#for undergrad I did early application to my first choice and got in so I didn't have to think about it

[asinglesock]

I've been working myself into a state of anxious dread this week over applying to graduate schools, so today I looked up the deadlines and discovered that I would probably fine even if I didn't think about it for another month

[lucythompson]

┈ 🎕 LUCY HOANG THOMPSON

[ Under the cut, you’ll find a summarized version of Lucy’s bio !! If by any chance you’d like to read through my 9 page monstrosity of a bio, you’ll find it here !! ]

( lana condor, cis female, she/her). hey, isn’t that [ LUCY THOMPSON ] walking down bennington street? i think the [ 25 ] YEAR OLD [ UP AND COMING ACTRESS ] is from [ WAITSFIELD, VERMONT ]. i’ve heard some rumors down at mon’s, saying that they're [ VAIN AND SELFISH ], but then again they’re known to be [ CHARISMATIC AND PASSIONATE ].  either way, they seem to be interesting, hope they’ll stick around.

Lucy was born in small town Waitsfield, Vermont. Her parents, Dahlia and Logan, were the owner of the state renowned Thompson Farms. It's a popular destination for weddings, parties, and vacation getaways. Their vast property had everything - rustic themed rooms, heated pools, gazebos, a small scale whiskey distillery, vegetable patches in the spring, and ski slopes in the winter. For the first eighteen years of her life, Waitsfield was all that she knew and lived for. She was the town sweetheart, beloved by the residents for her easy involvement in the town’s activities.

In high school, she auditioned for a role in the school play. She got the role and the rest was history. She fell in love with the buzz of having the audience’s eyes on her as she learned to command the stage and eventually the very ground she walked upon. She knew all the little tics that made people look her way - tossing her hair over her shoulder, casually tilting her head at the right angle, warm smiles given at exactly the right moment. People never called her vain, they chalked it up to charisma. Lucy knew better, though. She knew she was looking for affirmation elsewhere since her parents gave them too far in between. She’d never once felt unloved. But would it really kill them to go home early from work? After all, their house was only a few yards from their office. 

She was often asked to star in advertisements for the town’s businesses and even got calls if she could voice over their radio ads. That coupled with her last gigs in the theater club, cheering almost every week for season games in every sport, and AP class finals, made her lose track of time during her senior year. She hurriedly filled in her college applications and had them sent in the mail. A letter came in the mail exactly a month before graduation. She got accepted into the collaborative arts program. While it wasn’t her parents’ first choice (they’d rather she go in business or finance), they supported her nonetheless since she's the first in their family to go to university.

The program she enrolled in was rigorous - dance, theater, music, filmmaking, directing, and writing - yet she loved it. She quickly climbed the ranks and was soon widely known throughout the arts department. She even launched her own YouTube channel where she documented her university experience as well as doled out the occasional acting tip. What’s garnered her 200,000+ subscriber count, however, were the numerous skits she’d film, direct, and act in. It started out as a project for their filmmaking class but she’s fallen in love ever since. Her hope kept rising in tune with her subscriber count. She feels like this could really make her visible in the entertainment industry. The perks aren’t too shabby either - she could pay rent, got sponsorships, and even scored the occasional brand partnership.

After her first year university, she decided to do some “soul searching”. What better place to do it than Europe? Her YouTube income coupled with her parent’s fat checks made her stay in over 15 Schengen states possible. Unbeknownst to many (besides her closest friends), she’d been performing all across Italy. These shows weren’t big at all. They were usually performed in parks or town squares for the general public. She did this for a few weeks until she moved onto the next country. 90 days came and went faster than she expected. She produced two skits and a short film while she was touring. However, reality came knocking on her door and decided that it was time for her to fly home and complete her undergrad.

Graduation came all too quickly  and she still hadn’t managed to score any major acting gigs. She graduated summa cum laude from her degree but other than her diploma, her hands were empty. After that, Lucy moved into an apartment downtown with her best friends. She kept at it with her YouTube channel and was now at almost 500,000 subscribers. The only few odd jobs she’d taken was to be the voice for a couple audiobooks of recently released bestsellers and the freelance designs she’d make for budding businesses Lucy began to feel scared that she was just destined for mediocrity now that she was out of university. 

Hope planted another seed in her when she passed through two screenings to a new Netflix romcom. They had been looking for a “girl next door” type and Lucy had easily stepped into that role. She’s been on her toes waiting for any announcements on the matter. She might be stoked but she’s also extremely fearful. Sure, she could try again but that would land like another punch to the gut. Her income on YouTube combined with her parents’ monthly checks was more than enough to keep her comfortable. However, she worried if another heartbreak would make her lose inspiration from putting out quality content.She was terrified thinking if she wasted four years of her life just to pack up and go home.

Headcanons:

Lucy’s definitely the type to wear sundresses until it gets too unbearably cold to keep it up.

She’s very particular about her coffee (thank god ginger’s makes it good. Which leads to the fact that she barely sleeps at all. Two glasses of wine could make her feel mellow enough to relax for the night but it isn’t until she hits the harder liquor that she can fall into a dreamless sleep. 

She isn’t particular at all about the alcohol she consumes. Whatever helps her sleep at night is good enough.

She wants a bearded dragon so bad, maybe she’ll get one.

She’s quite into fitness so whenever she has free time, she’d hit the gym a few buildings down from their apartment. You could even catch her there close to midnight “blowing off some steam”, as she likes to call it.

She really wants to learn Asian languages so she’s starting with Vietnamese. She can speak and read like a third grader so she has weekly conversations with her mom to practice. 

Lucy sleeps on the very edge of the bed. She’s fallen off, oh - 5 times the past month but that doesn’t stop her from falling back asleep on the floor

She keeps a rubbermaid of snacks in her closet. She love giving people snacks but DO NOT TAKE THEM WITHOUT HER KNOWING - because she’ll know (she probably counts them).

Has a car but never uses it (Is it even working though?)

[jeannereames]

hi if it's not a too personal question to ask how did you come to be interested in history/antiquity/alexander..? I mean did you always like it as a child? or how did it start?

It’s not too personal, and in fact, I LIKE to tell this story, as I’m the definition of coming in the back door, which might encourage others.

Understand, I’m a chick from the other side of the tracks. My generation was the first to get a college education, and I’m among the few to go on to grad school, especially not professional *(e.g., law or med school). I was lower middle-class growing up. My father is from one of the two poorest families in Jackson County, S. Illinois before (and after) WWII. My mother was better off, her father a successful farmer and carpenter, but the Brouillettes had been Catholic (even if he wasn’t), and (worse) they had Indian blood.

There was no silver spoon in my mouth. I had better: wonderful parents who cheer-leaded me all the way. So if you disbelieve a father as great as Amyntor could exist? That’s MY parents. Amyntor-Berenikē are real, and their names were Ed and Idalee. Rise is dedicated to my father. Some of us get that lucky, and I’m HUGELY aware of my fortune, especially as I aged and realized my fellows didn’t have parents like mine. So Hephaistion’s desire to share his father with Alexandros? That was me. All my friends came to my house to visit my mother.

My love of history owes entirely to HER. She loved history, and understood it was about the stories of people. But my elementary and junior high history teachers made it about “kings-n-things” with lots of dates, etc.

So I HATED history.

I hated it all through regular school, then my tenure at UF, where (despite being a humanities major) I AVOIDED all history classes except one, an elective on the history of the Early Church. I think it’s pretty much a crime that a humanities major anywhere can graduate without a history class. WTF?

Yet it’s all the fault of poorly taught history. Plus, yes, younger students are less inclined to understand why it matters. Not all, but a substantial portion regularly return surveys saying history doesn’t matter because it’s the past, not the future.

Back to my clever mother. Instead of teaching me history, she told me about my family: the story of my ancestors, my people, including my tribe (Miami-Peoria). I was routinely hauled around to cemeteries as a kid, shown where my people were buried, and then told stories about them. Respect for Elders and the ancestors is a native thing. Yet I became fascinated, constructed family trees, and tried to trace back their stories, as most of my mother’s family were French who came in the 1600s/early 1700s, or Native Americans. My father’s family were more recent immigrants, but it all made a wonderful puzzle.

The story of me.

That’s history. The story of us, more broadly.

And so my clever, sneaky mother taught me to love history by coming in the back door.

Yet as a teen and undergrad, my interest in other cultures were largely Celtic and Scandinavian. I was introduced to J.R.R. Tolkien as a teen and remain a HUGE fan. My “home” fiction genre, insofar as I have one, is SFF (science fiction and fantasy), where a number of my friends publish. So I resisted the whole “Classical” field until quite late. Latin was the most popular language at my HS (Lakeland Dreadnoughts), and had the most active student group… so of course I refused to join! Never was a follower. I took German instead. In college, I took RUSSIAN, just to be different.

My undergrad degree was a BA in English, with a concentration in creative writing and a minor in acting. My M.A. was in theology and early church history. While at the Candler School of Theology, Emory, I kept hearing about this dude, “Alexander the Great.” I had NO idea who that was. (That’s how bad my previous history education had been.) Yet as he seemed so pivotal in cultural transfer, east to west and west to east, I wandered over to the Emory library to check out a couple of bios.

By chance, they were N.G.L. Hammond’s King, Commander and Statesman, and Peter Green’s (original, Thames-on-Hudson, later re-released by U. Cal Press) Alexander of Macedon.

I literally couldn’t have picked two more different bio’s if I’d tried.

AND HE FASCINATED ME. Who was this KID, who conquered most of his known world by 32, but generated such different evaluations, positive to negative?

Like Alexander, I’m a bit inclined to … obsess?

So I kept reading, and reading, and reading (articles, not just books), and then got into Macedonia (which then in the 1980s, was mostly articles).

By the early 1990s, I’d decided I wanted to study him professionally, not just to write a novel about him, so on the urging of Judy Tarr, I called Gene Borza at Penn State. He was my #1 choice to study with (in the US) as I’d admired his honesty to reply to those who disagreed with him, not just ignore them. So Gene asked me what I’d read, and I started reciting my list, until he said, “Stop, stop! You’ve already read more than most of my current PhD students!” He encouraged me to apply.

Ergo, if my BA was in English, and my MA in Theological studies, and I’d originally intended to go on to a PhD in the latter, I sent off ONE application—to Penn State—for history.

Guess which one offered funding (e.g., a graduate assistantship).

I wound up at Penn State, studying Macedonian history with “Aristotle” (e.g, Gene Borza, whose resemblance to the philosopher is a wee bit uncanny). It was, I think, the best choice I could have made. I remain Gene’s “academic daughter,” and Book 1, Becoming, is dedicated to him due to Aristotle’s prominence, while book 2 is dedicated to my father, Ed Reames, because he’s the model for Amyntor.

So yes…there IS a backdoor for those of us determined enough. But be aware, the handicap never goes away. I face it every single day. My Latin and Greek wasn’t “good enough,” and I don’t have the extensive reading in Classics that someone with a BA in Classics would have. But I DO bring my diverse previous experience. I have a background in bereavement counselling and ER on-call duty that allows me to look at Alexander’s mourning and such events as the Philotas Affair with experience most of my colleagues (however good their Greek and Latin) don’t have.

So be prepared to justify your existence to your colleagues who had Latin in high school and pursued a BA in Classics or ancient history. Don’t apologize.

