Here we go again

     I’m back on the hunt for graduate schools for next year. I know to some degree what I am looking for in the programs and am slowly filtering out the ones that don’t suit me. I’m only on my preliminary round of cutting back schools and picking and choosing and already I’m tired and stressed. It’s too soon for me to be doing this again, but that’s my own fault. I did choose to do a one year program over here in the UK after all. Numbers and figures are floating through my head, along with the accompanying thoughts: How will I pay for the application fees? How many schools can I afford to apply to? Will I get funding? How will I EVER pay off all these school loans? I wouldn’t get a decent job if I stopped now, would I? I think my brain might explode soon.

     I feel as though I am always complaining about this stuff. Especially about money. I’m sorry, I don’t mean to. It all just makes me so nervous. Maybe I’m just freaking out prematurely. Classmates and I were talking about debt the other day during our break between classes, and how much it is simply a fact of life now. If you want a higher education the majority of us have no other choice than to rack up the debt from the start. I got lucky my first few years at university with a scholarship that paid the majority of my tuition and such. But these days, with the economy and more and more people going back to school because of the job market… what is one to do? I’ll probably lucky if I can even manage to get school loans for next year. Countdown: 3…2…1… *brain explodes*

     I’m feeling all doom and gloom at the moment. Maybe I’ll just take a break and try not to think about it…. Yes, avoidance is absolutely the way to deal with all of this. *sigh*

Oh how the future haunts me!

     I’ve had far too much caffeine today: two sodas and two coffee; three of those within a few hours of each other so please forgive the melodrama that ensues (if any does). I am again in the position of trying to decide what to do about next year. Do I stay here in the UK and continue my education? That means finding the means of getting my dog over here somehow (I miss her terribly, my poor pup), getting enough funding to be able to live here (it is extremely expensive in the UK), as well as finding flatmates and such for an off-campus residence (I can’t possibly live on campus with a pet :/). Or do I return to the US? Do I even continue my education? Do I take time off? I have a bit of a problem with the end dates of my current program and the start dates of US programs, which has left me tossing my options all around my brain, muttering out loud What do I do? What do I do? What do I do!?!?

nothing to say

     I don’t want to write. There is nothing in me at this moment that urges me to write poetry. I feel like I have peaked in my poetical talents. Sadly writing poetry has become work, and this isn’t why I chose to do this program. In fact it is the last thing I want – for my creativity to feel like nothing more than a payment for a degree or a trade for money. I don’t care if I get rich and famous, I don’t care if I even get the degree. I wanted to continue my education because I wanted to improve my skills, to learn more, instead I feel as though it all isn’t worth it. I’m doubting as to whether or not I’ll continue on to a Ph.D. and at the moment it is seeming to lean towards not. Maybe this is just a bad spell, the nasty after-taste of a rotten year. Maybe this next term will be better. Maybe. But I doubt it. *sigh*

Why so serious?

     This term at RHUL is nearly over. In fact next week is the final week before the winter break, and I’m finding that my opinions in regards to poetry are rather different (often opposing) compared to the professor of the course as well as the other poets in the group. I can’t for the life of me understand why some poets feel the need to make everything mean something. I don’t generally try to force metaphors and hidden meanings within my poems. Naturally meanings come through, whether subconsciously as I write or by the reader’s own interpretation of the poems, which is perfectly fine by me. I take away meanings from what I read all the time. That’s one of the things I love about literature – I find meaning where I want and need it most. But I don’t think this means that every object in a poem has to have multiple layers of meaning… am I explaining this right? I don’t think so.

Banking

     I can’t sleep at the moment, so I will blog instead. I am questioning the validity, the effectiveness of my experiment. I’m questioning as to whether or not a truly unique self exists in any person; are we really ever anything more than reactionary to our life experiences? At the moment my inclination is to firmly reply No. Never anything more than reactionary. Or are my expectations simply too high, like trying to adjust some of my personality traits in a year? I must acknowledge that as a possibility as well. Should I even be trying to change? Yes. Will I ever stop asking these questions and then answering them myself? Yes, for this post at least (well I hope so anyway ).

The Experiment

     Everyone wants to know how I ended up here, how I picked Royal Holloway as my university of choice. I feel as though I don’t have a satisfactory answer for those in my program. Let me clarify. I love poetry; I love writing it, I love reading and critiquing it, I love learning and expanding my craft. I chose Royal Holloway because it suited my idea for a social experiment: a personal experiment in social integration.

Royal Holloway, University of London

     I drank beer tonight; to be more specific, I drank an Adam’s Bitter British Ale. A half pint’s worth. That is more beer than I’ve ever been able to stomach. Not only did I drink Ale, but I sat in a pub, squished to the end of the bench between a fellow poet and a railing along a steep carpeted set of stairs. We talked literature, jobs, living. The basics of finding common ground in a large group. Sometimes I was silent, my mind heavy with the alcohol; other times I tried to participate – pushing my ears outward, hoping to understand every inflection and tone in voices that were unfamiliar in more than their accents.

Hurrah!

My visa has been approved and delivered! What a load of stress off my shoulders. My timeline has been getting shorter and shorter and I was beginning to worry. Royal Holloway here I come!

Moping and Coping

     I simply haven’t felt like writing lately. I think about it, but my motivation just doesn’t reach to the point of action. Honestly, I just feel like reading and escaping and not thinking. Things have been hectic here. My parents are in the middle of moving back to Arizona, because my dad got another job. My mom has been an emotional wreck due to this. She doesn’t want to move. She’s happy in New Mexico… sort of. She likes this city and her house. My dad doesn’t want to move either, but he’s sucking it up, because he recognizes that he has to do what he has to do. My mom isn’t making this transition easy for any of us and I have too much residual anger with her right now to have patience with her constant crying and complaining about how she doesn’t want to move.

Maybe I’m just a dumb-shit

     …I don’t know, but this Visa application stuff has my hair in knots and panties in a twist so to speak (as well as my blood pressure up and my moods swinging). Frankly, sifting through all the information and necessities to apply for an overseas student visa is like reading bad literature. What I mean is that I am trying to skim through pages and pages of stuff that doesn’t apply to find those few lines of information that do. This reminds me of reading the writing of a meandering author, someone that begins a paragraph and goes through so many tangents, references, and jumps, so that I don’t know what the hell they are talking about by the time I get to the end of the paragraph. Except the visa stuff is pages and pages and pages of that. Not to mention things link all over the place and by the end of it I have like twenty windows open and, if I’m lucky, I’ll have figured out at least one thing for sure. I’m usually not that lucky. So I’ve just gotten to the point where I’m sending in what I’ve got and hoping it’s what they want.