Faculty Run-Around

So last semester, my adviser, Dr. H, suggested that I look into doing something with the museum for my MA thesis, since I was interested in the museum stuff. I of course said yes, because that sounds awesome.

Dr. H suggested I talk to Dr. B, the director of the museum. He also mentioned that previous students had done stuff with the museum, working with Dr. S (who was on leave last semester) and Dr. M.

I talked to Dr. M. He said that I had to talk to Dr. S.

Dr. B went back in forth in emails a couple times, going weeks between emails, at one point ignoring my email for a full month until I emailed her again to make sure she had gotten it. She had.

Finally Dr. B referred me to L, the curator. L was very helpful, and brought me out to the museum archive to show me the collection that I could work with and everything, but didn’t know anything that I would need to do from my department’s side of it.

Since Dr. S was back this semester, I talked to him. I spent 20 minutes walking to campus, sat in his office for 5 minutes while he told me that he knew nothing and couldn’t help me at all, and then spent 20 minutes walking back home so I could go to work. The most he did was tell me to talk to Dr. B.

WHAT DO I DO?

Maya at the Lago

Okay. So there’s this conference. And I kinda want to go.

It’s a Maya conference (if you couldn’t tell by the title of this post). And I am interested in Mayan archaeology and epigraphy and I looked at the abstracts that they had online (not all of them are up yet) and some of them look really interesting.

So here’s the thing. It’s at the end of April. Now, it’s not the last week of April, so it’s not too close to when all my papers/exams are due. (At least for two of my classes, one of them has the stupidest syllabus that doesn’t have any due dates on it, but I assume everything is due in May.) So that’s good, or at least, it’s not a con (in the pros/cons list I haven’t made yet).

The conference will cost $80. I’d have to buy a flight: $250. The hotel is $109/night for at least three nights (the conference is technically thurs-sun, but I figure if I fly in on Thursday I probably wouldn’t miss too much?) That brings my total up to $550, maybe less if I can find someone to share a hotel room with me. Mom says that she will give me $300 if I decide that I want to go to the conference, so then it would only cost me $250, plus dinners and taxis to the hotel, etc.

Now, mom says that she’s willing to put money towards this because she thinks it’s a good idea for me to network and go to conferences like this, etc. She says maybe I’ll find someone who’s working on a project that I can get in on or something.

Well, no. Because I’m not going to do a project this summer. At this point, most people would probably be willing to let me “volunteer” for a project, if I paid them, like I did when I went to Belize, but they’ve probably already finalized their budgets and won’t be needing anyone that they have to pay. So if I did a project, I would lose money, or at the very least just not be getting paid.

The other thing is that I really have no intention of doing stuff with Mayan archaeology after grad school. And I don’t know if I’ve ever fully articulated this to my mother. I mean, one time I told my dad who then told my mom in front of me as if I wasn’t there about how I wanted to get a job in a museum, but I don’t know if she remembers that. So what I’m saying is, I don’t know if I should spend the money on a conference to “network” for a field that I have no intention of going into. Even though it would be fun. Probably.

I don’t know what to do. But the prices of the tickets go up on March 1st, so I’ve got … 4 days to figure this out and decide if I want to go to the conference. Otherwise it’ll cost like $20 more which isn’t much but it’s nice to have a deadline for things.

What should I do???

November Due Dates

November 1: Nanowrimo Starts

November 1: Storyline project due for museum studies

November 9: Museum reception

November 19: Paper outline due for archaeology

November 20: Leading discussion in linguistics; final project concept due for museum studies; modeling concept project due for museum studies

November 21-24: Dad and T in town, Thanksgiving

November 28-December 2: Teslacon, in WI

December 3: Final paper due for archaeology

December 4: Final paper due for linguistics, presentations for linguistics

I can do this, right? It’s only 50,000 words, after all.

Let’s Run Away and Join the Circus

But I am le tired …

So, classes started today. Sad. If only we could have another month or so of vacation … I’d totally go for that. But I can’t.

One of my classes has class at 9 on Monday, and lab at 8 on Wednesday. Thankfully, the professor emailed us and said that we would meet at 9 instead. Thank god. So I looked at the email, wanting to see how many people were in the class, and who I knew, and something jumped out at me: someone’s email was clearly a reference to Doctor Who. I don’t want to put it on here, but let me tell you that the guy might as well have had his email be tardis@email.edu. (PS: this is not a real email. At least, not that I know of.)

So, naturally, I looked up the email on the school’s network and facebook stalked him. Looking at his picture, he’s the kind of guy that you could pick out of a crowd and say, “I bet you watch Doctor Who.” Also, he’s only a junior. Which means that there are undergraduates in my class. Which sucks. Don’t want to deal with it.

