I am a hologram
ALRIGHT, so I know I’ve already totally tanked my New Year’s resolution to post my blogs weekly (SHUT UP, it’s been a little better than it used to be…right?). So what’s the most reasonable response?
ADD MORE NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTIONS!!
Well, I guess these aren’t technically New Year’s resolutions, mainly because they’re things I’d like to accomplish this year, but they’re not at the same level of want as my actual New Year’s resolutions.
If that makes any sense.
Anyway.
Things to do for Claudia in 2015:
- Actually try to learn (at least some) guitar. I still have my beautiful guitar that I impulse bought way back when (thanks a lot, Sean), but I’ve never really tried to learn how to play it. String instruments are intimidating to me, but I SHALL CONQUER!
- Learn LaTeX. Because apparently everyone in the math department knows it and uses it religiously.
- Walk to and from campus when the weather permits. It’s a good way to get mileage, given that it’s about a 7.5-mile round trip. I guess this kind of goes with my walking mileage goal, but it’s not quite the same.
- Finish my blog stats Excel sheet and format the rest of my blog archives. I’m up to year 7, so I’m getting close, but I still have a few more years to do. The next goal is to actually get hard copies printed of each year of blogs, but that will be super expensive, so who knows when that will happen.
I THOUGHT I HAD MORE OF THESE.
Blogging fail.
2015: Now in High Resolution
Hey, it’s the 29th! Looks like it’s the annual “let’s review the old resolutions and make some new ones” blog post.
2014 resolutions:
- ACCOMPLISHED: Blog daily. Was there ever any doubt?
- ACCOMPLISHED: Continue my 365 Days of Music project. This year was rough because it was probably the worst year for music since I started this, but I still managed.
- FAILED: Continue working on my writing project thingy. Apart from Arborhood, I didn’t get much writing done AT ALL this year. It was quite shameful.
- ACCOMPLISHED: Win NaNoWriMo 2014. YAY! It felt pretty good to do this considering I didn’t even start NaNo last year. And I actually kind of like my story and plan on editing it.
- ACCOMPLISHED: Graduate. I never, ever, ever thought I’d have a math degree, let alone graduate with honors while getting one. Graduation sucked, but we’re not going to get into that here.
- FAILED: Try not to be such a horrible freaking failure at everything I do. Yeah, that didn’t happen.
Those were some crappy resolutions.
2015 resolutions:
- Blog daily, 365 musics, blah, blah, blah.
- Win NaNoWriMo 2015.
- Now that I’m pretty sure next year will be stable as far as where I’ll be and what I’ll be doing, I’mma set a walking goal! Let’s say…1,500 miles. Pretty low, I know, but there’s always Calgary weather to take into account, right?
- WRITE. It doesn’t have to necessarily be new stuff (except for NaNo, of course), but I really need to commit to rewrites of some of my old stuff. Prime is important to me; I don’t want to let it die.
- Post these damn blogs on a more frequent and consistent basis. I’m going to try for once a week, but don’t hate me if this doesn’t happen.
- Kick ass in my grad program. I want to show U of C that I can do stats very, very well. Also, I have no desire to leave Calgary any time soon.
VROOM!
Last day in Moscow!
Annnnnnnnnnd I’m leaving.
Again.
Hopefully it will be for longer this time, ‘cause I don’t want to screw this up like I screw up everything else in my life.
Everything is IN THE U-HAUL (including, for about 30 seconds, MewMew) and now I just have to finish cleaning the basement.
Annabelle is totally stressed out. She hates change as much as I do.
I’m totally stressed out, too.
SHORTBLOG!
Moving and Packing! SO MUCH FUN! *extreme sarcasm*
GETTIN’ READY!
I’m actually about 90% packed now.
*more noises of frustration*
WHY IS IT SO HARD TO FIND HOUSING IN CALGARY?
Seriously, I’m really, really starting to freak out about this. I might have to actually road trip up there to get an apartment in person, ‘cause this is ridiculous. Almost had to go to the hospital again ‘cause I was in full panic attack mode.
End
OKAY PEOPLES.
