GET MY GRAD SCHOOL APPLICATIONS TOGETHER!!!

Will be sending it in, oh, 2 hours. Wish me luck!

And so far I’ve got:
- my transcript
- certificate of graduation
- schedule for taking the TOEFL on the 17th

Other stuff I still need:
- passport photocopy
- copies of professional qualifications/related work experience
- former professors’ contact info
- killer personal statement that will make them cry and beg to get me into the program

Not so bad, really. Now I just have to figure out the logistics of this thing because my documents are half here, half in another continent altogether.

I want to send them out on the 1st of December. I should move it right now.

With the way things are going these days, this will have to be shelved for later.

Just finished shooting slides. Since my work is kinda big, I can’t use a copystand, and had to set up clamp lights with 500 watt bulbs. Those things get HOT, I tell you.

Anyway, I have to take the lights home to shoot a couple more non-2D things tonight, and then I am done done done with shooting slides. Until the next time I have to shoot slides. Unless something goes horribly wrong with these slides, in which case, I’ll have to shoot slides again much sooner.

Then it’s off to the post office with them to get them processed . . . nerve wracking.

Oh hurrah. I found some of my old slides today. Saves me a little bit of work and worry, although I still have to shoot more. I was kind of freaking out because I didn’t think I had enough good stuff to shoot for portfolio slides, but then I found a batch of slides whose originals are . . . gone from this earth? Given away? Lost? Anyway, I should be all set now. I just have to get lights set up and shoot the rest and send the film off and hope for good results . . .

Gotta get the letters!

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

Ooof . . . I am plagued by doubt, and it’s showing up in my dreams. Two nights in a row, I’ve dreamt of travelling long distances, only to have my return greatly hampered in some way – like renting a car and going to return it, and being told that I actually had to return it at a location hundreds of miles away (leaving me stuck somewhere way away from where I wanted to be) – or having to travel enormous distances on foot just to catch my flight, in far too little time.

I have been checking out other programs (academic and not) besides the ones I’ve decided to apply to, and what it comes down to is this: I have no convictions about what I’m supposed to be, or even what I want to be, doing next. Should I travel? Should I volunteer somewhere for several months? Should I go into journalism? Should I attend a low-residency program? Should I bag it and just go after the farm and raising goats and bees?

Ugh. “How I Got To This Point, Where The Hell I’m Going From Here, And Why You Should Care”, by Sara A.

Really, I’m behind on this, and lurking in the closet of my brain is the financial factor: all the application fees, slide film, slide film processing, buying slide carousels, transcript fees . . . and, uh, the $108 I owe the last graduate school I attended so that I can get my transcripts. EDIT for clarity: I owe much, much more than that $108.00! But now I owe it to the Vermont Student Assistance Corporation. Friendly folks, the best in the business . . . but they own me, entirely.

I have a list, would you like to see? Too late; I’ve already shared it with the whole world, interested or not. I’m not going to apply to all of these; this is my short list, from which I need to make a shorter list.