Hello from Grad School Decision Hell-o-Rama '07. The Day You Must Inform People What You Are Doing coincidentally falls on April 15th, the same day as taxes. April, between that and the cold rain, you truly are the cruellest month. I would also like to blow up Oregon for not having one single in-state MLS option - so that's the trade-off for beautiful scenery/good food and my favorite city! You have to move away and spend lots of money if you want to play with books. Also, I would like to blow up anyone (and there are many out there) who "like to read" and thus think they would be a good future librarian. The two things I want to do most in the world seem to attract people who think it would be the easiest thing in the world: children's book writing and librarianship. I am also white and a woman, which makes me Ultra Typical in every way. It appears it may be difficult to stand out from the crowd in the whole funding race without a distinguishing feature, let alone without already having another degree. So here I am. I got in to some good schools. Hurrah for me. But I don't want to mortgage my whole future for the mere chance of getting a half-decent job one day. Leaving school with $60,000 in loans and no fast-track to awesomeness in both job and salary seems like more of a gamble than I can see fit to ante up. There are things I want to do: live overseas, have kids, help set up libraries in Africa, take a year off to write - and it occurs to me this would be difficult under the burden of too many more loans. Student loans are so insidious because they aren't a lien or a mortgage on a piece of property - they're a lien on your life.
So that's where I am mentally. Hey, how are you? May we all breathe easier after the 15th.