As we all know, I’m going to bite the dust someday. And it may be sooner than a lot of your own “bite the dust” day, since I really don’t have much desire to live past 45 given that Alzheimer’s/dementia apparently run in the family, especially for the women.
So even though this will never be considered an official, binding document/will thingy, I want to let you all know what I’d want you to do when I die.
- Most important: take care of my mom if she’s still hangin’ around. Sell all my crap and give the money to her. If you know her in person (maybe one or two of you do?), talk to her and keep her company. Buy her like 40 cats.
- If my body’s in good enough condition, donate the hell out of my organs, then have the rest of me cremated. If it’s not in good enough condition to donate, just throw the lot of it in the cremation fire.
- If y’all want a funeral-type thingy, don’t wear black. Wear obnoxiously loud color. Or have a Rock Band party (still in obnoxious colors) instead.
- If y’all want a funeral-type thingy, please play this song (it’s Coldplay’s O (Fly On); I’m assuming that the YouTube vid will be taken down sometime before I die, haha).
- Somehow, get a portion of my ashes to Hanover and scatter them around the grounds of Leibniz’ archives. This is actually really important to me. Hell, ship ‘em to some German dude over there and have him do it if that’s the only way it can be done.
I’ll add more if I think of anything, but I don’t think there’s anything more. And I know it’s kinda morbid, but I wanted to type it out somewhere.
ACTION SLIDE!
OKAY FOOLS!
I’ve decided on my tattoo. Behold!
Why an integral sign?
- If you know anything about me at all, you know that I love Leibniz. What better way to pay tribute to him in tattoo form than to get a tattoo of his symbol for integration? So it works on the level of Leibniz tribute.
- It also works on the level of my liking stats—after all, integration is used quite a bit in many statistical applications/techniques. And since that is the case, it saves me from having to pick a specific statistical formula or expression (which I could never do; I love them all!).
- I also just really like this symbol. I thought it was very elegant even before I knew that Leibniz came up with it.
It really does have a lot more meaning to me than I can express here, but I tried, haha. I think I’m going to try and plan it so that I get it done (or mostly done) on July 1st this summer.
‘Cause yeah.
EXCITED!
I HAVE NEWS!
So guess where my crazy life adventures are taking me next?
CALGARY!
I got accepted by the University of Calgary will be starting my Masters in statistics in September.
I am SUPER FREAKING EXCITED!
Here are some facts about Calgary/U of C:
- Population: 1,096,833 (third highest in Canada after Toronto and Montreal)
- Hosted the Olympic Winter Games in 1988 (Jamaican bobsled team!)
- It’s one of the sunniest cities in Canada, with about 332 days of sun every year.
- U of C has about 25,000 undergraduates and 6,000 postgraduates
- U of C is ranked as one of the best universities in Canada (6th – 8th, depending on the ranking)
- The university library is the sixth largest library in the country.
- YOU CAN TAKE PROFESSIONAL SPEED SKATING LESSONS AT THE OLYMPIC OVAL ON CAMPUS I AM SO DOING THAT
I reiterate: I am SUPER FREAKING EXCITED!
!
CALGARY!!!!
Tats n’ Stuff
Okay fools, it’s time to get serious about this tattoo business.
I promised myself I could get a tattoo if I successfully finished my Masters degree. Since that degree was granted like 3 years ago now, you’d think I’d have my tattoo, right?
WRONG!
The thing that’s holding me back is probably the most important thing to consider when getting a tattoo: the tattoo design itself. Why? Well, the things I’m passionate enough about to have a representation of them permanently etched into my skin are things that really aren’t very easily tattooable.
Like statistics. That’s a broad field. Do I pick an equation or a theorem? Do I pick a statisticain’s name? Do I pick a distribution or a plot? I don’t think there’s any one particular topic in statistics I could narrow it down to as far as a tattoo goes. The best I’ve got is either a graph of a normal distribution or the pdf of the normal distribution.
Then there’s Leibniz. I love Leibniz. I would definitely get his name tattooed somewhere on me if I could figure out a) where, and b) a good design for it. I have a few basic ideas, but none of them are good enough. This is Leibniz we’re talking about, people.
