fear for the future

Aaron and I were talking about pet names last night. Earlier in our relationship, he had expressed the opinion that he prefers giving human names to animals over names like "fluffy" or "spot" or "carmel". His own dog is named Teddy, so it makes sense. But since we've been talking about one day getting a beagle, we had the great idea to name it Poppyseed. As in, Poppyseed Beagle. I cannot stop laughing. I really wanted Everything or Plain, but those don't sound as good when you call them across the yard.

The discussion went on from there - I asked about naming pets after abstract concepts, like Entropy or Destiny. Aaron said, no, we should name them something really COOL like....the four horsemen of the apocalypse! But we don't want to have four dogs, so...we thought of some alternatives.

• Fish. Even though I hate fish, it would be pretty sweet to have fish named Death, Pestilence, War, and Famine.
• Our future children. This spawned even funnier visions...
• All four kids are named after the four horsemen. Can you see it in their third grade classroom? The teacher says, Fa-meen-ay? "No, Ms. R, it's Famine, like when everybody starves."
• Only three kids are named after horsemen: These are my children, War, Pestilence, Death, and Joe.
• Three kids are named after horsemen, but the fourth is another funny joke "sign of the end times", such as: War, Death, Famine, and Activist Judges. I actually really like the name Activist Judges - I think it's the plurality of Judges, and Aaron likes the "v" sound in Activist. But, that would quickly become a dated joke, and people might think we don't like activist judges, which we do.

We were talking about this before bed and it was a long time before we could stop laughing and fall asleep. Aaron has a biblical name, so why not continue that tradition? Think of all the fun you could have in grocery stores, parks, parent teacher conferences - Death, come here right this minute! War, get off the slide and let the other children play, too. Ms. R, I feel Pestilence isn't being challenged enough and that's why she's out of control.

And imagine the great holiday cards:

• Peace and Happy Holidays from Aaron, Allison, War, Famine, Activist Judges, Pestilence, and Poppyseed Beagle.

A visit to a New York university

Or, the story of a prospective student's weekend. Just for posterity - the real dirt is written in my little black notebook. :)

Thursday I left Kris and Rebecca's Portland apartment at 6:30 AM PST and finally arrived, with a delayed flight, at LaGuardia at 8 PM EST. I arrived at the hostel at 9:30 PM, got a sandwich, and met Zain, a fellow prospective student. She and I hung out a lot over the weekend. That night was horribly loud in the hostel as our room was right by the front desk - I barely slept for a few hours. This was the story of the weekend, I'm afraid - but I drank lots of coffee and actually feel pretty good and awake, even at the end of it. The rest of the nights we were lucky enough to be able to move up two floors to a quieter room.

So, on the first day of events, my first official action was to meet a professor who works in US South and African American history. She seemed really nice and really interested in Celia. So, that was sweet. I then ate lunch and met the other 35ish prospective students. The whole weekend involved lots of explaining my undergrad and interests over and over again. That afternoon we listened to some interesting presentations on current research by the grad students. Basically, that got me excited to be back in school and researching again. After that I had a meeting with the profesosr who would be my advisor if I went to NYU. She was very nice, and I've heard only great things about her from her current graduate students. She's also on leave this semester, which leaves a good chance that she would be around for at least a few years while I would be there. So, that was positive.

After that, I met Zain and two other students who were chatting in the atrium of the history building. A professor came up and the five of us talked for an hour as he sold us on the program. He noted that the department was very collegial and interdisciplinary and interested in cutting edge work. He knew all of our names and disciplines, as he is on the admissions committee. Good memory.

Then there was a meet and greet dinner with profs in a hot and crowded room. My feet were killing me (haven't worn heels in six months and wore boots - bad choice) and none of "my" profs were there for long (have I mentioned they're either currently on leave or left? Right.) My mind was empty of all the questions I had before I left and so every time a prof not in my field asked a polite "so any questions for me?" I was left dumb and smiling awkwardly.

After that, I went back to the hostel and hung out with Zain, staying up late talking. The next morning we had to be at breakfast at 9:30, and then listen to the grad director talk about all the great things about the department and the usual schedule of PhD progress - first year, 6 courses. Second year, 4-5 courses and preparing for qualifying exams - 3 days of written tests on your major and minor fields (mine would likely be 19th century US and African American history, or perhaps women's history or early America.) Third year, a few more courses and writing a thesis prospectus, which you defend orally. Fourth year, research. Fifth, writing. Sixth, editing and job hunting. I'm sure it goes that smoothly.

The real dirt came out in the grad school students panel. There, I found out SECRETS THAT CANNOT BE REVEALED. Well, actually, mostly stuff about rents, health insurance, offices, and getting jobs.


This continued over beer at a pub (in between I had coffee with a college friend) where we talked about grad school long distance relationships and other things not specifically NYU. I think the best part about this trip was meeting the other prospectives and remembering how much I love history and history nerds, and meeting the grad students and realizing that I am at their level now and can hold my own, both in "coolness" and academicness, if you get what I mean. After having dinner with KKaren and Brian and her mom and friend, I went down to a little grad student get-together in Brooklyn with Zain. There I talked with another 19th century guy, for a while, and also to someone who is doing a joint JD-PHD in Atlantic world history, and he thought that route would be useful for my research...but to do it at Yale. Go figure. The hostess of this party had a beautiful apartment and an extremely cute beagle named Igby. I was summarily turned into a cooing mess over Igby, and was in awe at the hostess' spacious and well-appointed apartment until I found out her partner works in hedge funds. Go figure. Overall, got the drunken view on the SECRETS THAT CANNOT BE REVEALED. Took the subway back to the hostel with Zain and packed, staying up way too late since I had a taxi at 6 AM.

