arrived at the school, and not yet registered for classes.

circular thinking
with a temporary fix
but no food for me

ten hours driving
soon arriving at the goal
the school in Lawrence

We pulled into Lawrence and that is where the plan of “use the atlas” became not quite so helpful. Luckily, the city was big enough that there was a little supplemental map that we could use. After making a couple of turns, we found the right place. The campus was very large, so even if you found the campus, you could be far away from your destination. My first business was to move-in. I decided to live on campus. They had a residence hall that graduate students could live in. At first, I thought it was for only grad students, but it turns out that any student beyond freshman year could live there.

finding the right place
Hello! I’m here to check-in!
…and just who are you?