And those of you who DO have the above, remember, there are a couple of us out there, scrappy and “previously untrained” who loved the field enough to work our asses off to get a degree, and eventually, a job. So unlike some of my colleagues at Penn State, don’t snort and look down on your unusual fellows. Help them out.

I’ll also note that of the students I entered with? Only two of us received the PhD. Tim Howe, my academic brother who came with better prep, teaches today at St. Olaf’s in Minnesota. But dammit, I fought my way through. And I finished, and I’m at a uni that, with my colleagues, created an Ancient Mediterranean Studies Program at the BA/BS and MA level. I’m damn proud of that.

The field has changed since I applied to grad school in 1991, I won’t lie. Tenure-track jobs in the US, especially in ancient history and Classics, have turned into unicorns. Other countries are different.  But if you are determined enough, and damn stubborn enough, you might be able to carve your own path, as long as you keep an eye on the current state of the field. I won’t lie to anybody about how few ancient history and Classics jobs are out there on H-Net these days. BUT don’t let the afternoon-tea set make you feel less than them: “imposter’s syndrome” for pursuing a PhD in ancient history or Classics. Some of those Classics blue-bloods won’t get a job, at the end of the day.

I am THE definition of an “imposter’s syndrome” faculty member who succeeded. And I don’t give a good goddamn what anybody thinks of me. I excel at what I do, and I’m proud of it.

[sapphiresea]

ECCC – The Wayhaught Experience

Hey guys! So a couple people asked that I write about my experience at Emerald City Comic Con, and I did! It’s a bit long, so it’s below a cut because I had a lot to say, but I also trimmed it down a bit for better fit. (Pictures included.)

Now, let me start by saying my plan for the weekend was really simple. I was getting Dom and Kat to each sign my group photo from last year, and on top of that, I was getting another autograph from Dom to use as my tattoo – asking her specifically to write “I’m here and I stay” for me. Then, I was going to get a selfie with each and a duo photo op. Yeah. Let’s not talk about how much extra money I dropped because I decided they were too amazing and wanted to capitalize on this convention as much as possible. But also, I definitely do not regret it.

So once I got my ticket, I headed straight to the building where they had autographs, photo ops, and main stage panels. Although her line was longer, I decided to see Dom first, then Kat, during their first autograph session of the con.

I wasn’t too far back in Dom’s line, which was cool, and it felt pretty fast to get to see her, even though she was chatting with everyone. Two people in front of me were trying to get a selfie and Dom was holding out the camera trying to position it so they were all in frame and it looked like a major struggle bus for someone short, so I offered to help. She immediately thrust the phone at me and very politely agreed and thanked me. So when I got to the front, she was like, “Hello again!”

She was confused by the instruction of her manager for what I wanted for the tattoo, but as soon as I said it, she knew immediately what I meant. She pulled a multicolor pen from her fanny pack, clicked the blue and said she would write it a couple of times to make sure I had what I wanted. The second time was perfect, though. I told her that last summer had been particularly hard and that I had lost a lot of people I cared about, and that Jolene had really helped me to get through some of those nights, and got me to five years clean (which received a “wow” from her). I said that listening to her talk about anxiety in the Black Badge podcast had very much helped inspire me to send in my grad school applications and that I had just been accepted into all the schools to which I applied, and she was really impressed. I can’t remember exactly what she said, but I do remember her saying, “Isn’t it amazing? You’re so afraid of doing something and there’s no reason for it! You got into every school!” She asked where I was planning to go, so I told her I picked York University in Toronto and she said that was awesome and “right around the corner from Kat!” She also asked what I was studying, so I told her quant psych/statistics, and I don’t think she connected as much with that, but she was still very sweet about it. I thanked her and got a really cute selfie before moving on to meet with Kat. 

Kat was a completely different energy altogether! Dom was very mellow and sweet, like she really lives up to that hippie vibe, but Kat was much more intense, full eye contact, leaning forward, asking a bunch of questions.

I got up to her pretty quickly, as the lines weren’t long so early on Friday. I was having her sign my group photo from last year’s Calgary Comic Expo and she recognized it immediately and asked if that’s where I’m from. She was very excited when I said, “yes.” I said I had just flown in that morning before coming and that I was living off about 45 minutes of sleep. She was like, “Oh, so you’re here, but you’re like, I’M HERE BUT I’M A LITTLE BIT CRAZY!?” Which…yeah, pretty much! 

I told her I was excited just to be there, though, because the trip was a graduation present and a celebration because I got into every grad school to which I applied. She was stunned and congratulated me and I replied that it was really cool because it was a highly competitive program and I didn’t think I would get in at all. She asked what I study and I told her quant psych, and that there’s only four schools in Canada that have that program and most only have a couple spots each per year. Her eyes went huge and she congratulated me again. She said she was sure I’d make the right choice of where to go, and when I said I had just accepted the offer from York, she asked if I meant the one in Toronto and was stoked when I said “yes.” She told me York was an amazing school and I would absolutely love it. She added that she had considered York for undergrad because they had a theater program there, and then had almost gone there for an MBA when she didn’t think acting would work out. I told her my best friend had just gotten her MBA from there and she was like, “See!? It’s an amazing school!” and started talking up Toronto and how much I would love it. That made me pretty jazzed, really. We actually ended up talking much more than I thought before taking two selfies (they’re pretty similar, so I only included my favorite) and I had to run for a photo op unrelated to Wynonna Earp.

Right, so…Here is where the impulsivity of con life kicked in. And let me start this by saying: I did a great job at not blowing a ton of money on impulse buys for stuff. So what I spent here was almost kinda-sorta balanced, maybe? Don’t overthink it. I bought individual photo ops for Dom on Friday and Kat on Sunday.

I met this guy, David, in line for Dom’s photos, and we were chatting the whole time. He was really fun, and we ended up hanging out after. Anyway, it came up that I didn’t have a ticket for Saturday’s show and his son wasn’t going to be using his. He offered to let me buy it off of him and was able to get it for me before the end of the day! Amazing. And as it turned out, Saturday was an incredible day, as well, so I am immensely grateful that I didn’t end up missing it.

Here’s my photo op individual with Dominique. We don’t get a lot of chance to really talk during photo ops, but of course I asked for my usual funny faces, and when we were done, she joked that she’s certain that it was going to turn out really sexy. She was right. 

I changed my Sunday photo ops with Kat to be Saturday photo ops. I had chosen to wear a jacket I found a few months ago that was the same Waverly wore in season 2, and when I walked in, Kat exclaimed, “That looks familiar! Was it on the show?” I replied, “Yeah! Waverly had it.” And she was like, “Oh, Waverly had it! I remember that.”

I brought along fake moustaches to go along with her #SolidarityInStaches posts, and I didn’t even have to ask before she was like, “Can I pick whichever one?” Of course, yes, and she took the pink one. I picked a curly black one and pocketed the rest. She peeled off the sticker back to stick it to her face and gave a hilariously serious pose, while I just held mine up. As I left, she asked if she could keep it, and I said, “Definitely!”

I met up with my friend, Carole, after the live stage interview, and she was about to go see Dom and Kat again and in case no one’s picked up on a pattern yet, I’m weak, so I was like, “Cool, I’ll go have them sign my individual photo ops!” Plus, Kat was selling that photo of her and Bernie that was donating all of the proceeds went to Soi Dog, which is a great organization, so I decided to get an autograph for my best friend, who I got into Earper life a few months ago, who loves Kat.

This time, I saw Kat first, and I told her all about the friend she was signing for, because she recognized immediately that my name was not ‘Catherine.’ I told her I had tried for ages to get my friend into it and lure her in with great representation and storylines and humor… Finally I remembered a very important fact about my friend: her weakness is hot redheads. So I texted her a photo of Nicole and said, “Did I mention there’s a hot redhead lesbian?” and she immediately jumped at it. Kat thought that was hilarious and said my friend sounds awesome.

Since she was still signing, I spoke with her a bit about Pooched and she was so excited that I had watched the trailer and the live stream and enjoyed it. You can really tell how passionate she is about that project, and honestly guys, if you haven’t yet, you definitely should watch. I joked that my friends and I don’t have dogs, but we do treat our cats like that. She asked if my friends had ever thrown a birthday party for their cats and I told her I have one friend who did. I added that we’re honors students, which means we present almost every week in class and she will work her cat into every presentation. Sometimes it’s really creative. That really amused her. 

She also mentioned that she loved the moustache photo we had taken and that she had kept the pink moustache and was planning to take a picture with it later. I have no idea if she really will or if she’s lost it or anything, but I was just happy that she enjoyed it! I told her I had found a box of fake moustaches randomly in my room and she was like, “Do you know why you had them?” and I said, “I just know my mom bought them for me years ago and they were just sitting there until you started your moustache thing!” She said it was meant to be, or something like that.

Dom’s table was completely empty when I was done with Kat, so I hopped right over there. As I was paying for autographs, she noticed immediately the outfit I was wearing and exclaimed, “You’re wearing the Waverly shirt!” I replied that I had thrifted it, too, which she thought was great. As she started to sign, I told her my name is Steph because she hadn’t had it written down yet, and the volunteer asked if it was a P-H or F-F and I said, P-H, which prompted Dom to sing the spelling of my name in a cute little tune of S-T-E-P-H. It was really adorable.

I asked if it was strange coming back to North America after so long in Brazil, and she said it was, especially since she had been in the amazon with tribes and small towns, which was extremely different from anything like this, but that it was nice to be back, too. She talked a little about the importance of travel, and that she would really recommend seeing Brazil, because it’s a whole other viewpoint and understanding of ways of doing things. 

We started talking a bit about Start the Wave, and I asked about a post she made awhile back about being a no-waste traveler, since I find when I travel is when I become the most wasteful. She gave a few suggestions, like bringing your own bamboo utensils, water bottles, cups, etc. Apparently she had a whole other bag with “all that shit” which was a pain in the butt, but ultimately worthwhile. She said that she found you have to tell people right off the bat that you have your own things, so they won’t give you cups or straws or anything that will be wasted because you’re not using them. We also lamented the North American reliance on plastic water bottles a bit when I mentioned that, from how I had grown up, I used to rely almost entirely on bottled water until I switched to a good water bottle, and that my parents still just keep loads of bottled water in their fridge. She said her family does the same thing and it kind of drives her crazy when she opens the door and finds a whole bunch of bottled water. 

I saw that some other people were coming and it was toward the end of the day, too, so I said it was great chatting with her and hopped off. 

Sunday, I arrived extremely early for the Wayhaught panel to get good seats, which meant sitting through hours of 80′s music and the Stranger Things panel which came before, but that was actually pretty fun.

I wasn’t initially planning to ask a question, but I had finally come up with something funny that they’d never heard before, and I was like, screw it, and went up. I was the first person in line on the right side, so I was the second to ask a question. I just realized watching the video back that Dom waved at me and said, “Hi Stephanie,” in her sweet little British voice before I even introduced myself, so apparently she remembered and recognized me!? That’s actually really cool and I’m still trying to recover from it. I was super nervous, but they were really funny with their answers and I loved Dom’s fascination with the show. It was such a great atmosphere in there, and so much fun. It was really a bummer when the whole thing was over.

The next thing on my agenda was about an hour later for the duo photo ops. Side note: right before me, someone was doing a photo op with a lightsaber and Kat was playing with it. She was excited as heck that it made noises when she moved it. 

