Catching Up

Many thanks for the thoughtful comments on my last post. This "separate lives" thing is something I have been grappling with a lot lately. For a long time now, I've had this sense of being "different" or "messed up" compared to other people, which can be very alienating and disconcerting. But sometimes I wonder if maybe I really am okay, and other people have similar experiences, and that I am getting better at this life thing all the time.

I am finally back in College City after a whirlwind week. Drove out to visit Midwest University last Tuesday, then flew back to East Coast University for the official PhD program visiting day. It was INTENSE. Dinner with the grad students Thursday night, stayed with my brother Thursday night, then Friday was scheduled all day with back-to-back professor meetings, presentations, mingling sessions, etc. Overall I think it went well. It's a really neat program with big time academic-celeb status professors. There were ten of us who were invited to visit and we all got to know each other and were feeling pretty chummy until the end of the day. The program director sat us all down for a little wrap-up session and said "So, we'll be making our final admissions decisions within a couple weeks. We are going to accept two of you." TWO. Out of four hundred total applicants. So I  had been feeling all jazzed up about the program until then, but now I'm kind of discouraged.

I stayed with my parents Friday night, then flew back to College City Saturday afternoon. One of my friends from school gave me a ride home, where I promptly crashed. Today will be spent on laundry, cleaning, and catching up on everything I've been neglecting. I have an interview at my own university tomorrow, but it's just with my advisor J and we are tight so I'm not worried. Then I leave town again this coming Thursday to visit another school across the country through Saturday.

Someone asked about my interview outfit: I wore back dress pants, a gray shirt (it's made of silky material with an extra lacy layer in the front, if that makes sense), black heels, and a pink scarf. I had a moment of panic Friday morning—I was at my brother's apartment getting ready and my hairdryer wouldn't work. I had known it was on its last legs, but would always start after a couple tries....but it WOULDN'T WORK. So I almost had to show up for my interview with wet hair. Thankfully I got the damn thing working finally, but am off to Target to buy a new one today.

So that's about it. I suppose there's more going on but I think I need a nap. Happy Sunday and belated Valentine's Day!