Mundane Turbulence

I have nearly completed the process of applying to my first set of graduate schools.

Thank.

Fucking.

God!

This is what going to school full-time, working a full-time job, and applying to graduate school all at the same time look like:

You don’t wanna see what my desk looks like.

I can’t wait to focus on nothing but schoolwork and research!

A couple of bad cell phone photos from Chicago:

Chicago from the Hancock building.

I stumbled onto the anti-Proposition 8 rally during lunch…naturally, I had to join in!

I’m currently in Chicago at a conference for the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies. This is…a fairly depressing gathering, if you can believe that. Our lab has a couple posters here, though, so that’s pretty cool. Also cool that they have my name one them. We didn’t really find much in the one poster we did that incorporated the data we’ve collected, but I’m thinking that’s pretty okay. I mean, sometimes you’re just not gonna know what criteria will affect certain outcomes. Which is what happened with the particular items at which we looked, but sometimes these false steps help to point you in the right direction.

Oh noes…is Christian heading towards a topic of discusssion? Yes, my friends. Yes. (Funny…I think John McCain has ironically popularized the use of the words “my friends.” Your legacy is intact, senator!) I’ve been [trying to] work on my personal statement for grad school applications over the past couple weeks or so, and…it’s very difficult. My grades aren’t great, so if I’m going to get accepted to a school for next fall (which I’m pretty sure won’t happen this time around), I’m going to have to separate myself from other applicants based in largepart on my story, and my personality.

And my story can certainly be characterized by the absence of sure steps, and is full of wrong directions. I get the sense that it’s pretty hard for your average reasonably intelligent and capable individual to make a choice on what the heck to do with him-or-herself. In attempting to briefly put together ideas for a personal statement, I’ve listed some of the many things I’ve done since (and some during) high school: taught karate, assisted staff, studied art, guarded security, sold computers, repaired computers, counted money, managed generally, assisted research, and some things inbetween. There was a time when I strongly considered teaching karate (my dad – happy birthday, by the way – was sure that my master wanted me to take over for him one day), a time when I thought I would give a life in art a go (but instead I dropped out of art school), and a time when I thought I might just take the academic administration track (until I realized that, for me, it was soul-sucking). But, really, I was wrong about all of those!

So the case I have to make for myself must answer these: what about psychology is different about those other things I did that weren’t right for me? What about psychology compells me to commit? What about my desire to be a psychologist is worthy of investment (financially and otherwise)? 

These, of course, are very difficult questions! Recently, I’ve had the distinct displeasure of expressing my feelings and thoughts – things that in my mind cannot be challenged – but not being believed. I think about the creation of this personal statement, and wonder if that phenomenon (which is fairly terrifying) may be one that I re-experience. I believe myself when I think that I want to be a psychologist, but will others trust the path that I’ve followed, along with all its digressions? This…should be interesting.

And if they don’t, I’ll just have to try again.

I had a kinda strange experience this past Friday…

I was heading to my sister’s house for a Halloween party (decked out in possibly the easiest costume I have ever put together – I was a bandido, all sombrero and blanket-from-my-couch clad), walking down the Park Street red-line stop. From the other side of the track, this dude yelled out, “Harvard ’09!” Because, basically, I am in fact graduating from Harvard (granted, the Extension School) in the class of 2009, I thought I would turn around to see who was calling out. The guy was costume-less, and I didn’t know him from Adam, but as soon as I looked at him, he started pointing at me, yelling, “YOU! YOU!” Taken aback by this weirdness, I vaguely pointed back at him and then awkwardly kept on walking.

So. How the hell did this person know this information about me? Sure, they could be one of my thousands of secret blog readers, who had simply put together the facts from my posts…but wouldn’t that person have known my name? Who exactly would remember my graduation information, but not my name? And I doubt it was someone from one of my classes, because if they’d known that info, I would’ve recognized their faces…it’s not like we all share our dates with other students or something – and certainly at least not in any memorable fashion (I sure don’t remember doing it).

Or maybe Pointy was just randomly yelling graduate date information, assuming that someone would be graduating during that time and from that institution? Seems unlikely, but so does the rest of the situation. WHO IS THIS MYSTERY MAN, I ask!

Then again, he may have seen my awesome costume and just assumed that I’d be the kind of genius with an impending Harvard graduation. Totally likely. *ahem*