I walked in and Kat’s eyes locked on my sweater before she noticed my face. My sweater was an oversized York University shirt, so she exclaimed, “Oh my god, are you Canadian!?” And then she looked up and before I could reply, about a split second later, she mentally face-palmed and was like, “I’m so sorry! We had a whole conversation about this! You’re going to York for grad school! I remember!” I told her it was alright, I wasn’t offended or anything, but she insisted she remembered. So that was pretty nice. Although I normally do fun photo ops, I asked if we could just do a group hug, and they were like, “Of course!” and pulled me in for one. 

I’m not even going to pretend like I hadn’t already decided to go back for one last autograph session, but listen. I wasn’t the only one. The girls in line with me also went to every autograph session and they go to every convention with Dom and Kat, so I figured it’s fine. Plus, they were always really happy to see us. I will say, those line ups were really fun. Earpers really know how to make a line a good experience. And Dom’s line was long, so that was a very good thing.

My last meeting with Kat began with another apology for her question during the photo ops. Before I could even put down the picture I wanted her to sign, she looked me right in the eye and said, “I am so sorry, Steph! I do remember we had a whole conversation about York and grad school.” I replied that it’s perfectly okay and that honestly, I didn’t expect her to remember because I know she had met so many people over the weekend that I wouldn’t have been offended if she didn’t. She apologized and insisted again that she absolutely did (and given that she also addressed me by name multiple times without seeing it written down anywhere, I definitely believe her). It was really nice, though, even if it wasn’t necessary!

This was my moment to be a sap, though, and I told her that, although I’m sure she’s heard it a million times, it was really awesome to finally see a lesbian who’s alive and whose whole story doesn’t revolve around coming out and dealing with being gay as if it were the worst thing in the world or some obstacle to overcome or something, because it feels as if that’s all I’ve gotten to see. I told her that I’m only slightly younger than her (and then she asked my birthday, but I’m not sure why) and that it felt like my whole life I hadn’t really gotten to see representation like that. The first time I even heard the word ‘lesbian’ was as a derogatory term when Ellen Degeneres came out, and I was too young to even know what it meant. 

She was so kind and listened to every word, and it was really nice. It also spurred a conversation about Ellen, who she exclaimed her love for (we all know, Kat; we all know). We talked about her a bit and I mentioned that I’m also a big fan of Portia de Rossi and she said she’s really great, too, so I asked if she had ever read her book. She answered that she hadn’t and said she would have to add it to her list. I told her it’s about Portia’s eating disorder and her experience coming out as a lesbian, so if she’s in a dark place or just wants something light and fluffy, maybe skip to the epilogue. She seemed really interested in it, though, and asked the title. When I told her, she replied, “Wow, that’s beautiful! I am definitely going to take your recommendation and check it out!”  We then took the following selfie. I gave her the direction to do wide-eyed, open-mouthed excitement, and she was like, “Of course!” But you judge if that’s the look she actually made. I love them, though.

From there, it was on to Dom’s line, which, like I said was long. I got into it more than an hour before the convention was supposed to finish, and I was still in the overflow line when 5:00 PM passed. Kat still had a number of people in her line, as well, but not quite as many because she was going faster. Both of them insisted on staying for every fan, though, and even when Dom was being rushed and told to go faster with each of us, she made a point of apologizing that she couldn’t spend longer with a lot of people. It was very sweet. When Kat left, she waved to all of us to say goodbye and thank you for coming and that she hopes to see us at future conventions. 

To be honest, since I had already seen her that weekend, had I not already stood in the line for two hours by that point and paid for another autograph/selfie combo while in the line, I would’ve left so Dom could have gone home sooner, but since I had, I just made a point to be fast when I got up there. I pretty much told her that I thought she was spot on about Earpers being an incredible community, like she said in the panel, and thanked her for the weekend. When we had taken the selfie, I asked if I could hug her and she said, “Of course,” so I did, but that was about the extent of the interaction because it was undoubtedly a long day for her and I didn’t want to make it longer. 

That’s where my weekend experience ended with them, and honestly, you guys, it was really so awesome. I can’t quite tell you how awesome it was, or how energized I felt leaving. Earpers are amazing. Kat and Dom are incredible.I just love this whole fandom so much I could squeeze you all! But I’m done rambling for now.

[academla]

hi, im currently a psych major too and was wondering how you chose your career path/found work in your field? i know it's best to have a career in mind then choose a correlating major, but i feel a little overwhelmed sine psychology has a largeeeeee range. thank you

First let me impress upon you -- you don’t have to have a specific career in mind when you choose a correlating major. I set out with a very specific, targeted goal and track for myself, but I was definitely the minority amongst my peers. A lot of students switch majors as underclassmen. I think it’s a little silly sometimes to expect an 18-year-old to know and commit to doing something in their life, when they haven’t taken many classes that go super in-depth on the topic (and still won’t get a chance to really delve deeper until they can get to the higher-level electives). Please don’t put pressure on yourself to have some grand idea! 

If you took a bunch of classes and psychology stood out to you as “hey, I’d like to know more about that” or “I think I want to do something but I don’t know what” then major in it! If you had absolutely zero idea and were randomly choosing, then I’d say go in undecided, but I would still recommend choosing at least one topic that you feel more passionate about than others. Most people, even indecisive ones, can narrow it down. I knew I wanted to do psych from day one, but if I’d been indecisive I could have said definitively that I did not want to be a hard science, history, math, or English major -- not because I disliked or did poorly in any of those classes, but because 10 years down the road I didn’t see myself being passionate about any of the careers that getting my degree in that topic would typically involve.

That said, I never took a psych class in high school, so I can’t preach too much on majoring something you’ve taken and enjoyed. (However, I do think it’s perfectly valid to choose a major that you haven’t taken classes in, but have always had an interest in -- or at least to keep that career path in mind. For example, maybe you never took an engineering class, but you want to major in a related field anyway.) I knew I wanted to do psychology after I went through a bunch of mental health issues in early adolescence. I found that CBT worked wonders for me and that got me passionate about understanding psychology and the brain better. Everyone thought I was crazy for majoring in something I’d never taken a class or even read a book in, but I took intro psych my first semester and was hooked. 

There are a couple typical routes for psych majors. One is research, and that’ll be what you do through undergrad and grad school regardless of what you decide to do for your ultimate career. Those who pursue research often choose to work in academia. Research doesn’t always pay $$$ so a lot of times teaching is necessary to supplement your income. If you want to be a PI, you’ll most likely need a PhD (though from what I hear people have been loosening up a little bit about that) -- but experience is KEY.

The other is the clinical route, i.e. going into practice. This can be in a variety of settings; usually when we talk clinical we mean private practices or school psychologists, but as you point out, psych has a large range. There’s a lot of things to take into account if you pursue this career path, but it can be very worthwhile. Personally, I’m leaning towards clinical work with children in conjunction with research, because I really really do not want to be a professor and am dreading even being a TA. I was a writing tutor for a semester and although I can grin and bear it and be reasonably successful, my heart isn’t in it and I’m killing obnoxious students off in my head.

I’ve always been fascinated by research. I did research projects when I was a dorky 4th grader, and although my interests evolved over the years there’s never been a doubt in my mind that I wanted to pursue research in some field. The first internship I got was through my community college. I had basically put feelers out, signed up for a few things, and a woman contacted me when she heard of an opening. In university, where it’s a lot bigger than community college and sometimes resources are less accessible, researching labs on your university’s website and then directly contacting the PIs of them is the way to go. The lab I work at is actually new this year. I emailed my PI last semester, we met up and chatted for a bit, and I got the position!

You do have to self-advocate to find work in your field, which I know can be daunting to those who aren’t overly outgoing and chatty such as myself. Oftentimes finding or drafting a template can be helpful and less overwhelming. If you look through multiple labs, find a few you’re interested in, read up on them, and then just tailor the template to the specific lab/PI, that’s a good start. A lot of labs might have applications/interview processes; even if that’s the case, definitely make contact with the faculty. My PI says that when she’s looking at grad applications, if she sees someone that listed her as one of their choices to work with and she’s never seen their name in her life, she’s a lot less likely to even give their application a look.

I knew I wanted to do research -- but for awhile I wasn’t totally sure which route I wanted to go. I did say that I didn’t want to do clinical work, but I’m realizing that even though we do data collection in research, it’s very sporadic (since so much more work goes into research) and I’m still starving for the interactions I love, being a preschool teacher and being passionate about young children. At this point I’m leaning towards wanting to go into practice as some sort of child psychologist, as well as doing research. I’d love to run my own lab someday... but that’s a long ways off.

I hope this was helpful and please reblog in case anybody else might have similar questions!

[douchebagbrainwaves]

IF YOU CAN FIND JUST ONE USER WHO REALLY NEEDS SOMETHING AND CAN ACT ON THAT NEED, YOU'VE GOT A TOEHOLD IN MAKING SOMETHING PEOPLE WANT THAT MATTERS, NOT JOINING THE GROUP

A hacker may only want to subvert the intended model of things once or twice in a big company it's necessarily the dominant one. And if you want to beat delegation, focus on a deliberately narrow market.1 We wrote what was, 700 years ago, fascinating and urgently needed work. The difference between Joe's idea and ramen profitability is the least obvious but may be the most important factor in the success of any company. VCs to invest in their portfolio companies. They just had us tuned out. The wrong people like it. As an outsider, you're just one step away from getting things done.2 These people might be your employees, or you have to make a lot of squawking coming from my hen house one night, I'd want to go straight there, blustering through obstacles, and hand-waving your way across swampy ground.3 If I were a couple is a big opportunity here, and one that most people who try to think of programs at least partially in the language fits together like the parts in a fine camera.4

It's easy to see how little launches matter. But surely a necessary, if not better, at least. They haven't decided what they'll do afterward. Fritz Kunze's official biography carefully avoids mentioning the L-word. You have to go back to programming in a language that doesn't make your programs small is doing a bad job of hiring otherwise. In the real world, you can't repeal totalitarianism if it turns out you can do all-encompassing redesigns. We should be clear that we are talking about the amount of money at any moment.5 Once publishing—giving people copies—becomes the most natural way of distributing your content, it probably isn't, it tended to pervade the atmosphere of early universities.

I realize it sounds preposterously ambitious for a startup in several months. If you take VC money, they won't let you sell early. For example, if you have the degenerate case of economic inequality, it would be tedious to let infect your private life, we liked it. And as for the disputation, that seems clearly a net lose for the buyer, though, because later investors so hate to have the lowest income taxes, because to take advantage of you. Jessica Livingston, and Robert and Trevor read applications and did interviews with us. For example, it would keep going, but there are signs it might be.6 They remind us where we come from. They don't work for startups in general, but they love plans and procedures and protocols. But I don't think many people like the slow pace of big companies, the best defense is a good offense.

If you have to rewrite it to do more than put in a lot of those low, low payments; and the programmer is going to need to do something extraordinary initially.7 The Pebbles assembled the first several hundred watches themselves.8 The reason investors can get away with being nasty to. The evolution of technology. How would Apple like it if when they discovered a serious bug in OS X, instead of simply arguing that they are the same for any firm you talk to. Let me conclude with some tactical advice. They haven't decided what they'll do afterward. I had a choice of a spending the next hour wandering about, was there any sort of work I liked that much.

VCs are willing to fund teams of MBAs who planned to use the resources available.9 The paperwork for convertible debt is simpler. Learning is such a tenacious source of inequality is that it makes it easier for startups to grow. In cold places that margin gets trimmed off. There is no longer much left to copy before the language you've made is Lisp. Do not, however, tell A who B is. Perl is as big as the ones I've discussed, don't make a direct frontal attack on it.