See, for my undergrad, they just gave me an email: first initial, last name. So when I came here, and I got to pick my own email, I used the same formula. It just makes sense, makes it easy for people to find my email. Why don’t other people have the same thoughts? Why would you make your school email about Doctor Who? My boss’ email is something weird too, from his time in the Marines. He literally told me that if he told me what it meant he’d have to kill me. Then why would you make that your work email? I don’t get it.

Sigh. Anyway, tomorrow I have to go to class, and then go to work. Also not at all excited about that. Totally serious here, if anyone’s got a time machine lying about, call me.

Dioramas!!

So I’m pretty sure that I have already mentioned at least once in this blog how much I love dioramas. Let me just say it again: I LOVE DIORAMAS. When I go to museums, the best part is looking at all the dioramas. The aerospace museum that I went to with Myriad may have been a run-down museum in need of some serious help, but they had some really cool dioramas that used forced perspective to fit the scene in. I had never seen anything like that, but it was awesome.

Anyway, I think one of the coolest jobs in the world would be making dioramas for museums. Sadly, those aren’t actually done in the museum, but they’re contracted out to special diorama-making-people. So I suppose if I applied for a job with the diorama-making-people …. hmm ….

Well, last night, I was eating dinner with my roommates (Chicken Tikka Masala, yum!), and my roommate B said that she loves the dioramas, too, and she thinks that making the dioramas would be like the coolest job evar. I was like, OMG ME TOO!! I got very excited. I was like, if only I could just make a diorama instead of writing a thesis!

“Well, actually,” said my other roommate (best thing I’ve ever heard) “there was this one class on visual anthro, and one guy made a diorama for his project. So if you get that professor on your committe, maybe she’d let you do a diorama.”

OMG HOW AWESOME WOULD THAT BE?

So I have come up with a plan. Today, I am going to Hobby Lobby with B. She actually needed to go and I said that I would come along because come on it’s HOBBY LOBBY. And when I go to Hobby Lobby today (I just really like saying Hobby Lobby), I will buy one of those diorama kits, and start teaching myself how to make the super awesome realistic looking dioramas! The way I see it, this is a skill that could be useful later on in my life, so I’m really just practicing and refining a skill, not just playing with dioramas.

So … what should I make? I think I’m going to buy the mountain building kit, which means I can learn how to make rocks! I’m holding off on the water kit until I get the basic ground skills covered. And I think the flat one would just be kinda boring. So I’m gonna make rocks! Yeah!

Yay I’m in Debt.

I think that title basically sums it up. I am in debt. Extremely in debt. Quite a large portion of my college was paid for through loans, and right now I owe about $63,000 to a couple different lenders. Yay.

So my dad called me up today and started asking me all sorts of questions about my loans. How much do I owe? Will I be getting money for grad school? How much will it cost?

I looked it up, which took a while, and found out that to my two lenders, I owe about $63K. That is a lot. Now my grad school has offered me financial aid. The website that I can get to said that the est. cost of attendance was about $44K. So they gave me $26K of financial aid, and then offered me $18K in loans. Which when I told my dad that, he freaked out because that would be a hell of a lot of debt for me to be in. Well, yeah … but what other choice do I have?

So I tried to look it up a little better, and found that tuition/fees is only about $26K, so that financial aid award should cover it. The rest was room and board, etc. Which, since I’m not living on campus or getting a meal plan, I shouldn’t need. Right? So I’ve sent off an email to financial aid asking them to explain it better because I’ve got no clue what’s going on.

Meanwhile, my dad is ranting at me saying how I shouldn’t commit to a school when we’ve got so many unanswered questions. Which, yes, they still have not told me if I’m getting that damn Masters Fellowship. But they offered me financial aid, so I should be covered even if I don’t get it, and I can get a part-time job to earn more money to pay for food and housing and whatnot.

I am going to grad school. I am enrolled, I registered for classes this morning. Apparently he doesn’t know that.

So Dad is still going on about how it doesn’t make sense for me to get into debt for my MA because what kind of job will I be able to get with it anyway? I’ll still have to go on and possibly pay for my PhD before I can get a job, and how much debt will I have then? I’ll be paying this off for the rest of my life! And THEN he basically told me that my entire undergraduate career was useless because I can’t get a job with that degree anyway, so it was a waste of money and now I’m over 60K in the hole for nothing.

Fuck you, Dad.

Mind you, my dad is supposed to pay for my college. It was in the divorce agreement that HE pay for my college. Not me, HIM. When I mentioned this to him tonight, he asked me if I thought that he was made of unlimited funds. WHAT, DOES HE THINK I AM? It’s ok for me to be about a hundred grand in debt, but he shouldn’t have to pay for any of it?

