Wednesday, July 2, 2008
Monday, June 2, 2008
Ay! Ya no son plantitos!
Although I am very impressed and excited about the large size of my plants, I'm kind of starting to wonder at what point they will provide me with food.....I'm hungry!
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Grad Schools Schmad Schools
Well, you all may or may not be aware that (quite on a whim) I applied to 4 grad schools back in January. I have officially heard back from all of them, and although I didn't apply to nearly as many as some of you out there (11, Steve?), I figured I'd go ahead and post the results as well so y'all can know what I'm up to. All of the programs were International Affairs Somethingorother.
I was accepted at American University and George Washington University (w/ a scholarship!).
And...I was waitlisted at Johns Hopkins University and Georgetown University.
I accepted GW's offer and decided to defer until Fall 2009 (to give me another year to earn some dinero). When all of a sudden......JH took me off their waitlist and accepted me! And gave me a week to decide what to do! The fact that I didn't get their info packet until the day before the deadline didn't impress me either :)
All things considered, I decided to stick with GW instead of going with the more prestigious JH. Crazy? JH would be two years of insanely intense schooling and would cost me, well, ick...too much -- tuition-wise and burning-myself-out-wise. After talking with some mentors/professors, I figure the prestige would only be worth it if I want to get a PhD and teach. GW has a good enough name for a future public servant, I can cover a good chunk of the tuition with my scholarship and savings, and I can go part time while working or do some distance learning.....it's much more flexible.
Them's my thoughts. Thanks for listening. It feels good to write it all down......I'm feeling better about my decision every minute! Glad that stress is over (unless Georgetown decides to grant me admission in late August. Ay. I think my head would explode).
I was accepted at American University and George Washington University (w/ a scholarship!).
And...I was waitlisted at Johns Hopkins University and Georgetown University.
I accepted GW's offer and decided to defer until Fall 2009 (to give me another year to earn some dinero). When all of a sudden......JH took me off their waitlist and accepted me! And gave me a week to decide what to do! The fact that I didn't get their info packet until the day before the deadline didn't impress me either :)
All things considered, I decided to stick with GW instead of going with the more prestigious JH. Crazy? JH would be two years of insanely intense schooling and would cost me, well, ick...too much -- tuition-wise and burning-myself-out-wise. After talking with some mentors/professors, I figure the prestige would only be worth it if I want to get a PhD and teach. GW has a good enough name for a future public servant, I can cover a good chunk of the tuition with my scholarship and savings, and I can go part time while working or do some distance learning.....it's much more flexible.
Them's my thoughts. Thanks for listening. It feels good to write it all down......I'm feeling better about my decision every minute! Glad that stress is over (unless Georgetown decides to grant me admission in late August. Ay. I think my head would explode).
Saturday, May 17, 2008
Saturday, May 10, 2008
Mis Plantitos!
This is my summer for trying a garden-in-a-pot-on-the-balcony, also known as a G.I.A.P.O.T.B. I figured putting pictures of my little plants on my blog (along with regular updates) would be incentive to keep them alive. That would be embarrassing to have to post pictures of dead plants.
These be peas:
And the last two are cucumber/and/or/squash, but I can't tell which is which right now. Oh well, we'll see soon enough! Hopefully.
These be peas:
And the last two are cucumber/and/or/squash, but I can't tell which is which right now. Oh well, we'll see soon enough! Hopefully.
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
EARTHQUAKE!!!!
That's right, everyone, today I felt my first earthquake. I've still got a ways to go if I'm going to catch up with little brother Michael on his mission in CA, but I can now officially add "1 Earthquake Felt" to my tally.
We were all sitting around at work, a little after lunch, when the building shook. Not outrageously, mind you, but it was a different sort of shake than the building construction ones we frequently feel in my office. After the thundery-rumble, everyone goes silent (thinking "was that just in my head?"). Then one by one we each poked our heads out from our offices and said "Did you hear that? Did you feel that?" It was kind of freaky, seeing as how this area is sort of notorious for terorrist threats and the like. But we waited, didn't hear any sirens, and figured.....well, we couldn't really figure anything. Bizarre.