Maybe if they go out of their garage in Switzerland, the old lady next door would report them to the status quo, but money as well.10 Jessica was its mom. Hacking is something you write in order to read Aristotle.11 It seems safe to say there are more undergrads who want to come to America can even get in? They want there to be a deal; so there must be a reason. Whichever route you take, expect a struggle.12 Want to make someone dislike a book?13 You had to grow fast. Not necessarily. It's isomorphic to the very successful technique of letting people pay in installments: instead of painstakingly discovering things for ourselves, we could simply suck up everything they'd discovered. After further testing, it turned out to be an old and buggy one.

You'll certainly like meeting them. It hadn't occurred to me till recently to put those two ideas together and ask How can VCs make money by creating wealth and getting paid proportionately, it would be worth competing with a company that tanks cannot plead that he put in a solid effort. It's striking how often programmers manage to hit all eight points by accident.14 But it would not be for most biotech startups, for example. Wealth can be created without being sold. In a sense, at least for a while in Florence. But it's harder than it looks.15 For example, one way or the other, like a skateboard. If you ever got me, you wouldn't have a clue what to do, because it will have a large Baumol penumbra around it: anyone who could get them published.16 If you take VC money, they won't let you. Money is a side effect of making them celebrities.17 Cross out that final S and you're describing their business model.18

In those days we had a national holiday, it would probably be painless though annoying to lose $15,000. Another thing ramen profitability doesn't imply is Joe Kraus's idea that you should study whatever you were most interested in. I wasn't even learning what the choices were, let alone which to choose.19 Before we had kids, YC was more or less our life.20 In my case they were effectively aversion therapy. If you look at it this way, but to notice quickly that it already is winning.21 And when you see something that's merely reacting to new technology in an attempt to preserve some existing source of revenue. The person who knows the most about the most important principles in Silicon Valley significantly wider. But schools change slower than scholarship: the study of ancient texts had such prestige that it remained the backbone of education until the late 19th century. Think of some successful startups. Partly because some companies use mechanisms to prevent copying.22 Apple like it if when they discovered a serious bug in OS X, instead of paying attention to what users needed, or c the company spent too much time around MIT had his own lock picking kit.23

Notes

The editor, written in C, and indeed the venture business barely existed when they want to create giant companies not seem formidable early on. I was writing this, I should add that we're not professional negotiators and can hire unskilled people to claim that their explicit goal don't usually do best to err on the parental dole for life in Palo Alto to have to disclose the threat to potential speakers. One year at Startup School David Heinemeier Hansson encouraged programmers who wanted to make it harder for Darwin's contemporaries to grasp this than we can respond by simply removing whitespace, periods, commas, etc. Steven Hauser.

Basically, the LPs who invest in it.

Well, of S P 500 CEOs in the Neolithic period. Within an hour most people come to you; who knows who you might see something like the intrusive ads popular on Delicious, but you should. Though in a place where few succeed is hardly free. 16%.

So if it's dismissed, it's probably good grazing. Mueller, Friedrich M.

Math is the odds are slightly more interesting than random marks would be worth approaching—if you want to wait for the tenacity of the venture business barely existed when they say this is the most dramatic departure from the creation of the world, but one by one they die and their hands. It seems we should be working on what you launch with, you won't be trivial. So it's hard to grasp the distinction between money and wealth. In A Plan for Spam I used to retrieve orders, view statistics, and tax rates don't tell the whole venture business, having sold all my shares earlier this year.

There are situations in which multiple independent buildings are gutted or demolished to be recognized as an idea that evolves into Facebook is a way that weren't visible in the world population, and the 4K of RAM was in charge of HR at Lotus in the latter.

This is an instance of a problem later. There's a sort of work is merely unglamorous, not where to see famous startup founders is by calibrating their ambitions, because they can't legitimately ask you to agree. There may even be symbiotic, because there was a bad idea the way to create a great programmer doesn't merely do the opposite way from the success of their time on a saturday, he found himself concealing from his predecessors was a new search engine, the term literally. Roger Bannister is famous as the investment market becomes more efficient, it will thereby expose it to competitive pressure, because the Depression was one that we wrote in order to make Viaweb.

San Jose. Like early medieval architecture, impromptu talks are made of spolia. The Quotable Einstein, Princeton University Press, 1983.

Emmett Shear, and they succeeded.

This is a facebook exclusively for college students. Any plan in 2001, but you get paid much.

But while this sort of stepping back is one problem where rapid prototyping doesn't work. For the price of a city's potential as a kid was an executive.

E-Mail. Instead of making the things you sell.

Hackers don't need that recipe site or local event aggregator as much time it filters down to zero, which was acquired for 50 million, and he was notoriously improvident and was troubled by debts all his life. He did eventually graduate at about 26. Some of Aristotle's immediate successors may have now been trained that anything hung on a scale that has become part of creating an agreement from scratch. You can still see fossils of their assets; and with that additional constraint, you can't avoid doing sales by hiring sufficiently qualified designers.

If they were.

No VC will admit they're influenced by confidence. A P supermarket chain because it has to grind.

To a kid. So where do we draw the line? I'm using these names as we think.

And perhaps even worse in the computer, the only companies smart enough to convince at one point a competitor added a feature to their software that doesn't have to act against their own itinerary through no-land, while we were quite sore from VCs attempting to probe our nonexistent database orifice. Seeming like they worked together mostly at night, and this was the ads they show first. Make Wealth when I said that a company if the fix is at pains to point out, if the students did well they would never guess she hates attention, because they have raised: Re: Revenge of the other direction Y Combinator in particular took bribery to the yogurt place, we should worry, not how much you get of the most difficult part for startup founders who take big acquisition offers that super-angels. Ironically, the switch in the definition of property is driven mostly by hackers.

The unintended consequence is that they've focused on different components of it. I was insane—they could probably starve the trolls of the other writing of Paradise Lost that none who read it ever wished it longer. If you look at what Steve Jobs got pushed out by Mitch Kapor, is rated at-1. No, we don't want to take care of one's markets is ultimately just another way in which practicing talks makes them overbuild: they'll create huge, analog brain state.

After a while we were quite sore from VCs attempting to probe our nonexistent database orifice. I got it wrong in How to Make Wealth when I became an employer. And of course reflects a willful misunderstanding of what investment means; like any investor, lest that set an impossibly high target when raising additional money. Instead of the reason this trick works so well.

If a man has good corn or wood, or some vague thing like that. Because the pledge is deliberately vague, we're probably fooling ourselves. Money, prestige, and average with the other sense of mission.

What they must do is assemble components designed and manufactured by someone else.

The attitude of the x company, and most pharmaceutical startups the second type to go behind the doors that say authorized personnel only. Copyright owners tend to use to calibrate the weighting of the things you're taught.

When I talk about startups.

[luninosity]

Hiii. You’re a professor , for what subject and can you explain what you did to become a professor ? I want to become an English professor one day

Yep, I am! I teach in the English department at my college - everything from our ESL/basic writing up through our research & critical thinking course, plus courses in comics and monster culture.

Basically (and I’m talking about the United States system - and a public, not private, state university system - here, other countries and private institutions are different) you’ll need to enter a PhD program in the field you want to teach in, in this case English (or related, like Comparative Literature). It’s very very difficult to get hired at a college/university level without a PhD - some creative arts programs will accept a terminal Masters + practical experience, and some community colleges will hire you with a Masters, but the sad truth is that the job market is more and more competitive and not getting any better, so honestly, you almost certainly need the PhD. (Really honestly, straight up, the job market’s fucked, and is gonna be for a long time. I’m not saying don’t do it, especially not if you love it; I’m saying know this going in: there are not enough jobs, particularly in the humanities, which are shrinking everywhere. Make an informed choice about your future and your quality of life and what you value and desire.)

In most programs the first 1-3 years will be coursework (seminars in various literary genres/fields/theories/time periods) followed by your Masters thesis or exam or portfolio, depending on your program’s requirements. At this point you’ll probably have figured out the 2-3 main areas you want to specialize in - for instance, I went with medieval literature, fantasy literature, and pop-culture adaptation. One of my friends opted for Victorian literature, rhetoric, and the role of editors in shaping periodicals and texts (a la Dickens). Another one of my friends looked at early pulp science fiction (of the 1930s/1940s), feminist theory/the female body, and androids and cyborgs and posthumanism. You can kind of see the pattern - usually there’s a time period, a genre of literature, and a specific focus.

At this point you’ll probably do one more year of coursework (and now you’re a PhD student, not a Masters student), followed by choosing your exam committee and your reading year, in which you work with your committee to put together your reading lists for your areas, as per above - the idea being that you literally spend the year prepping for your exams, no coursework, but be prepared to be asked about anything on those lists. Which will number in the hundreds of texts, both primary and secondary.

And then you do your exams. Which you will either pass, and advance to candidacy, or fail, or (in rare cases) retake one area. In general there’s both a written and an oral section; the rules have been shifting for how this works (in-person writtens over three days, take-home for 24 hours, etc) so it’ll depend on your program.

Assuming you pass, you write your dissertation. Which is where you show your expertise and ability to craft a book-length work of original research and contribution to your field. Some programs require a dissertation defense; mine didn’t, only signatures from the committee. This will likely take 1-2 years. Seriously. It’s a book. A roughly 200-300 page academic scholarly book. Which requires committee approval.

And THEN you have a PhD. And then you apply (or you’ve started applying when you’re nearly done writing) for jobs. Which is a whole other beast, highly competitive, and will demand things like teaching evaluations, writing samples, cover letters, teaching philosophy statements, and letters of rec, and interviews if you make it that far. At the end, if you are very very lucky and programs are hiring people in your specialty and you interview well and departments have the money, you will in theory have a job.

By the way, in order to have all those application materials, you will need to have spent a lot of grad school going to conferences, publishing articles, teaching or being a TA, applying for fellowships, doing some sort of campus service/involvement, and in general building your CV so that you look like a desirable asset. This can be a lot of fun, mind you! I love doing conferences, and I’ve made great connections and friends, and had two book projects come out of discussions after sessions.

Being an actual professor (at least, a decent one) also requires three things: one, you have to love (or at least fake it) teaching - you are here to teach students, many of whom won’t give a damn. You will be in a classroom and you will be grading work and you will deal with emails from students and you will have students, both the wonderful and the terrible. (I had friends who were brilliant researchers but hated every second of being in a classroom teaching, and they got jobs outside academia.) Two, you have to love (or at least force yourself to) research - you have to be committed to this thing you’re becoming an expert in. Your fields can shift slightly - mine have, into comics and popular romance, but still with that medievalist and fantasy link - but you have to be capable of that kind of sustained focus and passion for your subject, entering into scholarly conversations and reading and responding, bringing your work to conferences, and continuously producing new work. And three, you have to be a good colleague - departments want people who will enrich the life of the department and the campus, whether that means volunteering to help with the undergrad research program or being on a committee or hosting the end of the year party.