My grandmother died earlier this year. And I know that I will be getting an inheritance. So I asked Dad about that, and sure enough, I’ll be getting some money this summer, and he told me that “it would cover my current debts, but not much else.” So does he expect me to use my ENTIRE FUCKING INHERITANCE paying off these debts? FUCK THAT.

(Note: I apologize for the swearing. But there will probably be more before this post is done.)

So I promptly told my dad that I’d use that to pay for my housing/food in Illinois. He didn’t reply. (The last few comments were through texting, not on the phone.) It’s my inheritance, so I should be able to decide what to do with it. And if I want to use it to go to grad school, I’M GONNA FUCKING GO TO GRAD SCHOOL.

Yes, if I get out of grad school, I will use that inheritance to pay off my debts, as much as I can. But I’m not going to use the entire chunk of it all at once. I have to live! So I’ll probably pay as much as I can, holding off some until I make sure that I have a job and can support myself without it, and then I’ll pay off the rest of my loans.

I am certainly not going to get seventy five thousand dollars and then turn around the next day and give away sixty three thousand of it. That is NOT HAPPENING. I kinda want to be able to see my bank account be higher than a hundred bucks for a while. That should be fun.

Grrr…. I am so angry at him right now. Sooooooo angry.

Also, I didn’t write any of my story at all today. Instead I made a really cute picture of the owl and the pussycat, which I may upload eventually. I’m not in the mood to take a picture and deal with it right now. So, no writing today, no writing tomorrow. We’re still leaving at six, so I need to go and take a shower and then go to bed.

Hopefully I’ll wake up in the morning and win the lottery or get a job or get a fellowship or something. I’m not holding my breath.

Edit: Also, before I sound too ungrateful, I would like to point out that except for last semester, when Dad bought half of my books, and one time last year when I overdrew my bank account and had to ask both parents for some money, I have paid for all my books and all of my food while I was at school. I had a job on campus, and actually needed it because otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to eat. I don’t think it’s excessive to want my parents to pay for my food while I was at college. Also, my dad is giving me his car, and has been letting me borrow it since March, while he continues to pay the insurance at the moment. And I really do appreciate that, and I am very thankful to be getting the car. However, I don’t think it’s ungrateful to expect a little help in paying back all my college loans, since he should be paying for my college as per the divorce agreement, and I don’t think he should expect me to be all sympathetic that he took out 6K in loans for my college, since he appears to expect me to pay the other 60K.

And a month later …

I haven’t updated in forever. I have just been so busy lately (much of that my own fault, as I will explain later). At one point I saw the address for my blog in my drop-down menu and was like “Oh, right, I have a blog.” Because I had forgotten about it. I really need to try and not forget about things like that.

My last post was about applying to SIUC. On Thursday, I was accepted! I was soo excited, running around grinning and telling everyone that I saw. Nevermind the fact that SIUC is 4th or 5th on a list of 5 grad schools, but at least I got in somewhere. Now I know what I’m doing next year. Even if I get rejected from all the other Universities, at least I got in somewhere.

I’ve been kinda busy with school. My greek class is on Euripides’ Medea, which is actually pretty easy (except that part that I had to translate in class yesterday, naturally, and which I messed up completely). Latin is Tacitus’ Annals, which is difficult and boring as all hell. I honestly believe that the only way to find an even more boring Latin text would be to read St. Augustine’s confessions in the original Latin, because I’m pretty sure I would keel over and die in the middle of a sentence. I had to read the confessions in translation once; I was pacing the apartment while I read just to stay awake. I’m also taking another class, which I find boring, but at least it’s not terrible, and an independent study, which I really should start working on.

Of course, I would have had a lot more time on my hands if we hadn’t renewed our Netflix. Myriad is good, she’ll watch maybe an episode or two a day. I, on the other hand, managed to watch the first four seasons of Doctor Who in a week. I slowed down when I hit season 5, mainly because I don’t like it as much without David Tennant. It’s just not the same! I kinda want to start watching Torchwood now, but then I would NEVER get any work done, so I’ll have to hold off on that. Maybe I’ll watch it during spring break? I can probably finish it then …

I got an email from my sister today. Apparently her friend wants to read my story from Nanowrimo 2010. This same friend apparently wrote a biography of Nessie, which sounds a lot more fun than my novel. I still need to finish up one section, and then I’m gonna send it out to have a free proof made, a prize for winning Nanowrimo. It’s just so bad, I’m kinda afraid to have anyone read it! On the other hand, it was written in a month, so some allowances must be made. (Although I will point out that Barbara Cartland would publish two or three novels in a month … just sayin.)

I’m waiting for Myriad to come home, and it’s raining outside. It was snowing earlier, but now it’s turned to rain and it looks wretched, so I wouldn’t be surprised if she was postponing her return to avoid walking in it.

