Grad School

/ Paul / Leave a comment

Last evening I went to the University of Virginia's information night about their Master's Programs. I was all nervous because I didn't know what to expect. I wasn't sure if I should dress up or not. I decided on my regular summer uniform; cargo shorts and a plaid shirt. The building is only about 10 minutes from where I live and that's with traffic. The bad part is it's right by a Metro station and the parking really sucks. I drove around for 10 minutes looking for parking because I didn't want to pay to park in the garage. I didn't think I'd be there long enough to waste $3.75 on parking. I was able to find a metered space on the street. I only had to feed it 75 cents. No problem. Walked over to the building, found the right room, signed in and sat down. I was the third person there. The others trickled in over the next 15 minutes or so. They had already placed all of the written materials on the tables so there wasn't anything to pick up. While waiting for it to begin, I read through the materials.

After reading the first flyer about what you would need to do to apply, I knew I would not be submitting an application. Maybe I'm too old or something but you have to jump through so many hoops. Take the GRE's (which scares me because I've always been awful at standardized tests), get two letters of recommendation, have every school that you've ever attended send them a transcript (I've taken numerous classes at other institutions but none towards a specific degree), fill out the three page application, write an essay, and submit several forms of identification showing that you actually do live in Virginia and you are a U.S. citizen. While I can easily do all these things, I'm just not sure I want to do all these things. Actually, it's the GRE's that scare me the most. I don't know that I have enough general knowledge in my brain to pass the test. I have no idea what is actually on the GRE's.

Besides my anxiety about jumping through all the hoops, there was one more piece of information I found out after the presentation had begun. The professor outlined the master's program I had selected (she used a prepared PowerPoint presentation that we could have just read for ourselves). Then she took questions. Luckily someone else asked the question I was going to ask. Turns out, if you don't have all your materials and application submitted before the first class begins, you may not be accepted to the program. Plus, this is a Cohort which means the classes are already scheduled and if you miss the first class it may not come around again for two years. And to top it off, the professor said they may not have another Cohort in two years when this one is finished, that they already have 15 students selected, and they are only accepting a total of 28. There were at least 30 people in the room with me. Many of whom I'm sure already had all the stuff in place to apply right now. Suffice it to say I was not too happy with the information I received last night. I was a bit discouraged.

I came home and read through the material some more and made a decision. IF another Cohort is offered in the fall of 2006, I will be ready to apply for that one. I will go ahead and take the GRE's. Once I pass those, I will work on the other paperwork to be submitted with the application. I will then have everything together and ready to submit for the next time around. Between now and then I plan to sign up for some of the courses that are part of the program. Once I'm in the program, I can transfer those classes in and won't have to take them again. Plus, I can use those classes for re-certification. So the plan right now IS to go to grad school but just not beginning this fall.

Odds and Ends

/ Paul / Leave a comment

In the fall of 1990, four years after graduating from college, I decided to begin a masters program at Virginia Tech. I began by taking one course a semester at their Northern Virginia Campus. By the fall of 1991 during my third class, America was at war with Iraq (the first gulf war) and the economy was in the toilet thanks to the first Bush. My school system had major cut backs and would no longer reimburse teachers for graduate school. Being a teacher and making very little money I could no longer afford to attend graduate school. So I quit.

Now that I am 40 and a little more comfortable money wise, I decided I should look into going back to graduate school and work towards a masters degree. This time I’ve decided to look into UVA (The University of Virginia). I received a course catalog in the mail and thumbed through it. I found that they have an information night about which degrees are offered and what is involved with going back to school. I have taken several college classes over the years and a few graduate level courses but I haven’t been in school on a regular basis for 13 years. I’m not sure I’m up for it. So I went ahead and signed up for the information night. It’s tonight. Since the budget cuts of the early 1990’s, my school system has reinstated reimbursement for graduate level courses but they will only pay for one class a year. At that rate it would take me 10 years probably to finish the degree. So I’ll probably have to pay for half of the classes along the way. I can afford that I think. What worries me is if I’m up for studying, doing research, writing papers, possibly taking the GREs. I will find out what I need to do this evening. I’m a little nervous about it but I need to find out.