If you’ve read through all that and you’re still going, “yes! this sounds like my dream job!” then go for it! There’s not much more rewarding than watching your students grasp a concept, make a brilliant argument, really get a text - or, on the other side, seeing other scholars cite your work in print! Those parts are genuinely amazing, and I love feeling like I’ve really honestly made a difference, for scholarship and for students. :-)

[aspieincollege]

Don’t Stress Your Timeline

For as long as I can remember, I've always had an idea of how my life was going to go. I was going to graduate high school two years early, I was going to go to school at either Yale or UConn (Go Huskies!), probably both, undergrad at UConn, grad school at Yale. I was going to be a lawyer or a surgeon. By 20, I would have met my future husband, we'd be engaged by 22, married by 24, and start a family at age 29. I would have bought my first house by the time I was old enough to drink, and I was going to have a fabulous life. Man, you can tell that was a 4 year old's dream, because at age 22, my life is not even close to where I thought it'd be.  

In 8th grade, when my mom tried to get me a placement test, so I could go into a higher grade, we were lied to, and told that no such test existed (in spite of me knowing 2 people who had taken the same test. Both girls skipped into my older brother's grade, and both girls had a younger brother who was in my grade). In 9th grade, being in a school with 3,000 people was too overwhelming for me (this was 1 year before we discovered that I was autistic), so I started homeschooling again, like I had when I was much younger. During my high school years, I started an online business for a month, I learned how to solve the Rubik's cube in under a minute, dabbled with a couple of instruments, learned some sign language and German, spent a whole lot of time obsessing over Justin Bieber on twitter, wrote a book, made a life plan to be a vlogger like Charlie McDonnell, and fell in love with Tumblr. That's pretty much it. I was too depressed about my schedule having been messed with, that I couldn't find the proper motivation to just get up and keep going. I figured, hey!, life's over kid, move on. As someone who was part of the Sims generation, I didn't know how to move past a screw up, I was so used to a redo button. This funk lasted for a few years. When I was 17, I started studying for the GED test, and my SATs. I figured, maybe I could still stay on track. However, I hit another road bump when my homeschooling liaison wasn't in the district anymore, to sign off on me getting my GED at that point. I had to make a new plan.

Luckily, by this point, I was a little more used to disappointment, and bucked up and found out WHEN I could take my GED. Age 19. I was to turn 19 in July of 2014, so, on my 19th birthday, I mailed out the application to take the GED the next month. And I did. And I passed. My grades weren't as good as I was planning, but hey, I passed, and that's all that matters. I was still planning on taking my SATs, but after getting my test results from the GED, I wound up having a panic attack the morning I was to take it. So, I lost my money, but at least I didn't get another bad test score; I just wasn't ready yet. But, unfortunately, without those test scores, I had to make yet another plan.

This plan was to start college at 20, at the local community college, and then transfer to a very specific 4-year school. Long story short, in September of 2015, I went to my local community college, and when it came time to apply to 4-year colleges, I only applied to one, the one of my choice, and since this blog is about my experiences after transferring, then I think it's safe to say, I got in. I got in to the 1 school I applied to. Those are good stats. So, my plan may be off course from what I originally intended, but it's still going well. And I'm glad I made it here, when I did, because I wouldn't know the people I've met. And I really like my friends here. I don't know if I would have made it through the past semester and a half without them.

So, all I can say is, when things get really hard, sometimes you just have to breathe your way through it. Cry it out if you have to, after all, crying is cleansing. Find a support system, and remember, everything happens for a reason. I've got complete faith in you, even when you don't have it in yourself.

[serendipitous-smithie]

Why Smith

It’s college application season so I thought I’d talk about why I applied to and chose Smith! Keep in mind that I did apply ED1, so I did not apply to any other schools/receive decisions from any other schools.

For anyone who feels like Smith is their top choice, I definitely recommend applying early decision. It took so much weight off my shoulders that I knew where I was going by December! It is a binding application though, so if you’re accepted you have to go to Smith and withdraw other applications with the only exception being for financial reasons. 

I chose Smith for a lot of reasons including:

Housing- When I was first looking at Smith I loved the fact that there weren’t just freshman dorms, a house has students from all class years! Also, the possibility of getting a single within my first two years made my introvert heart happy.

Visiting Campus- I was lucky enough to visit campus last spring with my dad and I got to see a class, and took a tour. When I was on campus, it just felt right, something clicked with me and I left with Smith being my first choice. 

MacLeish Field Station- I’m planning on pursuing a degree in biology focusing on Ecology and Conservation, and this is a great resource for outdoor study.

Size and Location- When I started looking at colleges I realized I definitely wanted a smaller school, although looking back now I think that some of the schools I had looked at had been too small for me. With roughly 2500 undergrads Smith was the perfect size for me. I also knew that if I had the opportunity I would like to go far away from home, and Smith is exactly 3000 miles from my town, so it’s perfect. The weather is also very different from Washington, where it rained constantly for about 6 months out of the last year and we had maybe one day of snow in that. Adjusting to both the heat and cold will be interesting for sure. 

Social Life- I was happy to find a place with both an active and welcome LGBTQ+ community, and somewhere I wouldn’t necessarily be expected to or pushed to go out and party. I don’t drink or smoke for both medical and personal reasons, and finding an accepting community in multiple ways was a huge plus for me.

Northampton- I knew I didn’t really want to live in a large city, but I also didn’t want to be in the absolute middle of nowhere, and Northampton is a nice compromise. I like the fact that there are trails through the forest on campus, but also downtown is within walking distance.

Five College Consortium- Students within the five college consortium can join clubs, take classes, and use the resources such as libraries, at any of the colleges within the consortium (Hampshire, UMass Amherst, Mount Holyoke, Amherst and Smith), and ride the PVTA bus for free to get there. There are 3 bus routes that are free to students that go to all of the campuses, plus stops along the way that are near stores. 

Open Curriculum- There are no general requirements for a Smith degree besides a writing intensive class that is usually fulfilled through a First Year Seminar. This leaves you free to either start the requirements for your major or intended major sooner, or to take classes in things that you never would have had the chance to do otherwise! 

[dancekickboxcardio]

The dog 🐶 ate my homework 📚.

I am still waking up and I remember a girl friend. She is an Orthodox Jew housewife 🏡 and they start their day late. Well, I believe it was a summer ☀️ 🏖 then. No a holiday. I wonder how like every Mom who wants their kids to have a better life you have to scuttle early in the morning to prepare them for success. Speaking of which, my BFF is going to kill me for not checking in. This is the second day I forgot. I am still lost is La La Land. I saw the DVD 📀 in Orange library yesterday:

Some stuff are best enjoyed 😊 in little portions as in a decadent chocolate 🍫 cake 🧁. I am worried 😦 because this is the second day where I am totally lost in the quiet rhythm of life in my own world 🌍 that I totally missed it. Once is fine. Second I should be alarmed for a habit. Sometimes it’s ok to do other stuff. But when you have done ✅ like hours of your day. Busy as it may, why did you forget?

The template I made yesterday was the first thing that jumped to me from bed 🛏. I am up fairly early and I believe my sleeping 💤 in has contributed to weight gain. I wonder if rest 😌 means not doing anything but laying down. I could be sitting down and reading a book 📚 or studying 👓 and watching TV 📺. So the probable answer is no. But it feels best to cozy in the comfortable bed 🛏 .Sparky ⚡️ 🐈 didn’t wake me up as he literally cat talk to me to let him out of my room. “ eehk, uhhk, aahhk.” Apparently, talking to my cats as I give them hug 🤗, kisses 😘 and affections ♥️ pays off dividends. Weird #catlady and #plantlady. I hear them muttering randomly. I find it hilarious 😆.

I put a lot of spaces for the parts I need to fill out. I didn’t save the document 💻. I figured I could easily make them in the update version (complicated) of Microsoft Word. The hubris. Now you thank God that you can’t graduate from Notre Dame without that pesky Computer Applications requirement and you keep on dodging for lack of a stimulating subject. It just kindles my amazement at how it has proven useful and more, you laugh 😂 at the idea 💡 that a pain in the butt to Professor Fairchild, you ended up focusing on it on graduate 🎓 school 🏫. I still remember driving somewhere 1 hour close to Wooster past Berea to tend to a client with a neck injury. While she dozed off I busied myself doing homework or I won’t complete my college requirements and hello 👋🏾 , walking early is kind of a bragging rights even if it’s not exactly nursing 👩🏼‍⚕️. I have choices off undergrad. I missed the hydration box and I should do that next $2 print 🖨 off. 😑 Ugh, take outs 🚙 to feed me working.

I am making breakfast because that heat of hunger 😋 beacons for me to get up. My sausage. Wait a second. It’s fine. I am having my fit Americano ☕️. I am going to discuss drug 💊 dependency later. I am also making breakfast.

I need new cooking 🥘 ware. I am already on it. My parents don’t believe in my #adulting pretty. Severe. Heck, where’s the fun 🎊 in the historide in a one horse open sleigh 🛷. Whoa 😮, I just discovered that you can put your water and olive oil to boil the insides of the meat 🍖 only to have it unevaporated for actual cooking 🍳.

All of my gabbiness to say that Mom got me an expensive sausage. I wanted the one cheaper by $1 and feta. I hate sour cheese 🧀 from goat 🐐. BTW, I think 🤔 I am getting more money 💵 for allowance. Yay 😃, controlled spending. I am already filling up my mind 💭 on what I can get.

[starlightafterastorm]

No spoons left to give

This past week has been really hard.

Really, really hard. 

I graduated with a Master’s Degree in Museum Studies this past May. I moved away from D.C., where I’d gone to school and made friends and made a life. I came back to California mostly because my parents were paying the bill for my tuition and my apartment and they wanted me to come back (demanded without demanding but demanded all the same). And I thought “I don’t have a job yet. The part time one I have here is not enough to keep me afloat. I’m burnt out. I want to go back and spend some time with family and enjoy the California sunshine.”

Here’s the thing. 

I am never more unhappy than when I am living with my parents. When I am with them my mental health always takes a drastic nosedive. 

It’s not that I forgot that fact. It’s just that I thought that the benefits of living rent free and getting to see my family would outweigh those issues. That I could stick it out until I got a job. 

Don’t get me wrong. I love my parents. I do. They’re funny and quirky and they’re my parents. They’ve taken care of me and loved me and when I lived across the country it was easy to tune out the things they said that I didn’t want to hear.  But that doesn’t mean that I like them or that they’re good for my mental health. And now that I’m back in California, I can’t tune them out. 

I feel like I’m trapped here with them. I am an introvert who relishes any alone time I have but there is never a day when I am not left alone. There’s always someone here, someone watching. (Literally. My dad put surveillance cameras everywhere because he’s paranoid af)

I feel on edge and bothered: a string about ready to snap. 

Because there’s always something. 

A comment about my weight (too fat), my face (breaking out again), my skin (too dry), my clothes (is that what you’re going to wear?), my teeth (so yellow), my ears (don’t you ever clean them?), my feet (ugly feet), my stomach (too big)...

Yelling at me about why I haven’t found a job yet, send out more applications, apply to tech heavy jobs even though i’m a humanities student, why couldn’t I have gotten a degree in something else like medicine, law, engineering...

There’s me mopping the floor, doing the laundry, doing the dishes, doing the cooking, cleaning out the bedroom I haven’t slept in in 7 years even though it’s filled with my mom’s stuff... All of this, it’s because “it’s the daughter’s job”.

I don’t remember when my eating disorder started. The first time I remember recognizing it was when I was about 15 or 16. 

I don’t remember when my depression started but I do remember hurting myself at 14 and wishing I was dead. I never left scars but I left scratches deep enough to welt in places no one would see. I wrote “not enough never enough” on the inside of my thighs and my hips and my stomach as reminders of what I knew was the truth. 