I also really like color. There are a few of my drawings that I’ve considered for tattoos, but again, the problem is placement. How big should they be? Where would I want them? And there’s really not too much meaning behind any of my drawings. If I were to get this on my back or something:
I’d want there to be more meaning aside from “it’s colorful and I drew it.”
I’m actually really leaning towards this beautiful integral sign right now:
But who knows. Maybe one of these days I’ll draw a lemniscates worthy of Tattoo Land. And hopefully one day soon!
Hey Foolios
I just wanted to apologize for my blog posts being really sucky as of late (and also for my uploading a slew of them like once a month). I don’t feel like going into the details right now (just because they’re long and involved), but I’m currently lacking any long-term plans past summer due to several factors…and that really stresses me out. Not having at least a two-year plan is really, really difficult for me, so I’ve pretty much been a little ball of anxiety for the past month and a half or so and thus haven’t been feeling particularly humorous/creative/fun/entertaining—hence the crap posts.
I’m trying to just fake it through No Plan Land right now, but it’s hard. Please bear with (or unsubscribe if you want, I won’t be offended or anything, haha).
BYE!
Resolutions Review (Alternate Title: Claudia Sucks)
So I pretty much failed at everything this year.
Punishment: going through all of this year’s resolutions and seeing exactly how many I failed.
Let’s do this!
FAILED: Walk 1,500 miles. NOPE! I’ll be about 150 miles short of 1,500. No excuse for that other than I suck.
ACCOMPLISHED: Blog daily. Pfft, big deal.
FAILED: Win NaNoWriMo 2013. I DIDN’T EVEN START WOW I’M SUCH AN AWESOME PERSON
ACCOMPLISHED: Continue my 365 Days of Music project. This is like automatic for me now, so this doesn’t count.
FAILED: Draw at least two new thingies a month. Ha.
SORT OF ACCOMPLISHED: Do something with my writing. I actually made substantial progress on this, so I guess this is a “sort of.”
FAILED: Study for the GRE this time before I take the damn thing. Didn’t take the GRE. Got waaaaaaay too busy to study for it.
FAILED: Learn as much as possible. I learned a lot, but I don’t think I learned enough to say I learned “as much as possible” for the year.
ACCOMPLISHED: Revamp and start over with my book list. I actually did this one! Granted, I’ve only read 3.5 books on the list as of now, but as I said above, I got waaaaaaay too busy to do pretty much anything but school.
ACCOMPLISHED: Uh…try not to die? Like this one even counts, either.
This year’s:
Ugh, jeez. I don’t even know.
- Blog daily (a standard).
- Continue my 365 Days of Music project (another standard).
- Continue working on my writing project thingy.
- Win NaNoWriMo 2014.
- I’m not setting a walking distance goal ‘cause I’m not sure what’s going down this year in terms of “big super happy life plans.” I’d explain further, but I don’t want to.
- Graduate.
- Try not to be such a horrible freaking failure at everything I do.
Yay.
It’s time for advising!
Which means it’s time for decisions to be made.
So here are some:
- Grad school. It’s going to have to happen again. I am about 99.9999% sure I want to spend the rest of my life teaching stats or doing something stats-related. The best plan for getting a permanent (hopefully tenured) position at some point? Getting a PhD. So…yeah.
- Grad school in Canada. If I’m going, I’m going up there. Reasons include: I’m too much of a coward to re-take the GRE (my old scores are expired), the GRE is dumb anyway and Canada seems to know that, and I have a chance of getting accepted at UBC again and I pretty much constantly daydream about walking Vancouver.
- If I don’t get into grad school (likely), the plan is to stay here and keep teaching for another year (Dr. Williams told me that they’d likely have work for me), get a few more degrees (I’m pretty close to two others after the math one), actually STUDY for the GRE, take it, and apply to US schools.
- And if a really good job comes up in the meantime, I’m going for it. I JUST WANNA TEACH STAAAAAAAAATS.
An Ode to a (Semi-)Productive Summer
The academic summer is officially over in an hour! Let’s review the goals I specified in May (or June or whenever):
- Actually study for the GRE/GRE math subject test. FAIL. Loser.