Of course I watched Big Brother 5 last night. I can not tell you how much I can’t stand Jase. He is driving me crazy. He is so fuckin arrogant. He is the guy in high school that you hated because he was so popular, good looking, smart, and athletic. I was so hoping that he would not win the veto last night. But of course he did win it. He took himself off the block. Now he’s in for at least another week. Thursdays show should be really good. We’ll see if Scott gets kicked out of the house like I suspect. We will also get to see the reactions when the two twins enter the house together. There are other people in the house who have twins. I just wonder if they will reveal that all the sets of twins have been trading places without anyone knowing. They’ve only showed us one set doing this. And of course we’ll find out who the new Head of House (HOH) is. I hope it’s not Jase!

Last night for dinner I had this Stouffer’s frozen dinner. It’s the fish filet and macaroni and cheese dinner. It was actually pretty good. The down side was that it had 17 grams of fat and only 1 gram of fiber. Not good for someone who is trying to watch what they eat. I just can’t pass up some delicious mac and cheese. I love mac and cheese. I have it so rarely these days that I totally enjoyed it. The fish was pretty good. I covered it with ketchup. I put ketchup on lots of things. The bad part about eating the fish is that I’ve been burping that fish taste since I ate it last night. While I enjoyed eating it at the time, I don’t feel like tasting it every time I burp. Gross!

Last night I watched Bill Clinton talk about his book on Letterman. For a man who has been out of office for 4 years, he sure sounds like he is on top of what’s going on. He spoke with intelligence and candor with Dave. He’s so obviously still interested in politics. If he were able to run again, I’m sure he’d be elected. He spoke about how successful his book has become. But he also mentioned how successful Hillary’s book has become as well. I think he still has a way to go before he eclipses the total number of books worldwide that Hillary has sold. Impressive anyway. I have no intention of reading his book only because it’s too big. I can’t devote that much time to a book. Bill also spoke pretty highly of John Kerry. He had some suggestions for how he could improve his standing in the polls. He talked about the convention as well, saying that he didn’t think his and Hillary’s appearances took anything away from John Kerry’s spotlight. By the way, you can download the speeches from the convention at the iTunes music store. They are free. I downloaded them but haven’t listened to them yet. Anyway, I think Bill did a great job on Dave last night. It was interesting and a bit funny at times. If you are a Bill Clinton fan at all and you didn’t see it, you missed a good show.

Sights, Sounds, and Smells

/ Paul / Leave a comment

One of my goals while being off this summer was to work on losing 10 pounds. I’ve been walking on the treadmill pretty regularly but it just hasn’t been having the effect I’d expected. Last week I really counted carbs and doing that helped me shed a pound. I’m now down to 184. I’d like to be between 170 and 175. In time I’m sure.

Today I decided to walk outside instead of inside on the treadmill. Next to my high rise condo there is an apartment complex. There are sidewalks around the entire complex. On one side they go up a steep hill. I used to walk this route last summer and got a decent work out doing it. So today I got back to walking that route. I clipped on my iPod mini, selected Shania Twain’s UP, and began to walk. Before I even got to the apartment complex by way of the sidewalk, I was already hot and sweaty.

I decided to take my mind off the heat and the sweat and to be more aware of my surroundings. On the second trip around I began to notice different sights, and sounds. I noticed those little birds that seem to be everywhere eating some berries off a bush. I was almost able to walk on by without them getting scared and flying off. As I continued to walk I heard the digital music sounds blasting from the Good Humor ice cream truck. I saw several little kids running ahead of their parents to get to the truck. I wonder why they play Christmas carols in the summer time. I then saw all the pastel orange of an creamsicle in the hand of one child one minute and melting quickly on the asphalt in another.

