The Call That Changes All

I got "the call" today, offering me a spot with full tuition waiver and 10 hour per week TAship at my preferred program!

I was not expecting to hear by phone, but was glad to have the opportunity to talk to the program director, ask a few questions, and generally be told that they are as excited about me going there as I am. It had basically the same effect as Ed McMahon showing up at the door, only I waited until I was off the phone to spin around in my office chair, half-screaming.

I will receive the official letter in a week or so, and then I will make my own official decision. (Robert's last chance to say that he can't face moving to Winston-Salem, North Carolina.) But I think this is basically it for me.

By the way, the TAship will probably involve leading an approx 15 student sub-section of the research methods lab, a pretty easy and low-pressure assignment (unlike, e.g., having to teach an entire section of some class on your own).

After all this time, planning, applying, waiting, strategizing, hoping, worrying, etc., it's sort of unreal-feeling that it's actually going to happen now.

Once I got off the phone, I found myself looking at their website, reminding myself how much I like their program. (Also, it's funny that I'm ending up at my second small university: total enrollment 6,862. Rice is 5,339.) After spending a while wondering whether I was going to end up at that other school, I need to get myself back in the right mindset here. I also wondered briefly if I will feel any slight regret about not going to the other program and was amused because the professor I talked to today has "post-decision regret" as one of her areas of research. (I'm not talking serious regret that makes me wish I could undo the decision, just that mild feeling of recognition that even choosing an overall superior option doesn't mean that you don't also forgo some wonderful things about the other options, too.)

I expect that once the unreal-ish feeling goes away, I will start having the "oh my god I'm moving halfway across the country and going to graduate school" flood of thrill and terror.

Of course, it's interesting that this is happening on the heels of just yesterday printing out the presentation schedule at the conference I am going to this summer and seeing my name and the title of my presentation on the same document as a bunch of professors whose work I am using in the obesity study I am working on. The fact that I am actually going to be presenting my research in a venue for "real" scholars is kind of mind-boggling. I'm not even a real grad student yet! (This is called "imposter syndrome"; it's a pretty common feeling among grad students and academics.) There's something about being on the same list as people like Brian Wansink that makes you realize that you are playing in the major leagues. This said, it's going to be awesome.

Good Mail

While it's not as great as acceptance with funding to my preferred graduate program, I'm pretty much thrilled that Netflix sent me a Jonathan Creek video I haven't seen before. It's the little things, people, that keeps one sane in these times. (Thanks, Mom, for making sure I knew about the newly-available episodes.)

13% of $31,000 = Not Enough

I got a call (the machine picked up, not me) from the program I received the packet from a few days ago, with the information that I am being offered a $4,000 per year fellowship. Since the tuition is $31,000 per year, that's really not enough to make it economically sensible to go to their program, given I have other (much cheaper, even with no funding) options, one at a private school and one at a public school. But even that relatively small financial offer is better than their masters students usually get, so I can take it as further evidence that my application was looked upon very favorably.

Update:

1 admission, funding decision pending, $21,000 for two years with no funding (I think)

1 admission, definitely no funding, $32,000 for two years

1 admission, $4,000 fellowship, $54,000 for two years

3 programs: nada as yet

Life Imitates Disney

The other day, I looked into the rabbit room and saw Robert holding Leo up over his head.

Me: "What's that all about?"

Robert: "I'm looking to see if his feet are okay."

Me: "I wish I had a photo of this."

Robert: "Actually, I'm just lifting him up like the Lion King."

Me: "Oh, you mean like Leo Rex?"


But no one took advantage of the opportunity to start singing "Circle of Life," so that was that.

Spam That Reminds You How Your Life Isn't Terrible

Thank you, spammers, for sending me information that I can truly feel good about deleting with no questions whatsoever because I really am not, to even the tiniest extent, in the market for a drug rehab program.

Another Likely to Be Ultimately Unuseful Offer

I got a snail mail acceptance packet from the masters program at the school that tried to upsell me earlier into their PhD program. Unfortunately, it came with no funding information, directing me to contact the department directly (their emphasis) with those questions. This is a super-pricey private school ($31,000 per year tuition) that is not well-known for funding even its PhD students fully, so my hopes are low that it will make financial sense for me to go there, given that it's not my favorite program. But of course, it still feels nice to be admitted.

Update:

1 admission, definitely no funding

1 admission, possible funding (I have been talking online to a woman in that program now who is currently on full tuition waiver and an RA-ship, so it's a real possibility; she's just been fantastically informative and nice in general)

1 admission, probably not enough funding to be cheaper than either of the other two schools even if they are unfunded

I have also talked to a current student in my most-favored program who said that she was notified of her acceptance in mid-March, so I still have a while before I need to get really antsy on that one.

Thought Experiment #1: Memories

From The Psychology of Judgment and Decision-making, Scott Plous, p. 31:

"Try an exercise suggested by Myers (1990): Close your eyes and recall a scene in which you experienced something pleasurable. Don't read any further until you have finished replaying your experience...

(SCROLL DOWN. Blogger suckingly does not have a built-in lj-cut type functionality and I do not trust myself to do the editing of the html of my template to use the various bits of code I found other people using.)




















Did you see yourself in the scene? Most people do. But if you saw yourself, then you must have reconstructed the scene (unless, of course, you were looking at yourself during the original experience).

...Memories are not like copies of our past experiences on deposit in a memory bank. Instead, they are constructed at the time of the withdrawal. The 'materials' used in the split-second reconstruction are logical inferences that fill in missing detail, associated memories that blend in with the original memory, and other relevant information."

Recent memory-checks from talking to my parents have revealed the following:

(1) My parents' dog when I was very young was a chihuahua, not a dachshund. The dachshund belonged to a friend of my mom's who we knew years later. I was shocked to discover this, yet for a couple of years now I have had a photograph of this dog with our white cat in a photo collection hanging in the hallway of my apartment that provides clear evidence that it was not a dachshund. Somehow, even seeing what the dog actually looked like did not over-ride my belief that he was a dachshund. And though I am not great with recognizing dog breeds, I am very clear in my mind as to what a dachshund looks like. (So not only are memories falliable, so is perception.)

(2) The gigantic turtle that mysteriously appeared on the porch of my parents' house when I was a kid really was huge, even to my mother. I mean, bigger than the circle formed by stretching your hands out and touching your fingers in front of you. (Robert helpfully identified the beast from my mom's description as a snapping turtle.) After a while, it went back down the stairs, down the hill of the driveway, and wandered its way up the street. What the hell this turtle was up to remains a mystery. It really freaked out the cat (who was also not a dachshund).

(3) I had basically come to believe that my memory of wearing braces on my legs when I was a little kid was false, but apparently, I truly did.