- Rock calculus. DONE!
- Rock summer teaching. DONE!
- Go back up to Vancouver and walk the hell out of that city. FAIL. We were going to go up there, but plans fell through.
- Figure out what’s going down next fall as far as teaching goes. DONE!
- Figure out what’s going down for the rest of my life as far as everything goes. Uh…working on it?
- Hit at least 1000 walking miles. DONE!
- Thoroughly delve into Antognazza’s Leibniz: An Intellectual Biography. DONE! <3
- Reacquaint myself with my old linear algebra notes. I looked over them a few times and decided to take linear algebra again, so DONE sort of?
- Possibly visit Sean? FAIL. Too expensive. I’m sad.
- Spend a weekend doing absolutely nothing but Minecraft/drawing/sitting in my basement away from everyone. I don’t think I actually spent a whole weekend in the house. GOTTA WALK! So…FAIL?
- Research possible graduate schools (AGAIN, UGH). DONE! Canada’s on my radar again.
- A few other things that are private. ALL OF THESE WERE FAIL
Maybe it wasn’t as productive as I thought. But I did get Phase I of a big project done (which is something I’ve wanted to do for a long time) and am currently on Phase II, so that’s kind of good.
Alright. So.
I very soon need to make a decision as to what’s going on with my life next. I’d really love to continue teaching here, but since I’m turning 26 next February and have to make the big switch to my own insurance rather than hanging on my parents’, I need to get a job that allows me to do so.
So here’s what’s what:
Math degree is scheduled for completion in Spring 2014. What shall I do after that?
Well, I’m going to schedule a meeting with Dr. Williams soon and ask him if there’s any chance that my current position could turn into something full time (like…being in charge of intro stats perhaps?). If that’s possible, then I’ll just stay here and, in my free time (what’s left of it, at least), continue to take classes.
If not, I pretty much have to go back to grad school somewhere. Not around here—neither UI nor WSU offer a PhD in statistics (yes, seriously. WTF?). But there are a few schools I’m interested in.
So I’m either going to be here forever or I’m leaving YET AGAIN!
Hopefully I’ll know soon. I’m really not too keen on packing all my crap up again, but what’re you gonna do. Life’s weird.
Okay, sorry. Just wanted to give y’all an update as to what’s going on in Claudia Land academic-wise.
(Like it matters.)
Summer Goals:
- Actually study for the GRE/GRE math subject test
- Rock calculus
- Rock summer teaching
- Go back up to Vancouver and walk the hell out of that city
- Figure out what’s going down next fall as far as teaching goes
- Figure out what’s going down for the rest of my life as far as everything goes
- Hit at least 1000 walking miles
- Thoroughly delve into Antognazza’s Leibniz: An Intellectual Biography
- Reacquaint myself with my old linear algebra notes
- Possibly visit Sean?
- Spend a weekend doing absolutely nothing but Minecraft/drawing/sitting in my basement away from everyone (though I kind of do that last one on most days anyway)
- Research possible graduate schools (AGAIN, UGH)
- A few other things that are private
UpDownUpDownUpDownUp
Freaking crap, man.
This semester’s been a rollercoaster. And not a fun one.
I’ve hit this impenetrable wall of depression that I haven’t experienced since high school. Vancouver depression was really “pity me and my horrible life” self-induced sadness. This is like “even if I won a Nobel Prize I’d still want to crawl in a hole and die” sadness.
Blah.
Anyway, for some more school-related blathering:
The UI math department offers a special MAT degree, which is a “Master of Arts in Teaching Mathematics” degree. From what I gather, it’s a non-thesis MA track with an emphasis in (surprise!) teaching math.
So currently I have no idea where this math degree will get me other than flailing about even more stuff. But if it ends up going the way statistics went for me, I’ll likely want to teach it.
The MAT degree specifically states that it “only” prepares for teaching at some community colleges. I would be 100% okay with that (community colleges need teachers, too!). I can teach stats as I am, but I don’t think anyone would let me teach math with my current background, so I’d pretty much have to get some sort of advance degree to do so.