After getting three hourse of sleep, I finally made my way home even though I had a layover in the Twin Cities which got a foot of snow last night and Northwest threatened cancellations on flights to and from MSP. My original flight was delayed, but I used my Batgirl skills to get onto an earlier flight, along with a new friend, Natasha, who was also Portland-bound. Made it to MSP, ate breakfast for free because the service was horrible (go me/us for complaining and not paying on principle!), and then flew pretty uneventfully back to Portland. Aaron and I stopped for the most delicious Mexican food on the way home.

All in all, a great trip. I have more thoughts that I'm not comfortable posting on such an open forum, especially considering I haven't been admitted yet. I enjoyed the faculty and atmosphere at NYU - now the question is, can I enjoy NYC for 6 or 7 years?

Halfway

Hello! So, a slight change around here. I've now set this up as a team blog, so Aaron and I can each sign our own posts. Now I don't have to say "this is Allison!" - you can just look at the bottom. Though, based on past experience, I wouldn't expect to see the Aaron signature so often. He claims no one reads this, and therefore he doesn't want to write. Waa-waa, whatever. I'm sorry for not updating more often. I think in my grad school stupor, I started writing in my LJ again because I could make the posts more private. Now that the secrets are out - more on that later! - I'm back!

So, now that this has become my own private forum, I will say what I please. Then, he can write a post with his own opinions. Like it should be.

Work is going well, again, finally. It was hell for awhile there - all of my time was spent nervously checking emails and my voice mail, hoping for some response from a graduate school. I wasn't doing much work, and my business plan was taking forever to finish. Now, I'm almost done with my business plan, I've set up meetings to discuss the CLT more, and I'm ready to work more on grant writing. Aaron and I got to go to Housing Lobby day at the capitol and meet with various legislators to educate them about a new fund for housing that they should support. It was the highlight of February, I tell you!

We also went to a grant information workshop at the Spirit Mountain Casino (it was for their foundation, don't worry) and spent 2 hours in a crowded, uncomfortable room just to learn what we needed to know in the last 2 minutes. I wrote two grants this past month, too - one for some furniture for one of our affordable housing sites and one for general operating support. Small potatoes, but an accomplishment. I have also been researching how to educate lenders on the CLT model and realtors as well - apparently crazy rumors have been circulating amongst the real estate community about the CLT. I guess any publicity is good publicity...?

We also house/catsat for the crazy kitty Zoey while Aaron's supervisor was out of town. That was really, really fun. It was nice to play house a bit (even though I kind of scratched their floor with my bike trainer...oops) and imagine what life will be like when we can have our own house, with our own kitty, with a pan rack full of Calphalon pans, a basket full of fresh fruit and veggies, a fireplace, real furniture, and a garden. Sigh.

We also participated in the Worst Day of the Year Ride in Portland. It was cold and rainy, and just perfect. We got there at 7 in the morning to help set up bike racks - and if you notice the large start/finish line sign, we set that up! I got to climb on that large tower to hang things! It was reallllllly fun. We then got to ride around Portland with 1500 other cyclists and generally have a blast and eat every 3 miles, ending with a large chili feed at the end. It was a great day. Here's the photo gallery.

This weekend Aaron and I took a bus out to Mt. Bachelor and went cross country skiing - Aaron's first time! He did really well and we spent a great day in the mountains. It was nice to not have to drive and just chill on the bus, even if we were surrounded by high schoolers. We had thought about going downhill skiing, but after seeing how steep the actual mountain is we were glad to just glide along the relative flatness. I was a bit snobbish about skiing on waxless skis, but it worked out well because the conditions were so warm and soft. It would have been a Klister day. And it was for the high school state meet that was going on while we were there - talk about nostalgia for me. Some of my absolute best memories are from my high school ski team.

And now for the big news. I've been accepted in to four, yes, four graduate schools at this point. I'm still waiting on the other three - Harvard, Chicago, and Penn. People have started hearing from Harvard, so I don't think I got in there. But oh well. Technically, I haven't been accepted to NYU yet, but they are paying for me to fly out there so it's as good as an acceptance I think.

The big four are:
Berkeley
NYU
Duke
Yale.

Yes, I got into Yale, and I can hardly believe it. Yale is the number one history program in the nation (yes, yes I know I shouldn't go there just for that - I should look at faculty and fit and blah blah blah). Talk about a nice ego stroke after months of hell. I'm going to be wooed at NYU this weekend and then at Duke and Yale the next. Happy hours, receptions, meetings, panels...it's going to be a busy two weeks. I only worked two days this week and will work three the next, then three the week after. I used up all my "vacation", but I don't think my boss cares since it's not like I'm actually going on vacation. I'll be able to take more time off later...just don't tell Americorps.

I've gotten nice emails from professors at all of these places - I need to email them back today as I'm heading to the airport after work. Flying from Oregon to the east coast is not fun. I'm taking four days just to travel for the six days I'll actually be looking at schools. Crazy. At least I don't have to pay for it.

I should probably go book my ticket back from Connecticut and email these professors back. I feel like I'm living in a dream world - I got into my top three schools, I'm living with the person of my dreams in a state where I can ski and hike and bike to my hearts content, and I'm working to end poverty in a job that's fulfilling, if a little boring at times. Like I need more stress anyhow! I promise to write in this more often and keep everyone updated on my school visits. It will be a good reflection.