grumble.

More good news from UT. They're giving me in-state tuition plus $6000/year. So, that means instead of paying around $20,000/year I'll be paying $3000. Cheap!

My computer died last night, which is really devastating for me. The hard drive completely crapped out, which is unfortunate because I never backed anything up, because I'm an idiot. Mostly I'm upset about having lost around 3 years worth of pictures. Most of them I won't miss, but many I will. I called my mom as soon as I left the Apple store, and she consoled me by telling me that her uncle accidentally threw away the 17 rolls of film she took when living in Holland for a year in high school. She says she still gets upset about it, but it's not the end of the world. I figure it's just a good exercise in letting things go. People are too attached to objects, anyway.

Hopefully the hard drive will be replaced by tomorrow, but I have to pay $300 because my computer is kind of old and not even close to still being under warranty.

I just got back from a week in Olympia. I would like to show people my pictures, but oh wait I can't.

Giftschisser.

More news from the grad school front. I've been wait-listed at Duke and rejected from the University of Michigan. However, I find myself not really upset by any of this news, especially because I think UT will be a really good fit for me. Now I just need to figure out how to pay for this whole grad school thing. I must say all these rejections (and the one waiting list) have made my decision very easy. Furthermore, I'm really delighted that the one school I did get into is a really good one.

I'm very excited for graduation now, because my grandmother is buying me a ticket to Germany as a graduation present. I will probably head up to Holland as well, because my family has a lot of friends there. This also potentially frees up some cash for me to take another trip this summer before I move down to Austin. But where to?

I might also have a new tattoo in the works. I'm very excited! I have this random alto clarinet in my closet and I think I'm going to try to sell it for tattoo money, because what the heck am I even doing with an alto clarinet in the first place?

Good news, part 2.

I have more good news! In the last letter I received from UT, it said that I had been accepted to the musicology program. Today I got a letter saying that I have been accepted to the graduate school. I had already been celebrating the fact that I'd gotten it, but I was still a teeny bit concerned. Not anymore, though! Although I don't know what my other options are yet, I'm still leaning pretty strongly toward Texas right now.

I also got a letter from my university saying that I'm the top graduating senior in the College of Liberal Arts and that I get some kind of award for that. I'm so surprised! Maybe it's just a lean year for liberal arts graduates. Nevertheless, I am very surprised because I spent so much of college not really trying that hard. There is some kind of function that I must attend now. I'm supposed to invite the faculty member who has been most influential on me. I think I'll ask Louis, but I feel like I should maybe ask Christy. It's hard because I'm so close with both of them. I'm also supposed to "say a few words" upon receiving this award. What the heck am I going to say? Anyway, I'm very excited about this because the College of Liberal Arts is rather huge so I must be better than a lot of people, and not all of them can be total losers.

yesssss

Good news, everyone!

I accepted to the musicology program at the University of Texas! Although I am wary of moving to Texas, I don't think Austin actually qualifies as a part of Texas. I told my musicology professor yesterday and I think he was even more excited than I am. Though I still have yet to hear from Duke or the University of Michigan, Louis says that he would pick UT over either of them. He also said that UT is pretty good about giving TA positions, so hopefully I can snag me one o' them. They want my response by mid-March which seems ridiculous, but I have until mid-April if I take that long to decide. My concern is that doesn't really give me time to go check out the school (especially because I already have plans to go to Olympia for spring break) so I might end up going to a school I've never a seen in a town I've never been to in a state I've never been to.

I had not really expected to get into UT because not only was I not certain that they had received my reference letters and GRE scores, but I really threw my personal statement together and sent in my supplemental materials after the deadline. Nevertheless, they still accepted me, and I am quite delighted.

Baby skull update:
I talked to my sister who is in med school here and she tells me that the creepy baby skull and the collection of forceps are now in the anatomy lab. I'm glad they found a new home, even if I no longer get to see them every day when I come to work.

Missing: baby skull

I work in a medical library. There is a large display case outside out front doors which, in addition to displaying a few books from our collection, up until recently contained a large variety of forceps, some dating back some time. However, a noticed a few shifts ago that they had all disappeared! Furthermore, there was this creepy baby skull included as part of the display, and it is now gone as well. I really thought the baby skull did a lot for the display. It produced, for me anyway, mental images of having one of the large pairs of tongs from the display shoved up a woman's vag and yanking a baby out by its head. If that's not an entertaining mental image, I don't know what it. I'm sad and distraught that now when I come to work I am no longer greeted by a tiny yellowish-gray
skull and a collection of metal instruments that, while funny to picture having them shoved into someone else's body, can just stay the hell out of mine. I feel so alone.

Screwed us yet again...

As it seems relevent to the original purpose of this blog (which has been abandoned to some degree) I should probably share that I have received my first grad school rejection. UCLA informed me in the middle of Wednesday night (or, I suppose, Thursday morning) via a rather condescending and generic letter that I have not been accepted. This did not come as a surprise, but it was a bit of a disappointment. However, on Friday I spoke with my musicology professor/advisor/life coach/personal hero (who got his PhD at UCLA maybe 9 or so years ago) and he reassured me by saying that I don't want to go there right now anyway. In addition to the horrible financial situation California is in right now, evidently UCLA's musicology department is kind of a mess. So this may be a blessing. However, this also means that if I go to any of my other grad schools, I will be moving at least halfway across the country. By which I mean continent. I like the latter, it sounds scarier. Now I just have to continue to wait and hope. Hell, it's not like I would have wanted to break my streak of never having gotten into a UC school, anyway.

On a lighter note, here is an hilarious quote from DS-9, which I have been watching a lot of lately:

"We're going to have to go down there and blow it manually!"

Home Means Nevada, part 2.

My time in Reno is gradually drawing to a close. Presumably. As my departure draws nearer, I'm getting more and more anxious about leaving and noticing things that make Reno really special to me. Who knew that I could be scared of missing Reno?

Why is it that Nevada is the only place, that I'm aware of, where you can get all-you-can-eat sushi? What's more, in Reno we've got to have at least 10 or 15 places to get it. I don't even like sushi, but I like the idea of all-you-can-eat sushi. It's like taking a really classy food and making it fit into the Reno idiom of trash and vice and gluttony.

In Nevada, you can buy hard liquor at the supermarket. It never occurred to me that you couldn't do this in other places.

We have an intersection of streets called Colbert Drive and Patriot Boulevard.

Not only do we have brothels just outside of town, some of them have tours!

I don't want to move away from all this sin. What if I accidentally move to North Carolina or Texas? Shit guys, this is scary!