The only issue is this: right now I’m on the “statistics” track of the math degrees. I would guess I’d need to move to the “general” track to best prepare for graduate math insanity. That would mean like 5 more semesters rather than 2—which would be totally fine, I love school—but I don’t know about the money issue.
What would be real awesome is if I were to become a permanent lecturer in the stats department. I found out yesterday that I will be teaching in the summer and will most likely be teaching again in the fall (maybe two sections!), but I don’t know how long the demand for a supplemental lecturer will last.
So I guess I just need to stop blabbing about it and go inquire about the MAT. Couldn’t hurt, right?
RESOLVE
It’s time for the annual “did I do what I said I’d do at the beginning of the year?” rundown. Get ready for failure!
Last year’s:
SORT OF ACCOMPLISHED: Fix the “issues.” They’re “fixed” insofar as they’re not disrupting my life as much as they were last year. They’re still there, but being busy really, really helps with keeping them at bay.
ACCOMPLISHED: Get a job. Not only did I get a job, I got the best damn job possible for my situation right now. I now know that teaching stats is pretty much what I want to do.
ACCOMPLISHED: Return to acquiring knowledge in a formal setting. Not only did I return to school, but I’m able to take classes while working my awesome job! I really couldn’t ask for more here.
FAILED: Start and maintain a stats blog. I started and maintained a stats class, can I substitute that?
ACCOMPLISHED: Improve with R. All my stupid data analyses have paid off! I’ve also gotten substantially better with SAS thanks to the class I took.
FAILED: Go without dairy for a week. I don’t know why I keep this on as a New Year’s resolution. I love cheese.
FAILED: Go without electricity for a week. See above, but replace “cheese” with “internet.”
MOST LIKELY FAILED: Walk 2,500 miles. I have no damn idea how far I walked this year. Job + school + other job really got in the way of things, but I still booked it around Moscow quite a bit.
ACCOMPLISHED: Continue my 365 Days of Music project. Woo! Three years down!
ACCOMPLISHED: Blog daily. You knew this one’d keep, admit it.
ACCOMPLISHED: Win NaNoWriMo 2012. Not the best story in the world, but not nearly as bad as last year’s.
ACCOMPLISHED: Complete the 5,000 question survey. Finally! Bet you’re all glad to see that one gone, eh?
And this year’s:
- Blog daily.
- Win NaNoWriMo 2013
- Continue my 365 Days of Music project
- Draw at least two new thingies a month.
- Do something with my writing (I’m extending this past Prime because there are a few non-fic doohickeys I’ve got)
- Study for the GRE this time before I take the damn thing (old scores are defunct now)
- Get applyin’ for grad schools again (while simultaneously trying not to have a panic attack)
- Learn as much as possible.
- Revamp and start over with my book list.
- Uh…try not to die? Haha. I don’t have many 2013 resolutions.
So close I can taste it
It’s going to be very difficult for me to leave school again when it becomes time to do so. I know I’ve mentioned this on here before, but in “Ideal Claudia World of Ultimate Happiness”, I would somehow find a way to continue to go to school for the rest of my life. Also, in this world, I’d keep on working my current job, because HOLY CRAP I LOVE IT SO. This was actually the most fantastic semester ever because not only did I get to take a bunch of cool classes, but I also got to teach at the same time.
You know, now that I think about it, even though it’d be a total longshot and would probably never work, I should propose it to the President of the U of I. “I will complete every undergraduate degree you offer if I can keep working as a lecturer to pay for it.” I’ve always said I’ve wanted to do that and then write a book about the experience. That’d actually be pretty good publicity for the University, assuming it was actually a good book (longshot #2). And how cool would it be to study a University by completing every major it has to offer?
I don’t care how outlandish and stupid that idea sounds—it sounds cool to me. And I know I’d run into arguments that would go along the lines of, “well, if you’re actually serious about learning stuff, you don’t necessarily have to stay in school; you can learn things outside of the classroom blah blah blah blah blah.”