Then the local news reported a 1.8 magnitude quake with the epicenter in Annandale (a few miles south). And if you don't believe me (I probably wouldn't), here's an official link from a .gov site:
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/recenteqsus/Quakes/ld1022071.php#details
If that was a 1.8, I can't image what a 5 or 6, much less a 7, 8, or 9 would be like.
And here is a cool map of folks reporting what they felt.
I have to admit, when stuff like that happens around here, it makes me part nervous, part grateful that nothing came of it, part wishing the POTUS and I weren't such close neighbors, and part thinking I should prepare my soul a bit more :)
We were all sitting around at work, a little after lunch, when the building shook. Not outrageously, mind you, but it was a different sort of shake than the building construction ones we frequently feel in my office. After the thundery-rumble, everyone goes silent (thinking "was that just in my head?"). Then one by one we each poked our heads out from our offices and said "Did you hear that? Did you feel that?" It was kind of freaky, seeing as how this area is sort of notorious for terorrist threats and the like. But we waited, didn't hear any sirens, and figured.....well, we couldn't really figure anything. Bizarre.
Then the local news reported a 1.8 magnitude quake with the epicenter in Annandale (a few miles south). And if you don't believe me (I probably wouldn't), here's an official link from a .gov site:
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/recenteqsus/Quakes/ld1022071.php#details
If that was a 1.8, I can't image what a 5 or 6, much less a 7, 8, or 9 would be like.
And here is a cool map of folks reporting what they felt.
I have to admit, when stuff like that happens around here, it makes me part nervous, part grateful that nothing came of it, part wishing the POTUS and I weren't such close neighbors, and part thinking I should prepare my soul a bit more :)
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Prayers and Presidents
President Bush has declared today a National Day of Prayer. After reading this in my e-mail at work, I googled a bit to try to discover what national crisis we were supposed to be praying about. But there was none (at least, there's not an official one)! Come to find out, the First Thursday Of Every May is declared a National Day of Prayer. So pick your national crisis (or personal crisis, if needs be) and get to prayin'! And hopefully we'll all realize that it shouldn't take a presidential declaration to get us on our knees a little more often.
In other news, President Bush was the main character in a really bizarre dream I had last night. My family took him to church with us! My Dad was in meetings all morning, so my mother and I went to pick him up. Traffic was REALLY crazy, and I was so impressed at how my Mom kept her cool while simultaneously swerving around vehicles AND chatting with the President of the United States in the backseat. Go Mom! I got to chat with the POTUS as well; he was very personable, and just seemed tired of it all and ready to hand over the reigns to someone else. I'm afraid (in real life) that all of our presidential candidates will have worn themselves out with all the primary-ing and campaigning by the time one of them gets to the presidency. And we could really use a president right now who's got some vim and vigor, optimism and enthusiasm.
Maybe President Bush declared this First Thursday Of May a National Day of Prayer so we could pray for the current candidates. Wouldn't that be his worst nightmare, to be handing over the presidency on Inaugaration Day to our new president, and watch them pass out from exhaustion? I'd probably throw my hands up and shout "Too late, the torch has already been passed!" Then I'd high-five the VP and I'd jump on a one-way plane to New Zealand. Ah, yes.
In other news, President Bush was the main character in a really bizarre dream I had last night. My family took him to church with us! My Dad was in meetings all morning, so my mother and I went to pick him up. Traffic was REALLY crazy, and I was so impressed at how my Mom kept her cool while simultaneously swerving around vehicles AND chatting with the President of the United States in the backseat. Go Mom! I got to chat with the POTUS as well; he was very personable, and just seemed tired of it all and ready to hand over the reigns to someone else. I'm afraid (in real life) that all of our presidential candidates will have worn themselves out with all the primary-ing and campaigning by the time one of them gets to the presidency. And we could really use a president right now who's got some vim and vigor, optimism and enthusiasm.
Maybe President Bush declared this First Thursday Of May a National Day of Prayer so we could pray for the current candidates. Wouldn't that be his worst nightmare, to be handing over the presidency on Inaugaration Day to our new president, and watch them pass out from exhaustion? I'd probably throw my hands up and shout "Too late, the torch has already been passed!" Then I'd high-five the VP and I'd jump on a one-way plane to New Zealand. Ah, yes.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