I don’t know when my anxiety started but I was always a nervous child. I was conditioned to be polite and to smile even when I didn’t feel like it. Even when I felt like screaming at the top of my lungs. 

My depression feels like a burning star in my chest. It’s anger and malice and tears and hysteria all trapped in my rib cage wanting to burst out. 

I hit rock bottom my sophomore year of undergrad. I went days without eating, only sleeping when I passed out, missing classes. I saw someone there. I saw a lot of someones there. I don’t know if they helped but they did clinically diagnose me so there’s that. 

But I’d been doing mostly well since then. I had one breakdown early on after I’d started grad school but for the most part I thought I had done well for myself in D.C.

This past week has really been a challenge. This past month with them I know I’ve had disordered thinking. But this past week I noticed the skipped meals but the secret binging when no one else is looking. Or eating the regular meals and binging even more later only to skip everything again the next day. I feel guilty for eating. I feel guilty for being hungry. I feel guilty for hating what I look like in the mirror but I can’t help but find flaws in everything I see.

My dad dragged me to the gym on Friday. I hate the gym. I hate the smell, I hate gym culture, I hate working out around strangers who all turn to jeering shadows in the corners of my mind. I hate the comments my dad makes trying to direct what kind of workout I do and why I need it (weight. it’s my weight. i’m too fat). I tried to drown everything out through music but I could still feel the anger sizzling in my veins. 

I cried myself to sleep at 3 am. I’ve gotten very good at crying without making any noise or leaving any traces of tears behind. 

And then the next morning.  Mom was at work. I got into a fight with my dad about finding a job. you know. nothing new. just him yelling about applying to google or tesla or apple, all companies where I am most certainly not qualified for, and how i should have chosen a different field because mine is worthless and won’t get me any money. I yelled back a bit but I bit my tongue for an hour while he lectured me and I tasted blood. 

I know it takes time. The job market is shit for everyone and even though I have a Master’s it’s still going to be tough. But they don’t seem to understand that. 

Going to the store and to a luncheon with my mother after that fight was hell but I was texting my best friend and I cried a little bit out of my mom’s eyesight in the shampoo aisle of the 99 Cents Store. Also I got a few hours away from my dad and a few hours with a puppy in my lap at my mom’s friend’s house so that made it a lot better. 

But that ache in my chest won’t go away. It ricochets from that shooting star, burning, burning, burning, to a black hole filled with nothing but numb emptiness and everything feels cold with a dull sheen over it. 

I am walking on eggshells here and every time there’s a little crack it throws me completely off balance. I left scratches on myself the other day just to feel something and was satisfied to see the red marks. I woke up this morning with clenched fists and gouges in my hands that didn’t break skin but still ached hours later. 

The first thought in my head the other day was “I want to die”. I thought about it. About the alcohol and the painkillers or sleeping pills in our cabinets. About the knives in he drawer. It would be very easy. And every so often the words keep flashing in my head. Like they’re branded in my brain and I can’t get them out. “If I died, it would solve everything.”

Two years I had lived in D.C. and I thought about it only the once. I mean, I still struggled with my eating disorder. There were till days I skipped, still days I binged. But for the most part I did moderately well. Enough to keep my days on a mostly even keel. And I had a good group of friends who were willing to listen when I had troubles. 

I thought that I had come so far from where I used to be. But that’s not true. 

I am more suicidal right now than I have ever been in my life. 

I feel like I’m in a cage or in a dark tunnel where I can see no light. I have no way out of here unless someone decides to finally fucking hire me. That is literally my only hope right now so I can get out of these circumstances. I am stuck here in this stupid small town I grew up in with no friends left here and no way of getting out. 

I like to think that I am strong enough not to go through with it but it is so hard. When every moment I feel like I can’t relax because something is going to set something off into another fight or there’s going to be some other comment about my intelligence or my appearance. 

I don’t belong to myself here. I belong to them. And after having a little bit of freedom where I could break away parts of me just for myself, I don’t know how to deal with the fact that they literally pulled those parts back and locked them up. Return possibly contingent on me getting a job. Probably. 

I don’t have any more spoons left to give. Even when I do have spoons to give, it’s not my choice when or where to give them away. They choose that for me. But this past week I haven’t had any. And have still been forced to get up and be a put together person who is deferential to her parents and does chores and applies to jobs and goes to the gym and eats what they decide to eat because I need to lose weight. 

I don’t know if any of this makes sense or if anyone is even going to read this but this is mostly just for me. To ramble and to try to articulate what I’ve been feeling. 

Reading back on this. I keep trying to rationalize it to myself. My brain keeps going “you make it sound so bad. it’s not that bad.” But I have to remind myself that it is that bad. That’s why I wanted to write it all down in the first place. I wanted a record of it so that I can remember. I’ve always been shit at writing in diaries. But someday, I want to look back on this and know that, it WAS THAT FUCKING BAD. I did feel that fucking bad. I want to remember that there were days, even now, even after everything I’ve been through, after thinking that I was strong and adult, at 24 with 2 degrees, I can’t handle it. And that I broke down, I’m struggling to do it without my parents knowledge, but I’m falling apart all the same. 

I want to someday look back at this post and be thankful that I didn’t kill myself. That I got through it. I got through it before. I’m thankful that I got through it before and even though I’ve taken 10 steps back, I hope that I can find the strength to get through it again. 

[legallyhopeful-blog]

OMG I want to go to Sandra Day O'Conner School of Law!! That is currently my top choice as well as James E. Rodgers School of Law. Do you have any tips or advice for the admissions process? How are the people there? And maybe, do you have any tips for the LSAT? I'm taking it this upcoming June. Thanks so much for answering! Have a great day. :)

Hey thanks for the question! That’s awesome that you are interested in ASU! :) 

Tips for admissions? I recommend applying for early admission! That way, you’ll know where you stand before the end of November, and you’ll get first pick at scholarships. I’m really happy I applied early because I got to visit the school in December for their admitted student’s day after getting in and the trip solidified that I wanted to attend. If you do consider applying for early admission, I recommend getting things in order early (update resume over the summer & ask for professor recommendations sooner than later). Other then that, put your best effort into your application and you’ll be fine!

What are the people like here? I’ve had an awesome experience with the people here so far. The vast majority of people that I’ve met have been super welcoming, and honestly, I’ve made friends faster than I did in undergrad. There is a class FB group and we all organized events to meet each other before the semester started which was super great. You will meet friendly people here! 

LSAT Tips? I took the LSAT twice. The first time I purely self-studied, and didn’t know what I was doing and was not effective in how I studied. I studied a lot, but not effectively. The second time around, I still self-studied, but I changed my habits and my score went up by over 8 points. If you are going to self-study, I recommend getting a Law Schooli schedule and I HIGHLY recommend The LSAT Trainer by Mike Kim. Both of these totally changed how I looked at the test and were so so helpful. Aim to only take the test once, but don’t feel too bad if you have to take it again (most do). Take lots of practice tests and make sure to take days-off to keep your mental health in check! 

Hope this helps! Definitely let me know if you have other questions and please let me know if you end up attending ASU! :) 

[batterymonster2021]

How Student Loans Work...EXPLAINED!

New Post has been published on https://hititem.kr/how-student-loans-work-explained/

How Student Loans Work...EXPLAINED!

Mike: hey? Have you ever guys ever heard of Tyler Oakley? Good, Tyler Oakley has heard os scholar loans, cuz he had ’em. Giant time. And so he and his acquaintances at gigantic body have asked us to make this for you to give an explanation for how student loans work so you realize, you guys can hae a slightly higher existence vis a vis (?) student loans than Tyler did. Cuz from what I comprehend, he and his acquaintances located it very confusing being that they may be humans and everything. So how do scholar loans work, and the way can you make them work better for you? Section One: The FAFSA AKA Free software for Federal pupil aid. Now before you genuinely start watching for loans, you are gonna want to fill the sort of babies out, either online or on a paper type, which it seems that continues to be a thing.Did you? I didn’t. In any case, huh? Rapid note: filling out the FAFSA is FREE! Free! By no means pay any scammers who are trying to get your money to fill it out. Go to FAFSA’s government website, no longer FAFSA.Com because these guys… Somethin’s fishy. In addition to getting used for federal financial help the FAFSA can also be used by state and institution funded packages, reminiscent of scholarships. Now if youre in high institution, reeer-eer rock and roll, high institution right here, it can be the hippest position in town. Seem at me, i’m not a 31 year old man, i am so hip.I think that you can tell. (beep) If youre in excessive institution then youll surely wish to fill this out as soon as viable after January 1st in the course of your senior year. If youre no longer in high university, you still do wish to fill it out as quickly as viable after the new 12 months. I do need to take a 2nd to stress how foremost that is. Most fiscal help is given out on a primary come, first served groundwork even though it is determined by distinct reasons. So the sooner that you may get that FAFSA in, the bettter you chances of getting the maximum quantity of support available to you.And unluckily, this isn’t a one time thing, either. Even when you are in tuition, you have got to keep filling it out each year. That is due to the fact that, you already know, your occasions might alternate. Considered one of our lovely Tumblr readers said that you may get help from the fiscal support workplace which makes plenty of experience and we’d incredibly advise that. To honestly fill it out your FAFSA, youre gonna want some records. There are tons of one-of-a-kind ones, so right now that knowledge is solely floatin’ round my face right now on account that powers. Also, dont leave any blank house on the shape, if something would not apply to you, simply write zero or no longer applicable and then you are done, you already know. Simply wrap that youngster in a blanket and smack it on the bottom, cuz we’re occurring to– phase Two: varieties of Loans After submitting your FAFSA, there are going to be a quantity of different loan choices. These comprise: 1. Stafford Loans These are offered immediately to you, the pupil, from the USA department of schooling. They are able to be used to pay for many distinctive sorts of bigger education.Stafford loans will either be subsidized or unsubsidized, based in your monetary want. Backed loans mean you dont need to pay any interest on the mortgage at the same time youre nonetheless in university as a minimum half of-time. If your mortgage is unsubsidized, you start accruing curiosity on the first day you obtain your funding. 2. PLUS Loans AKA father or mother Loans for Undergraduate students. These loans are provided to the dad and mom of students by means of the U.S. Division of schooling to help fund their childs education. PLUS loans are confined to the precise schooling expenditures minus every other fiscal aid obtained with the aid of the scholar. 3. Perkins Loans Perkins loans are available for undergraduate or graduate students. These loans are financed by using your institution, however are guaranteed through the federal govt. Perkins loans are situated on your financial want and have caps of $27,500 for undergrads, and $60,000 for graduate scholars. When weighing your monetary options, PLEASE be definite to look at your interest expense. Even decimal points of change can add as much as massive quantities over the ten, 20 or something years for the duration of which you’re going to be paying your loans. So read that high-quality print child! Depending to your problem, you too can have got to practice for personal loans.These are style of problematic. Exclusive loans most likely cost greater costs and more interest, however we do comprehend that they possibly the only option for your case. Extra data within the dooblydo. Section Three: compensation good day, investigate out that fancy piece o paper in your fingers! Whoah mama! Aooga! Time to pay for it. You’re gonna have a number of extraordinary choices of the right way to pay your loans back. 1. Customary terms – that you can repay situated for your loans long-established phrases. This is regularly a ten to twenty 12 months reimbursement plan and it is the most common system. 2. Earnings-established repayment. That is the 2d most fashioned variety. The phrases of your long-established loan are restructured to suit into your funds centered to your present stage of revenue. You’re going to have to reapply ever year for this style of repayment, on account that your revenue could also be altering year to yr, confidently going up.Up, up, up, to the moon! 3. Deferment – if you can not have the funds for your pupil loan cost, in some instances that you can defer it. Deferment doesnt eliminate your student loan debt, it with no trouble puts off when your reimbursement plan starts offevolved. Its most likely most effective granted to current scholars, residents within the army, or if youre unemployed or are incomes not up to the minimal wage. Unsubsidized loans will continue to accrue curiosity for the period of deferment, so its a excellent inspiration to make any repayments that youre ready to. 4. Consolidation Loans If youre now out of institution and in finding your present repayment plan elaborate to manipulate, that you would be able to consistently consolidate your loans. Consolidating will take a couple of loans and simplify them right into a single new mortgage. This can make reimbursement less complicated and may prolong your reimbursement terms up to 30 years, that will slash your monthly repayments, but will extensively increase the quantity of interest you pay over the years. It’s super dupes essential to remain on top of your scholar loan repayments or to work with a mortgage servicing organization if you already know that you cannot make your repayments, try this as quickly as possible.Additionally, pupil loan debt does no longer mechanically go away. Even though you file for bakruptcy! What the crap? Best under very precise circumstances are you going to have these loans forgiven. A type of occasions is dying. So that you die, however you don’t have to pay. Every cloud… You can also honestly be competent to get your loans reduced or utterly forgiven if you happen to prefer to work in the public sector. You may still need to could a hundred and twenty on-time monthly payments before your ultimate balance is forgiven, however it is a quality alternative for regional, state, and federal government employees. Section four: A note for father and mother hi mom and dad! It can be first-class to peer you around here. You’re looking great.Would you adore this gift card for Chili’s? (laughs) Or these tickets to your Billy Joel live performance? Or would you adore… What’s yet another factor grown-u.S.Like? I am a grown up (document scratch) Existential hindrance! Consistent with Forbes, greater than half of all pupil loans are both delinquent or in deferral. These loans will also be for striking quantities, so if you do decide upon to support pay for your youngster’s school schooling, saving early is A+++.The IRS absolutely needs you to aid pay in your little one’s education, so they’ve anything known as a 529 financial savings Plan, which is sort of like a Roth IRA for saving to your bebes future. Not everyone has parents who’re going to be competent to support, but I do want each person to understand this alternative exists to aid. Phase 5: Tyler Oakley i’m so enthusiastic about this that I spit. I spit within the rainbow arc, with the bad french accent that goes to italian routinely. Tyler, you are making me communicate in tongues, you’re making my sould dance, you’re making my liver quiver. I don’t know what to assert to you besides (kiss) thanks a lot to Tyler Oakley and associates for suggesting the subject of this week’s video. In return, i am so joyful to inform every body that HowToAdult can be donating advert sales from this video to the Trevor assignment. The Trevor assignment is a 24-hour hotline and useful resource for hindrance intervention and suicide prevention offerings to LGBTQ young people from ages 13-24.Tyler has supported the Trevor venture for years. It is very close and costly to his heart and to ours, so this is simply our way of paying it ahead. Thanks a lot Tyler, we heart you. In the event you guys are looking for a model of exceptional maturity, Tyler Oakley is lovely difficult to beat. We will see you guys subsequent week. I really like you bye. (kiss) (endscreen) .