Yes, I’m aware of that. Two counters:
1) quite a few of the things offered at a Univeristy are things that, on my own, I probably wouldn’t have either the resources to learn or even just the ability to learn in an efficient manner. Take a foreign language, for example. I’m not too confident about my bilingual ability (assuming I would acquire some) and thus would probably do best in a classroom-type setting. Learning about something else in which I have no background would fall under this category, too.
2) I’m actually one of those people who learns best in a classroom-type setting. I suppose I’m lucky in a way; ever since I entered school I’ve been in an environment that naturally works for me when it comes to actually learning material.
But anyway.
A girl can dream, right?
Haha, sorry, this has been on my mind all semester.
Don’t fear the future
So I met with my advisor today. After explaining that the reason I didn’t take half the classes I’d told him I’d take this semester was because I’ve got the best job EVER, he confirmed that my classes for next semester were good choices.
We also talked about what the heck I’m going to do for the next couple of years. While I’d like to get an actual factual math degree, we both agreed that the more practical (and equally awesome) plan should be for me to fill in my missing math knowledge (the calculus series, the two mathematical statistics classes) and then apply for a stats PhD somewhere. Unfortunately (fortunately? I don’t even know anymore), said PhD, if it were to occur, would not occur anywhere around here, ‘cause neither U of I nor WSU offers a PhD in statistics.
Of course, I’m going to try for the best programs in the country, which I might actually have a shot at considering my old (and TERRIBLE) GRE scores are going to be invalid by next October so I’ll have to retake that (after studying this time, of course).
BUT, I think I’ll have to be here two years, and in that time I think I can actually get a BS in math ANYWAY, so how cool? And I’m glad for the two years, anyway. I’m so sick of moving.
I’m excited. Time to look up schools!
It’s that wonderous time of the year of hypothetical semester schedules!
I’ve forgotten the joys of next-semester’s-schedule planning. Yayayayayay.
M/W/F:
MATH 175: Calculus II
PHYS 211: Engineering Physics I
CS 120: Computer Science I
STAT 516: Applied Regression Modeling
[Teaching STAT 251: Statistical Methods]
T:
CS 120: Computer Science I Lab
MUSA 321: Concert Band
H:
PHYS 211L: Engineering Physics I Lab
MUSA 321: Concert Band
It’ll be weird teaching 3 days a week. But I can’t WAIT.
News! Possibly. Maybe. Stay tuned.
GUYS something big may be happening next week. I got a phone call this morning and it might change the rest of the semester.
We’ll see.
I’m just too excited not to mention it, but I’m not going to say anything specific about it so’s not to jinx it.
Vroom.
Mind the Gap Year
BIG NEWS, READERS!
Actually, not really. Assuming all 11 of you subscribers read this regularly, maybe two of you will actually give a crap about this.
But whatever. It’s big news to me.
(this is a repeat for those of you on Facebook, so go ahead and skip if you want)
I’ve saved up a bunch of money working down here at PCC. I’ve decided to take that money and use it to go back to the University of Idaho for (at least) a year.
Why? Multiple reasons.
Reason one: the job market blows heavy metal balls chunks now. Sure, companies are hiring statisticians, but the positions open are all “Senior Statistician” or “Veteran Analyst” or “900-Year-Old Data Wizard”, meaning you need 10+ years of experience, a PhD, or both.
Reason two: I still feel like my math knowledge is insufficient for the level of statistics understanding that I’d like. I never took the actual factual calculus series (despite taking like twenty calc classes) and I feel like I really do need that plus the subsequent Mathematical Statistics course to really understand what the hell I’m doing. If I can crank out the calc classes and some other higher level math, I’d like to try to apply to a PhD program in stats.
Reason three: school is my hot sweet lover. We need each other. In bed.
Reason four: the “why don’t you just go to U of A/PCC?” defense. U of A is super expensive, and being a “transfer” student now (non-traditional, WOO!), I would have had to apply back in like January to have gotten any chance of getting in. And PCC is way cheap, but there aren’t that many classes at the level I’m at since it’s a community college and not a university. Plus, I have to go through a few extra steps to verify that my Canadian degree is in fact legit, and I’m lazy, so that’s a deterrent right there.
