It sounds very ironic, but I've been feeling a lot of stress during vacation about everything that is not immediately related to school.
Okay, so first I read about how London had the blizzards of a lifetime that had shut down Heathrow Airport for days. Guess what I am worried about now?? I have already booked my (very expensive) flight and lodging for the London job fair at the end of January. I am worried that at the last minute, some snow storm is going to set in and ruin one of my three connection flights each way. (I am flying from here to Texas to New York to London, or something like it. And same on the way back. 18-hour commute each way, and taking off an unprecedented 3 personal days surrounding a regular weekend.) After having invested in all of this time and money, I really, really hope the weather isn't going to go bezerk on me...
And then, there is this issue of my graduate school transcript being lost in the mail, just like I had feared. To be fair, I had been requesting both transcripts as early as mid-November. My ever-reliable Berkeley transcript had arrived in El Salvador the first week of December. It's now January, and my grad school transcript is still out there somewhere in the abyss of international mail-forwarding. Our mail-forwarding company in Delaware says that they have no record of having received anything in a few weeks; CCNY says their records indicate that the damned thing was sent on December 13 (after much follow-up on my part. Otherwise it would have taken them even longer). I don't see any reason why in 3 weeks of transit, it still hasn't even made it as far as Delaware, unless someone royally screwed up somewhere. ugh.
To remedy the situation, I've Fedex'ed in another transcript request today (because -- believe it or not! -- CCNY doesn't accept online transcript requests). Pretty pricy stuff. $45 to make sure it gets to CCNY by Wednesday morning. Then, I'll have to follow up again to make sure it actually gets across the street to Columbia U, into the hands of the right people. sigh. (And who knows if it'll even get there? Honestly, at this point, I have no faith in any part of any system.) My last-last-last resort would be to ask Geoff's parents to dig through their basement to see if they can find another copy of my graduate transcript lying around somewhere in the stuff they've been safekeeping for us. But, that would make the Coxes all stressed out, so that'd have to be my absolute last resort.
Until all the ducks are lined up, I can't even feel properly disappointed when I don't get into the already-very-selective summer program! All I want is a chance to have my best shot at applying (or at least to have a complete application) -- is that asking for too much? :(
Don't feel alone in the whole transcript ordeal. You can take comfort in the fact that the bureaucratic system is nondiscriminatory in its abysmal failure. I could write a book on everything that went wrong when I was applying to my graduate program (of course, who would want to read a book of complaints). Just keep stressing out and pestering whoever you can about it and things will work themselves out.
ReplyDeleteYikes! Best of luck getting everything sorted out; I particularly appreciated your post on the string of blessings that have led you to where you are today, and I hope that the new year brings you several more!
ReplyDeletei have nothing but empathy about the weather AND transcript situation. Penn State seems a wonder among colleges, what with online requests and such. Pitt? Forget it. You have to go in PERSON most of the time, but if you get something notarized, you can mail it! It's so primeval.
ReplyDeleteand @irrational, i would totally read your book of complaints and think "AMEN!" each time i read a page.
Thanks! For better or worse, school starts next week and I'll have much less time to be stressing about these things. :)
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