Now it's time to wait...

I sent off the last of my grad school app stuff today! I had two letters of recommendation I needed to send off to American University (in Washington DC) today. With that sent off...I have nothing left to do except wait for my letters of acceptance/rejection! I should know about UCSB and U of Washington at the beginning of March. American and Rhode Island might be mid-end of March since their apps were both due by the 30th of Jan and the others were due by the 10th and 15th of Jan.

I've been looking at scholarships while I wait. I can't actually apply to anything till I know what school I am going to because, if I win, I have to let them know which school to send the check to. I'm going to apply to the Borders Scholarship one for employees. That's one of the reasons why I've stayed at Borders this year. I want that scholarship! There are two different prize amounts - $2,500 and $10,000. I'll accept either, but the $10,000 one would pay for about a third of the estimated costs for a grad student at UCSB for an entire year. It's kind of funny because I've applied to this scholarship through Borders 2 times now. Everytime I apply, it changes slightly. Thankfully, this year it is only ONE essay and it's just your career/educational objectives and so forth. The last time I applied there was also that "what unusual circumstances have shaped you/educational goals" one. I really dislike answering one of those. So...I'll apply for it as soon as I figure out where I'm going. Deadline is April 20th. We'll see if I get it or not!

I found out UCSB for the Fall 2008 Quarter opened some new grad student apartments on the outskirts of the campus. They're VERY similiar to the North Quad housing that CSUMB has. They have 2-room apartments and 4-room apartments. Their set-ups even look the same as CSUMB's. They also have single-occuptant apartments (only 10 of them, I think), but they have no information about those at all. If I got into UCSB and I went for those apartments, it's almost the farthest away from Bren School (the department my Masters program is in) as I can be. LoL As a grad student, though, I REALLY don't want to be in a dorm...I simply don't need that experience to make myself feel like my life is complete. LoL

I think this semester I'm going to brush up on my calculus and statistics. UCSB does a two-week no credit refresher workshop before the quarter starts and a 5-week no credit workshop for statistics during the quarter. I might take both (for sure, statistics), but I might as well refresh now!

With that...I better be off to sleep. I have work at the sinking ship called Borders. They keep cutting hours (I think we lost another 100 hours) and we get no merit raises this year...What a shame. I won't get my $0.25 raise this year! To say the least, I am NOT going to miss the job when I leave Borders. I will miss the people, but the company is making it really difficult for me to want to stay. I hope to never work in retail again too...LoL

Cal Academy of Sciences

Chris and I went to the Cal Academy of Sciences yesterday. We had another disappointing trip where I didn't get to see the planetarium, but at least I saw the rainforest exhibit (after about a 45 minute wait in line...)! You can find photos here. We also went to the botanical gardens for a bit.

I'm almost all finish with grad school applications. I need to mail my MPC transcripts, which I am doing tomorrow morning, send one more CSUMB transcript, and mail my American University recommendation letters and my UCSB statement of purpose and resume and I'm FINISHED.

Now...to hope my CSUMB transcripts will arrive on time...I submitted them on the 23rd of December, but, with the holidays, my transcipts may not get sent out as promptly. I'm checking Tuesday to see if they've been sent out. If they haven't, I'm 2-day rushing them and hoping they'll be sent out by the 10th still.

I got A's in both micro- and macroeconomics too. :)