Making the slight right turn through the parking lot, I saw a little red Honda Civic CRX. The memory of Shawn popped into my head. He used to drive a car just like that. I can remember the sound it made when he put it in gear and the way it jerked forward when he let out the clutch. As I began the climb up the steep part of the sidewalk, I saw a crab apple tree. Many of the crab apples had fallen to the ground and some had be stepped on on the sidewalk. You could smell a slight hint of apple. But it wasn’t quite apple. Under the tree I could see two squirrels nibbling on the fallen crab apples. They hesitated as I walked by but then continued nibbling. At the top of the hill I could look across the complex and see my high rise. I quickly counted the floors to find my balcony. I could see the white plastic chairs and the pots of marigolds on my balcony. The condo below mine has nothing on it’s balcony. I wonder if anyone lives there. As I descended the hill I could feel the muscles in my thighs working overtime. A maintenance vehicle drove by as I went down the hill. I could smell the exhaust from it’s tail pipe. At the bottom of the hill I checked both ways and crossed the street.

I was back to the beginning. I checked my pedometer and I had only walked 6/10 of a mile. I would need to walk another 4 or 5 laps to make it worth it. I continued on. During the second lap most of the things I had seen, heard, and smelled before were gone. No little birds, children, ice cream truck, the little red Honda Civic CRX, the squirrels, and the maintenance vehicle. However, the completely melted creamsicle was there. Now just a mixture of orange and white covering the stick. I didn’t see, hear, or smell anything new on the second or third time around. I had worked my way through almost all of Shania’s songs. The sky was grey at this point and there was a light breeze. Surely I can make it around a fourth time before it rains. But half way through the fourth lap the rain began to fall. This of course introduced new things to see, smell, and hear. It wasn’t a hard downpour so I decided to finish the fourth lap and enjoy feeling the cold rain hit my hot skin. As more rain fell, the asphalt began to steam. The little white clouds rose off the black surface. The air was very heavy at this point. I could smell the combination of the wet rain hitting the hot pavement. You know the smell. It’s hard to describe. It’s that wet asphalt smell. I saw other people running to get indoors. I heard children laughing and screaming as they ran inside as well. I made it back to my building before becoming completely drenched. My hair was wet from both sweat and rain. It felt good. Entering my air conditioned building I felt the cool air begin to dry my skin. It’s amazing what you can see, hear, and smell if you just take the time to notice it. I’ll try to complete five laps tomorrow. I wonder what I’ll notice.

Stats and Searches

/ Paul / Leave a comment

July was a very busy month for my blog. I had the highest amount of hits since I started my blog in November 2003. I've only had this web hosting service since February so I don't have stats before that. I'm not sure why July was so busy. It might have to do with joining the Gay Bloggers tribe. If they are anything like me, they check out all the blogs that have been listed to see if it's an interesting blog to continue to read. I did that a lot myself. My blog list is up to 78. I've got to stop adding them to my book mark list. Or it could have to do with the fact that I was constantly checking my blog to see if any comments had been left and how many hits I was getting. Last week I decided to turn on the e-mail notification on Haloscan to send me an e-mail when I comment was left. Now I don't check my own blog as much. I leave it up to Haloscan to inform me when I have a comment. I think I've had more comments this month too. I think most bloggers like getting comments and increasing the number of hits to their sites. As far as the comments are concerned they have been very positive. Sorry if I don't always e-mail you back when you leave a comment. I can't decide which comments to respond to and which to just leave as they are. In any case, I appreciate all the comments.

One interesting feature of my stats program from my server is they list all the search strings that were used to find my site. Or better yet, they list the search strings that are associated with my site. I'm sure the people who typed in the search strings weren't looking for my site exactly, but my site came up on their list when they typed in their search. Here are some of the more interesting search strings associated with my site (in no particular order). I have no idea how some of them got included.

1. 40th birthday invites
2. my imovies
3. rav4 behind the car remote doesn't work
4. chilly billy lives in the fridge
5. dentist asleep gas
6. ekg gay doctor underwear gas
7. friends with ex-boyfriends
8. grenoble ~sex blog
9. i like white or i love white white guys or white men

I was also a little surprised when I saw some specific blog names showing up on the search strings. I know I check out these sites everyday but I'm not sure that I write about them specifically enough for them to show up in a search string. The blogs that showed up were:

1. archerr blog (of course)
2. bjland
3. harikuyo
4. jessemcpherson

It's all very intesting. Dorky probably but interesting.