Itty bitty reason five: I miss having friends. Hopefully I’ll see you sillies up there as well as make some new friends in band. Yes, I’m taking band.
So WOO! I leave in a few weeks. Gotta pack and all that. Hoorah. So I guess this past year’s been my (super delayed) “gap year.”
Also, screw sleep.
I think Scooby Doo is in my pants
So.
Due to multiple reasons (some health-related, some family-related, some money-related), I have been without a solid plan for my near/intermediate future for approximately 7 months now. Being without said plan has been slowly destroying my will to live.
So I’m sick of it.
But now I’m conflicted over what to do. There aren’t any stats jobs in Tucson or in the surrounding area. In fact, around the country there are very few entry-level stats jobs. Even for freaking PhD students…everyone’s looking for statisticians with like 10+ years of experience (not exaggerating).
So here’s how I see it: I’m the type of person who either needs to be in a field where I can obsess over doing stuff I love (read: statistics), or I need to be acquiring more knowledge in some sort of full-time or at least mostly-full-time type of environment.
So if a job isn’t happening at the moment, what’s left?
SCHOOL!
I guess I was never really conflicted about that. I pretty much figured I’d return to school someday because that’s just the type of person I am. So what’s the conflict?
Do I…
A) Stay down here and go to school at my place of employment, Pima Community College (it’s too late to register for the University of Arizona, I don’t have THAT much money, and I’m still technically an out-of-state resident so $$$$$$$$!),
or…
B) Go back to the black hole that is Moscow and play out my dream schedule for fall (I’m already enrolled and set for tuition payments).
Pros for Option A
- Not having to move again
- Still in the same city as my mom, which is a big deal to both of us
- Cheap as hell; totally tuition-free if I keep working there
- SCHOOL!
Cons for Option A
- Tucson is…blah.
- PCC doesn’t have a lot of *advanced* classes, which is where I am in a lot of stuff pertaining to my education (except calc…I’d like to review basic calc until it makes perfect sense in my head).
- If I were to transfer to UA, again, $$$$$$$$$!
- I’d probably have to keep my current job. It’s an okay job, but it’s not ideal.
Pros for Option B
- Dream schedule! Seriously. It’s awesome.
- My dad’s like “rent-free living in the basement if you take care of the house while I’m gone” (which would be for approximately 33% of the year, maybe a little more now). I also think he’s lonely.
- MY KITTY CAT IS THERE OMFG I MISS HER
- It’s the U of I, meaning that I know that damn school inside and out and can get exactly what I want out of it
Cons for Option B
- Moscow is…Moscow.
- I’d have to live with my dad. I shouldn’t put this as a con because he’s offering free rent (shut up, selfish brain, shut up!), but if you’ve ever lived with my dad, you’d totally understand this point.
- Moving. AGAIN.
- Being away from my mom. We’re close, shut up.
So yeah. I have no idea what I’ll do. Plus, if I go back, I’ll have to face all the “I thought you were in grad school?” questions, to which I’ll have to answer “I was, and I’m done, but…” And we all know how judgmental people are.
BLAHSEKLDHFSDLFSWEERLWchicken.
All About the Bordens
WOO, I got my Canadian tax return money!
Spend, save, or 50/50?
Spend:
– I need another Hume shirt. I use the one I have now for exercising.
– The Brave Little Toaster: Book Form!
– Perchance some Pokemon cards? I miss my Pokemon cards.
– The cutest thing eeeeeever.
– I was a fool and sold back my textbook from my nonparametric stats class way back when. So, the textbook from my nonparametric stats class.
(side note: why is Amazon recommending wedding rings to me? I don’t even have a boyfriend. I don’t even have a guy who I would consider for a possible future boyfriend. I don’t even have any friends.*)
Save:
– I might be going back to UI for MOAR DEGREEZ. Saving for that is quite important.
– As would be saving for moving anywhere across the country for a stats job.
I might just leave it all in my Canadian bank account. Emergency Canuck funds and whatnot. Plus it makes me feel like some ridiculously rich fool holding bank accounts in two countries.
*down here in Arizona, at least.
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