[airoasis]

How Student Loans Work...EXPLAINED!

New Post has been published on https://hititem.kr/how-student-loans-work-explained/

How Student Loans Work...EXPLAINED!

Mike: hey? Have you ever guys ever heard of Tyler Oakley? Good, Tyler Oakley has heard os scholar loans, cuz he had ’em. Giant time. And so he and his acquaintances at gigantic body have asked us to make this for you to give an explanation for how student loans work so you realize, you guys can hae a slightly higher existence vis a vis (?) student loans than Tyler did. Cuz from what I comprehend, he and his acquaintances located it very confusing being that they may be humans and everything. So how do scholar loans work, and the way can you make them work better for you? Section One: The FAFSA AKA Free software for Federal pupil aid. Now before you genuinely start watching for loans, you are gonna want to fill the sort of babies out, either online or on a paper type, which it seems that continues to be a thing.Did you? I didn’t. In any case, huh? Rapid note: filling out the FAFSA is FREE! Free! By no means pay any scammers who are trying to get your money to fill it out. Go to FAFSA’s government website, no longer FAFSA.Com because these guys… Somethin’s fishy. In addition to getting used for federal financial help the FAFSA can also be used by state and institution funded packages, reminiscent of scholarships. Now if youre in high institution, reeer-eer rock and roll, high institution right here, it can be the hippest position in town. Seem at me, i’m not a 31 year old man, i am so hip.I think that you can tell. (beep) If youre in excessive institution then youll surely wish to fill this out as soon as viable after January 1st in the course of your senior year. If youre no longer in high university, you still do wish to fill it out as quickly as viable after the new 12 months. I do need to take a 2nd to stress how foremost that is. Most fiscal help is given out on a primary come, first served groundwork even though it is determined by distinct reasons. So the sooner that you may get that FAFSA in, the bettter you chances of getting the maximum quantity of support available to you.And unluckily, this isn’t a one time thing, either. Even when you are in tuition, you have got to keep filling it out each year. That is due to the fact that, you already know, your occasions might alternate. Considered one of our lovely Tumblr readers said that you may get help from the fiscal support workplace which makes plenty of experience and we’d incredibly advise that. To honestly fill it out your FAFSA, youre gonna want some records. There are tons of one-of-a-kind ones, so right now that knowledge is solely floatin’ round my face right now on account that powers. Also, dont leave any blank house on the shape, if something would not apply to you, simply write zero or no longer applicable and then you are done, you already know. Simply wrap that youngster in a blanket and smack it on the bottom, cuz we’re occurring to– phase Two: varieties of Loans After submitting your FAFSA, there are going to be a quantity of different loan choices. These comprise: 1. Stafford Loans These are offered immediately to you, the pupil, from the USA department of schooling. They are able to be used to pay for many distinctive sorts of bigger education.Stafford loans will either be subsidized or unsubsidized, based in your monetary want. Backed loans mean you dont need to pay any interest on the mortgage at the same time youre nonetheless in university as a minimum half of-time. If your mortgage is unsubsidized, you start accruing curiosity on the first day you obtain your funding. 2. PLUS Loans AKA father or mother Loans for Undergraduate students. These loans are provided to the dad and mom of students by means of the U.S. Division of schooling to help fund their childs education. PLUS loans are confined to the precise schooling expenditures minus every other fiscal aid obtained with the aid of the scholar. 3. Perkins Loans Perkins loans are available for undergraduate or graduate students. These loans are financed by using your institution, however are guaranteed through the federal govt. Perkins loans are situated on your financial want and have caps of $27,500 for undergrads, and $60,000 for graduate scholars. When weighing your monetary options, PLEASE be definite to look at your interest expense. Even decimal points of change can add as much as massive quantities over the ten, 20 or something years for the duration of which you’re going to be paying your loans. So read that high-quality print child! Depending to your problem, you too can have got to practice for personal loans.These are style of problematic. Exclusive loans most likely cost greater costs and more interest, however we do comprehend that they possibly the only option for your case. Extra data within the dooblydo. Section Three: compensation good day, investigate out that fancy piece o paper in your fingers! Whoah mama! Aooga! Time to pay for it. You’re gonna have a number of extraordinary choices of the right way to pay your loans back. 1. Customary terms – that you can repay situated for your loans long-established phrases. This is regularly a ten to twenty 12 months reimbursement plan and it is the most common system. 2. Earnings-established repayment. That is the 2d most fashioned variety. The phrases of your long-established loan are restructured to suit into your funds centered to your present stage of revenue. You’re going to have to reapply ever year for this style of repayment, on account that your revenue could also be altering year to yr, confidently going up.Up, up, up, to the moon! 3. Deferment – if you can not have the funds for your pupil loan cost, in some instances that you can defer it. Deferment doesnt eliminate your student loan debt, it with no trouble puts off when your reimbursement plan starts offevolved. Its most likely most effective granted to current scholars, residents within the army, or if youre unemployed or are incomes not up to the minimal wage. Unsubsidized loans will continue to accrue curiosity for the period of deferment, so its a excellent inspiration to make any repayments that youre ready to. 4. Consolidation Loans If youre now out of institution and in finding your present repayment plan elaborate to manipulate, that you would be able to consistently consolidate your loans. Consolidating will take a couple of loans and simplify them right into a single new mortgage. This can make reimbursement less complicated and may prolong your reimbursement terms up to 30 years, that will slash your monthly repayments, but will extensively increase the quantity of interest you pay over the years. It’s super dupes essential to remain on top of your scholar loan repayments or to work with a mortgage servicing organization if you already know that you cannot make your repayments, try this as quickly as possible.Additionally, pupil loan debt does no longer mechanically go away. Even though you file for bakruptcy! What the crap? Best under very precise circumstances are you going to have these loans forgiven. A type of occasions is dying. So that you die, however you don’t have to pay. Every cloud… You can also honestly be competent to get your loans reduced or utterly forgiven if you happen to prefer to work in the public sector. You may still need to could a hundred and twenty on-time monthly payments before your ultimate balance is forgiven, however it is a quality alternative for regional, state, and federal government employees. Section four: A note for father and mother hi mom and dad! It can be first-class to peer you around here. You’re looking great.Would you adore this gift card for Chili’s? (laughs) Or these tickets to your Billy Joel live performance? Or would you adore… What’s yet another factor grown-u.S.Like? I am a grown up (document scratch) Existential hindrance! Consistent with Forbes, greater than half of all pupil loans are both delinquent or in deferral. These loans will also be for striking quantities, so if you do decide upon to support pay for your youngster’s school schooling, saving early is A+++.The IRS absolutely needs you to aid pay in your little one’s education, so they’ve anything known as a 529 financial savings Plan, which is sort of like a Roth IRA for saving to your bebes future. Not everyone has parents who’re going to be competent to support, but I do want each person to understand this alternative exists to aid. Phase 5: Tyler Oakley i’m so enthusiastic about this that I spit. I spit within the rainbow arc, with the bad french accent that goes to italian routinely. Tyler, you are making me communicate in tongues, you’re making my sould dance, you’re making my liver quiver. I don’t know what to assert to you besides (kiss) thanks a lot to Tyler Oakley and associates for suggesting the subject of this week’s video. In return, i am so joyful to inform every body that HowToAdult can be donating advert sales from this video to the Trevor assignment. The Trevor assignment is a 24-hour hotline and useful resource for hindrance intervention and suicide prevention offerings to LGBTQ young people from ages 13-24.Tyler has supported the Trevor venture for years. It is very close and costly to his heart and to ours, so this is simply our way of paying it ahead. Thanks a lot Tyler, we heart you. In the event you guys are looking for a model of exceptional maturity, Tyler Oakley is lovely difficult to beat. We will see you guys subsequent week. I really like you bye. (kiss) (endscreen) .

[a-queer-seminarian]

hey there, some seminary questions for you! How did you choose which seminary to attend? Could you please talk about the application/acceptance process? What's the average week like as a seminarian?

Oh gosh, you sent this ages ago, I’ve been meaning to answer!