This post is really rambling, so I should probably just stop now, before it gets any worse.

Grad School Apps!!

So I’ve been meaning to apply to grad school all break. I’ve already applied to one University, and some aren’t due until March or April (nice, huh?), but one application is due January 15th. So being as it is finally January, I decided to apply today.

And I learned that their application is NOT online.

The main application is online, but all the supplemental forms are not. I have to print out all the forms and mail them in! Which I find to be extremely annoying and unexpected in this computerized age.

But fine. I can go to the library tomorrow or something and print them out (because naturally I left my printer at school). And then I can mail them in, and have everything in with plenty of time to spare.

Except the references. Apparently I have to fill out part of the form for the referencers, and sign it. Sooo … I’d have to print them out, sign them, mail them to my professors, and then have them mail the forms in. One professor is off out of state somewhere. He’s not going to be returning home until the 15th. Which is when they’re due. The next professor is in Texas. TEXAS!! So I’d have to mail it out to Texas! Ok fine, that’s not so terrible, the mail isn’t that slow. But then my third professor is so absentminded that he can barely remember to tie his own shoes. I can’t expect him to get any forms in on time. Besides which, I’m fairly certain that he’s out of the country. I WILL NEVER GET THE FORM TO HIM ON TIME.

What do I do now??

The problem is, I’m really not absolutely enthralled with the idea of going to this University anyway, so I’m even MORE tempted to just not apply. But I should! It’s a good program, and it would be good for me and what I want to do. But I don’t want to. 😦

help!

Senior Seminar Strikes Again!

Yesterday (well, actually two days ago, since it’s now past midnight), my senior seminar went on a field trip. I miss field trips. They were always so awesome in high school. Why can’t we have more of them?

Anyway, my class went on a field trip to a rival university. Apparently, they don’t know that we’re rivals. Which is good, cause no one attacked us while we were there. But we went to look at their manuscripts and rare books. They have an amazing rare books room. We were told a lot of the history of making these types of books, and shown a bunch of them. They were amazing. These books were so old! One of the books was a volume of Dante. Only two copies exist in the whole world. And we got to hold it. And turn the pages. HOW COOL IS THAT? Some of the books were bound in wood, others in leather, some in vellum (animal skin, and kinda sticky feeling). Some books were in Latin, some in Greek, and one was in English. They were all ancient, and smelled wonderful. I love that old book smell!!

After we saw the books, we wandered through the philosophy department building. They had some plaster casts of frieze reliefs that were hanging up on the wall, and we looked at them for a bit while our professor talked to us about them. I zoned out. I was very tired.

Then we started heading out. But as we were walking down this one hallway, our professor stopped us and went into some door and down the stairs. Everyone just stood awkwardly in the hallway for a minute. Then I realized that it was the Dendrochronology lab. And I was like, dendrochronology? That’s trees!! So I went in. Sure enough, dendrochronology is the study of tree rings. You can date a piece of wood to the very year in which it was cut down by measuring and counting its growth rings. Outside the lab they had a few samples hung up. One was a redwood, which was about 3000 years old. It started growing in 1015 BC (or BCE, if you prefer). All along the wood were pins noting important events, like the building of the Parthenon and the eruption of Vesuvius. It was so cool.

Our professor brought us down into the lab and the old director (actually retired, but still works there) showed us around quickly. And by quickly I mean that our professor cut him off after about five minutes. But I thought it was amazing. Apparently I was the only one. Everyone else was tired and hungry and couldn’t wait to leave.

We had dinner at a deli that had authentic Greek food, and then drove back home. I was riding shotgun, so I got to chat with my professor the whole way. Everyone was kinda shocked that I would be willing to do so, but I actually enjoy chatting with my professors.

In a way, I was really upset about the field trip. We were gone for eight hours, on a Friday, meaning I could get literally no work done. I also had a friend from out of town, who graduated last year, who was staying with me, so I ended up doing no work today, either, which is rather upsetting, because I have a lot of work to do. On the other hand, I really rather enjoyed the trip. I could have done without the wandering through the academic building, but the manuscripts were awesome, and I absolutely LOVED the dendrochronology lab. (That is really annoying to keep spelling out)

It’s sad to realize that most of the people in my class hate the seminar. True, most of the classes are boring as hell. But this field trip was really fun, but most people couldn’t care less about it. I mean, how could you not enjoy looking at a dendrochronology lab? It’s so cool!! How many people have ever even heard of dendrochronology, let alone heard from one of the experts about it? I think it’s awesome. But on the other hand, I guess I can understand why some people might not. As one girl in my class said, “Why would you ever want to stare at a tree and count rings all day?”

Well, I certainly wouldn’t mind trying for a bit. It would be a change from my daily translations. Which I should be getting back to …

*sigh. Back to work!