How the Summer is Going

I feel so far behind compared to the others in my cohort, but my former roommate assured me I'm further ahead than he was last summer. Trying to remember this crap is proving pretty hard. I'm almost done with my notecards and hope to be done with them by the end of today. Methods I can only study by reading and doing, instead of memorizing and then BSing with an amazing array of facts (if I can just recall them all!).

I've got 15 separate theories with stacks of 10-14 citations/notecards each to memorize for theory. Probably upwards of 30 on policy between 5-12 per stack! I've started to record myself reading them, so I can play that instead of the radio in the car!

I feel really blessed though...last week I got an e-mail from the Dean of Grad Studies that was sent out to all the grad students in the 65 separate grad programs we have here. It was a four hour notice of a meeting regarding the grim tidings from the budget that was passed by PA's higher ed folks in Harrisburg. I'm not kidding when I say the Dean said the words 'budget cuts' and the sky opened behind him in the window and we had a sudden downpour, thunder, and lightning. I had to laugh at nature helping with the melodrama of it all! Basically, the budget that had been planned along the lines of what they had hoped to negotiate the Governor down to...and then got cut 8% further.

We had been offered our assistantships before the budget was passed in its new and lower form. I didn't sleep well at all until I got the contract in the mail and saw I wasn't one of the victims of this second round of cuts. So a full assistantship! Tuition covered, 6k stipend...but with all the new and higher fees they've imposed that aren't covered, I'll have $700 or so from that stipend when it's over. I'm taking loans for the first time in my academic career...but it can't be helped!

For the first time in my life (besides converting to Catholicism), I'm doing something for me. That in itself is a blessing and a miracle.