How I picked a seminary:

I looked only at seminaries in my denomination, PC(USA), that were at least sort of near my area of the USA and that seemed like they’d be LGBT+ friendly. I visited two of them, McCormick in Chicago and Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, in the fall of 2015 and applied to them both the spring of 2016. Both seemed like excellent choices, I selected LPTS because I liked the housing situation, the campus in general, and the students and teachers I talked to seemed like a better fit for me. And indeed, I am extremely happy here!

Applications and Acceptance:

So yeah, the two seminaries I applied to both had applications due for the following fall in early spring, and I think that’s fairly standard. When looking at various seminaries, check their website for info on that. I highly recommend looking into seminaries a year before you want to attend one, so that you have plenty of time to visit, gather recommendation letters, reflect on your decision, and apply.

Note that the vast majority of seminaries require an undergraduate degree before you can apply, since it is a masters program – but that undergrad degree can be in anything. See this post.

This is the admissions page of my seminary. LPTS offers several degrees, the most popular of which at the masters level are the Masters of Divinity (MDIV, what I am doing) and the Masters of Family Therapy (MFT). To apply to these programs, there are forms that request general info and also ask that you undergo a background check, write some essays, and three letters of recommendation.

The last of those things, the rec letters, might sound overwhelming, but it’s doable. One of them needs to be from a pastor, so if you don’t currently have a pastor in your life who knows you well, that’s something to think about before applying to seminary – how can you get active in your current church so that your pastor can write you a good letter? The second letter must be an academic reference and the third must be a “personal or professional reference” – see this webpage for more. Note that these were the letters my two seminaries of choice required, and while I think it’s fairly typical, other seminaries may do it differently.

I’m pretty sure some sort of interview was required too, but it’s super informal and you can do it via skype if you can’t get to the seminary in person. I do recommend checking out the seminaries you’re interested in person though, if at all possible – they let you tour, talking to various teachers and students and possibly sitting in on classes.

On to the acceptance process: if the two seminaries I looked into are any indication, if you get all the application stuff turned in, you’re very likely to be accepted. The big thing is financial stuff they’ll offer you – the more impressive your application is, the more likely to get academic scholarships. My seminary also had me fill out some forms explaining my financial situation, so that they would know to offer me more financial aid as needed. The amazing thing about my seminary though is that they offer full tuition to everyone who gets in! And all seminaries as far as I know are pretty great about helping with financing their students’ education. See this post for more on financial stuff.

An average week in seminary:

Okay, the average week at any seminary is likely to be different. Note also that I’m going to describe the average week of a first-year student – it changes for second and third year students.

Oh yeah, to mention that: at my seminary at least, the MDIV takes three years and the MFT program takes five. You can also be a part time student which means it’ll take longer. For MDIVs, you have to take Hebrew and Greek and you also have to intern for a year at a nearby church to graduate. I’m doing my church placement my second year. And if you are pursuing ordination, you likely want to be working on whatever your denomination requires for ordination while you’re at seminary – you don’t magically get your ordination when you graduate, just your masters. For my denomination, for instance, I have to do some work as a chaplain in order to be ordained, so I’m likely doing that next summer.

Let’s start with classes and homework in an average week:

I take four classes, and workload-wise they remind me a lot of undergrad. Most classes meet either two or three times a week, and are either 50 minutes or an hour and 15 minutes each time. Some classes are primarily lecture, most involve lecture and discussion, and some are primarily discussion. They all involve a lot of reading. Many students get away with not always doing all the readings though, haha. Fall (September through mid-December) and spring (February through early May) are the main two semesters, but there are also short classes available in January and summer.

Along with reading, homework varies; I’ll describe my typical homework for my four current classes:

For Black Church Studies, we basically read one book and have one 1000-word essay due every two weeks.

Scripture II (New Testament) is sort of bizarre in that there are no major essays due and we only have one textbook (well, plus the Bible). Homework is to read a chapter of the textbook and write a 300-600 word summary on it for each class meeting. Each chapter is on a different book / letter of the New Testament. For this coming Monday, my summary on Ephesians is due. (On a side note, at the end of this semester I’ll probably share a google doc of all my summaries if anyone is interested; they’re good for quick overviews of the content and contexts of the Gospels and letters!)

History of Christian Experience I (the first century CE through 1453) has us write three 1200-1400 word essays throughout the semester. For each class meeting, a fifty-word sentence answering a question about the reading is due. This class has the heaviest reading load – seriously, some nights I don’t actually get to read everything thoroughly; I try my best to, but every now and then I have to skim instead.

Hebrew Exegesis (my fave!!) has five papers throughout the semester (that counts the final). For each paper, we translate a short passage from the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) and provide historical context, talk about literary structure, do word studies on it, and so on. There were also several (6 I think) translation exercises due throughout the semester, in which you have to translate around 10 sentences from Hebrew. This class also involves reading, but not as much as the other classes. You have to read commentaries and look through dictionaries in order to write the papers.

I had a good number of quizzes and some tests for basically every class last semester; this semester, I have literally zero tests or quizzes in any class, just a lot of papers (all my finals this time around are take-home essays).

It’s hard for me to really explain how fun the classes are? but I love them. They teach so much, and challenge you to think.

Moving on to worship at seminary:

We open every class meeting with a prayer. And on Thursdays and Fridays, there are chapel services led by either a teacher or a student (usually seniors). Because so many different people lead the services, you get a really wide variety of services, which I think is really cool! Not only Presbyterians attend this seminary – in fact, I think it’s something like 50 or 60% of students and faculty here are not Presbyterian. I love seeing how different traditions worship.

And community life here:

Classes are small and therefore tight-knit. I love my class; there are around 30 of us in total I think and around 20 of those are MDIV like me. We all joke around and support and pray for each other, and study together and help one another out when needed. When you need anything, whether it’s notes from a class you missed or a ride to the airport or some groceries because you’re low on cash, someone will help you out.

There are so many groups on campus you can join. We’ve got students in governmental positions, for instance, and students in various committees, from the Faith Life committee to the More Light (LGBT) committee, and from the Worship committee to the Gender and Ministry committee. I do a lot to help out with the community garden. There’s also a grassroots group for environmental stuff – I am assigned to take out the recycling in one of the school buildings to do my part with that. My seminary’s “big thing” is racial dialogue, so there are many classes, workshops, and other events that deal with that. Unfortunately the More Light group isn’t all that active this year, but when there are events I go to them!

If there’s an issue you care about that is not already addressed by a group on campus, it’s possible to make it happen. I just gave a workshop on how to make ministry more welcoming to transgender people. And a classmate and I plan to hold some workshop type events on accessibility and ableism this coming fall.

Conclusion:

So yeah, life in seminary involves balancing schoolwork with participating in the seminary community, your own life (many students here have jobs and/or kids), worship / your faith life, and doing the “field ed” aspect of seminary – church placements and chaplaincy for MDIVs, counseling/therapy for MFTs.

I personally find myself exhausted pretty often thanks to the ol’ mental illness and neurodivergence, so it’s important to take care of yourself. Teachers for the most part are very understanding and willing to give extensions on papers and the like, so that helps. And like I said, when you need something, classmates have your back.

I cannot emphasize enough how enriching the classes are, how intelligent the teachers are, or how warm and family-like the students are. It’s all wonderful.

If you have more questions about seminary, let me know!

[germanyinusa]

A Guide To Applying to Universities in the U.S.

As Americans, we are used to constantly finding ourselves in a melting pot of cultures--especially on a University campus. But rarely do we put much thought into the journey that got some of our fellow students from their home countries to the United States. Here to shine light on the process of applying to American universities as a German is  Amélie Lohmann.  Amélie is currently finishing her first year of a Masters Degree at the BMW Center for German and European Studies at Georgetown University. She completed her undergrad in Konstanz, a university city with approximately 80,000 inhabitants.

What made you want to apply to an American university as opposed to a German one?

American universities are unique because they personalize the academic experience much more to each student. You get the feeling that you are valuable asset to the university and there is a stronger "campus culture” and feeling of community--be it events, talks, sporting events, or thing like that. In Germany, your social life or hobbies feel more separate from your student life and there is a more hands-off approach from professors.

What were your steps to deciding on a school and a program?

1. Read articles about the different schools and contact alumni from the different programs at the university. Programs can vary widely even within universities, so find out about the specific programs you are applying to.

2. If possible, attend webinars or even open house to see if you like the "vibe" coming from the different students and programs.

3. Look up the specialties and research of professors within your department of interest and see if those match your own research interests

4. Look into funding opportunities and how likely is it for you to obtain one

Explain the language requirements and when you would need to take those tests

Oh yes, the wonderful TOEFL! The test is no big problem for any German who did English during their high school. However, one does need to know how the test works and take some time to prepare for it because bad scores will keep you from getting into programs. Also, the testing centers for TOEFL will not be in every town, so that you might have to go travel to a bigger town to take it for a time slot that is still open.

Books to study for the TOEFL are offered in almost every library, so no need to spend money on buying books for the test.

What do you think are the biggest barriers to Germans studying full time in the United States?

I believe it is the 1) financial costs, 2) the time and effort for applications in contrast to efforts for German university applications and simply, 3) missing information on the procedure and the opportunities.

The cost of University is a clear barrier. If given the choice between free college in Europe or taking on vast sums of debt in America, I can understand why students opt out to instead attend universities in Europe.

 It takes a lot of time to study for a big test like the GRE, which is completely different from what Germans are acquainted with. Furthermore, the application process is different because Master programs in the US are usually more interested in the “whole” person (hobbies/volunteer work/etc.) and their professional background than just merely their grades.

 If you don't already know what you want to study and have no point of reference at your undergraduate college who understands or has gone through the process of studying abroad full-time, it is very difficult to know how to go about finding and applying to universities. Furthermore, applications are much earlier due in the year than for other Master degrees in Germany, so that it could be that Germans simply miss the important deadlines, which are usually at least a year ahead of the start date.

How difficult to complete and expensive are the applications to universities in the U.S.?

The applications to American universities are lengthy and require time, energy and money, because typically, an application submission to a university will cost between $50 - $100 each, and this does not include the costs for taking the GRE.

Were you able to receive financial aid as an international student?

I was. This is usually the case with many programs that are focused on international relations. If this is not the case, I would recommend trying all funding options that Germany has to offer through various Stiftungen (like FES or KAS), Fulbright, DAAD or the Deutsche Studienstiftung. Even with the financial aid I received, my studies cost much more than what I would’ve paid at a German university.

What made the greater cost of a university in the U.S. worth it for you?

The cost difference between an American and German university were not enough to deter me as my school here allows me to not only study the transatlantic partnership more in depth but also build a network in the US that I can refer to on either side of the Atlantic. I believe the return from the University is worth it and the way my program invests back in me makes me feel like I joined a wider academic family, the alumni staying connected and involved in the program and the university for years and decades after.

Now that you are studying in America, what is the biggest difference between a German v. American university?

There is a noticeable difference studying in the US: your life will be connected to the campus and the university community much more than in Germany. You will spend more time on campus and with the other students in your program who will become your closest friends and you will develop a connection to the university that is not the same in Germany. It is not for everyone, but I feel appreciated, valued and part of a strong community, which I am sure I will still be connected to in years to come.

What advice would you give to a German starting the process of applying to an American university?

START early! If you want to go the US and you know that already in your last year of your BA, start finding out about universities and application requirements (not all require GRE scores!) as early as possible. Also, find someone who has recently gone through the process to help mentor you, I know out of personal experience, it is very difficult trying to go through it all by yourself.