Waiting, waiting, waiting. :(

While most of you have already heard me whine about all of this, I feel the need to also put my bitching out into the internet void.

I am sick of waiting. Due to sickness and hospital stay, I only managed to get one application in for one PhD program. This is not good. Of course, it's the only one that I want and the only program in the nation with my area of interest, so I guess it could be worse. I may have only been able to apply to a back up program. Eww. Instead, I have NO backups! Gah!

On the plus side, I wasn't rejected. Of course, I wasn't accepted, either. I was waitlisted by my dream program and have been waiting for 5 long weeks to hear any news. I know that they were applying for more funding and that if anyone else chose to go elsewhere, then I'd get their spot. 5 WEEKS! Really, Northwestern? I'm dying here! I want into your program SO badly! It would be amazing and I would be so happy and I would work hard and write papers and teach lectures and there would be utter bliss! I understand that the pool was extra large this year and that competition was fierce. I am honored that my file wasn't tossed in the round file on first glance. I'm proud to say that I was waitlisted at your institution, really. That's a heck of a lot more than most can say. But I'd be happier still and infinitely more proud if you would actually allow me to attend. I'm just saying... I'd work my butt off for you. Please contact me soon so that I can know how seriously I should pursue my Plan B.

Plan B: Teach for America. Don't tell them that they're my Plan B. I don't think it would go over too well. So, in the event that I am ultimately rejected from NU, I have applied to Teach for America, for which I would move to an inner-city or low-income area and be a school teacher for 2 years or so. Depending on the area, it is also possible to earn a Master's degree while doing this. Of course, I already have most of one. But then, why not two, right? I have passed the first round of cuts. On Monday, I have a phone interview. If I pass that, I will have an in-person interview the following week. If I pass that, they will make me an offer by the end of the month. Once again: nothing set in stone. Only waiting.

I'm waiting for more doctor's bills to make their way into my mailbox. This is a sad thing. I don't have a whole lot of money, and I don't make much per month. I have paid two or three bills of a few hundred dollars each and have received statements for others that should be coming. Hospital stays are so expensive. I got my statement from the hospital last week: $21000. Seriously. Insurance should pay 80%, which still leaves me with upwards of $4000. This is sad to me.

I should hear by late next week whether I've been accepted to the CLS program: Critical Language Scholarship. For this, the US department of state would pay for me to travel to India for 2 months to learn Punjabi. This would be awesome. But, waiting.

I also may be travelling to Germany to attend the ICAME 2010 conference in Giessen. If I do get to do that, I will also take the opportunity to meet Isobel, my new niece in Spain. I would get back from that in perfect time to go to India for the remainder of the summer. But I don't know how much contribution I will have to make for that, and what with the medical bills looming, if it's more than a few hundred, I won't be able to go at all.

::sigh::

The moral of the story is: waiting defies the laws of physics because it both sucks and blows at the same time.