Setback

I have 16 rough pages of my thesis done. It's getting more and more difficult to focus on writing because the weather is finally getting good. Also, academia and I are not on good terms at the moment, as I just got my penultimate rejection email. I applied to four PhD programs and one MA certificate program and so far, three of the PhD programs have rejected me. It's not that I'm actually very sad about the rejection, (I could have written the best proposal in the world, but if they don't want my topic/profile then that's that) I'm mostly upset about the fact that this means I still don't know what I'm going to be doing or where I'm going to be doing it after September.

Current plan is to register for the Global Studies Program PhD and see if I can find funding somewhere else. I'm not a huge fan of this plan, as it basically means pretending to write while desperately searching for a job/scholarship and thereby reverting back to a place I hoped I had left behind. I doubt I'll get into the last PhD program and the MA certificate in Egypt seems like such a long shot.

I'm really hoping for some good news...

House-sitting and thesis-writing

Here I am, somewhere between Potsdam and Berlin, taking care of one small dog and four small cats.

I'm sitting on the balcony. It's currently 22° and this makes me happy beyond measure. I've really come to notice how utterly correlated the temperature is with my mood. Sun out = smiles.

I was expecting to get a few things done out here. Mostly just starting the actual writing part of my thesis. It's gone well these last couple days. I have an unedited 10 pages done so far which is 1/6th of the way there. I hope to be able to maintain this pace and be completely done by June.

Which leads me to the next question: what next?

I've received two rejection letters from potential PhD programs thus far. It's not a great feeling but, in comparison to applying for my master's, it's not really that bad. I know I have options. I speak 3 languages fluently, I'll have a degree from two prestigious universities in different countries, I'm hustlin and I'll find something. I'd just like for it to manifest itself sooner rather than later. 

Back in Berlin

Time to focus.

Went to Rome and now I'm back. It was good to get out of the city for a minute, especially because I got to see my best friend from San Francisco. A lot of it was just ignoring my (somewhat pressing) responsibilities.

Our hotel was by the Spanish Steps

did all the tourist-y things like colosseum and sistine chapel and whatnot

And now I'm back to the grind. I arrived late last night and was hoping that I would wake up this morning fully energized and ready to go. But, for some reason, that hasn't happened yet. I've still done stuff but I guess my heart isn't in it. Oh well, I can't let a little thing like laziness stand in the way of getting stuff done. I have too much to do. 

Sick

and I'm really not into it. I can't sing or talk. I can't hang out with friends. I can't do the stuff I need to do.

My head is full of fuzz and my body is achy. Blegh. I am probably one of the complainiest sick people on this planet. I'm just so BORED.

In other news...I've done literally nothing at all. Well, that's not true. I've gotten 52 out of the 100 interviews I'm supposed to get done. I posted an event in the alumni facebook group of my organization, asking people to kindly stop being selfish and do something for the organization that gave them thousands of Euros and a chance to better their lives. Will see how successful nagging them in this way is going to be.

I'm going on a trip to Rome, to visit a friend from my undergrad that I haven't seen in years. Hopefully I'll be completely healthy by the time that rolls around. Another thing about this being sick business: stuff I don't  normally do (travel, go on dates, stay out late at night, etc.) has been popping up and I am literally physically incapable of doing it. Ugh.

So, in conclusion, waah waah I wish I was healthy and that my thesis would write itself. 

february vlog

Thought I'd keep this other medium of blogging alive :)

Envelopes

So, let's compare this picture I took and uploaded to Facebook on the 6th of December 2012:

Those are envelopes containing my hopes and dreams of getting into a masters program. Luckily, I managed to get into every single German school that I applied for. "Which one should I choose?" was a wonderful dilemma. 

The PhD version looks like this:

I'm really hoping to have at least some of the success that I managed to garner in my first attempt two years ago. This is just the first round; I still have to prepare a couple whose deadlines are a bit later. After the end/middle of February, though, I will enter that state of constant "what if? did I do it right? I hope I hope I hope". It probably won't end until September, but I'm ready. 

Und in einem Monat, sieht die Welt ganz anders aus

And next month, everything will look totally different...

     Wise words from someone I've been spending a lot of time with. Everything is moving so quickly. I have deadlines coming up for applications, and this weekend I couldn't really devote much time to anything other than this conference where I was helping out. I did, however, manage to go to a YFU (one of my organization's partners) event, where a professor of Universität Mainz held a speech on a topic similar to that of my thesis. It was a great opportunity to learn and network. I even managed to get a couple of cards from representatives of the US embassy, which could turn into valuable contacts in the future. Everyone seemed to be respond really positively when I talked about my topic and potential findings. "I can't wait for the results" was something I heard more than once. Well...haha...me neither, I guess.
      There's still this slight sensation of  "am I doing this right? What if it turns out to be completely useless?" But, I suppose that's normal. Doubts are a part of life. I literally have no idea what I'm going to be doing after September. I could be in Cairo, Berlin, Gießen, Bremen, Leipzig, San Francisco, or even Heidelberg again. I just don't know. It's simultaneously exciting and terrifying.