The oddest things give you hope.

But there are more conventional retail outlets for such a thing. GAP Hope, you could call it. The clearance item for today was an unexpected one.

For the last several days I thought I would have to scrounge together three years worth of detailed experiment ideas, four letters of recommendation, my transcripts, write ~15 page proposal, get it in on Dec 5th and, at the same time, not bomb my 2nd stats midterm.

In a more concrete rhetorical question: Could I eat a live chicken splurged with tabasco sauce?

And the answer: I don't have to.

For you see, there is another predoctoral graduate training grant/program/fellowship/etc. from the National Science Foundation (NSF). Now I'd thought that the deadline was November 6th and had already past, a golden ship of N'Orleans jazz sailing out across clear waters.

But that was LAST year's submission deadline. Wanna know what this year's deadline is?

December 9th.

This is downright splendid news. The application process is MUCH, MUCH less stringent and demanding than the National Institute of Health one. So not only can I start on this fellowship application, but I don't have to sacrifice all of my time to it--leaving some for what may turn out to be a bad-ass test to study for.

I sound much more perky about all of this than I actually am. Truth be told, I edged a little toward the melancholy side earlier tonight. Not a good sign. Visualizing oneself in a windswept gray desert while a giant, monolithic older woman's face stares at you from its carved mantle on a mountain does not help with studying. Mostly I've thought today about whether my credentials were good enough compared to this hotshot proposal from last year that made it.

I guess we all have a glass-jaw sometimes, when it comes to important judgement-oriented shit at any rate.

It's also the consensus of at least 7 intro graduate stats students that this current homework is a flaming ball of ass. The last two had been easy-shmeezy. But this one was long--long and hard and , contrary to some general beliefs otherwise, not very much fun. Damn but I've revised this bastard alot. The 'written word' questions were alot more vague this time. My usual solution is to offer so much detail that I just get full credit, but I wasn't really sure what the hell was being asked in some of these.

Then there was adding up one number wrong by one point..which led to 3 hours of re-doing most of my tests because of it. Some other people did the same thing, so I only feel kindof annoyed about it.

But, onto happier things.

Now in all the times I've dated various organisms and gone about on that jaunty business, there've only been a handful of occasions where I actively did the male thing. This age-old ritual offends my completely anachronistic sense of Victorian propriety: I have to approach a stranger or a near stranger and initiate banter. Fuck shyness, it just strikes me as rude for some bizarre reason.

Yet, that said, there's a fetching young woman who works at Jalapeno, a mexican place I eat at literally every day; sometimes I skip a day, though...sometimes. Now, for as chatty as two people can get when a shuffling thread of omnivores are getting food while a conga line opposite them throws said food together, we've gotten chatty. She has sortof a punkesque subdued Tank Girl thing going on, though the varying shades of purple and pink in her hair are laid back, alone with her casual attitude. This I like. Normal-looking women who are attractive but alternative tend to be out of their fucking minds. Having dated 20+ examples of that type alone, I can (and damnit have) sermonize.

I've gotten more "out-going" (read: too busy to brood about inconsequential details) over the years, so perhaps I'll throw a wrench into everything and ask when she gets off shift or something completely unoriginal.

Or I'll just stop writing and go to bed.

previous - next