Knowing

I am so sick of filling out applications. It was enough to fill out all the Ph.D. program applications a couple of months ago, but there are also graduate assistantship applications to fill out. The department I have been accepted to is automatically considering me for assistantships and fellowships within the department. I feel like I will probably get an assistantship of some sort, considering the fact that their website says they fund "most" of their graduate students and I have never heard of a Ph.D. candidate that isn't receiving at least some funding from his or her university. The thing is, I won't know whether or not I'm receiving money from the department until mid-April. Which helps A LOT if I have to make a decision between two programs, by the way. If I happen to get another offer, how am I going to decide which is better if this school isn't going to give me financial aid information until AFTER the deadline for accepting their offer of admission? It's so screwed up. Also screwed up is the fact that I still haven't heard from the last three schools. They're all getting e-mailed this weekend so I can get an update on my status. The thing is, it's not a huge deal. I think the fact that one school accepted me immediately in February and the others are taking their sweet time making a decision should be a sign, and I think I'll be accepting this first offer anyway unless another school comes back with an amazing financial package. The head of my department here said that the school that has already accepted me is definitely my best option, all things being equal. It's a good school, a very well-known school that I'd be proud to earn a Ph.D. from (I still can't believe that might actually happen, by the way). So yeah. Unless this first school is planning to offer me nothing and another school is planning to offer me a full ride, I think that maybe, possibly, my decision has already been made. Still, I'm just ready to be absolutely positive, you know?
Anyway, assistantship applications. Because I won't know whether I'm getting an assistantship through the theatre department for a few more weeks, I decided to apply for other graduate assistantships on the campus. These are jobs at the on-campus arts center, and they're open to graduate students from any department. They sound like pretty awesome jobs, actually. They're all jobs that I'm perfectly qualified for, that would look great on my resume and would advance my career, and if I'm not going to get a teaching position then they're equally good options. But the applications are due tomorrow, and that annoys me. I could have just spent two hours filling out job applications for no reason at all whatsoever, if the theatre department is already planning to offer me an assistantship. Ugh. There should be a more organized way to deal with this whole application/admission/funding process. Seriously.

Other than filling out more applications, I've been doing a lot of nothing. I've been working at the restaurant and trying my best not to break hearts. One of the guys I work with has had a not-so-secret crush on me since December, and yesterday he told me, "I really wish you weren't leaving so soon, because I really want to date you." I feel bad about the whole thing, because he genuinely likes me but I can't get excited about him. He's a nice guy, but I'm not the woman for him. He works in the kitchen and is perfectly content to do that for the rest of his life (I know this because I keep asking him what he wants to do with his life and apparently what he wants to do with his life is be a line cook at Applebees. Forever. And there's nothing wrong with that, it's just that I need someone with more ambition, or at least more creativity, than that. Sometimes I wish I didn't, but I do). He also supports his deadbeat mother and sister, and it bothers me that he lets people walk all over him like that. There's such a thing as family obligation, but that only goes so far, you know? And then there's the fact that he wants to be a virgin until marriage and doesn't drink, which isn't a problem at all except can you see me in a relationship with a virgin who doesn't drink ever at all whatsoever? Yeah, me neither. I'd corrupt him. Plus I'm not interested in teaching a guy how to do things in the bedroom. I have never gotten off on the teacher role. I do feel bad, though. Luckily he has accepted "I'm leaving soon so I'm on hiatus from dating" as enough of an explanation for why I won't go out with him. Sometimes being only two months from moving is a very good thing.

What else? I talked to my mom on the phone today and we had an interesting conversation. She dated the same guy during her senior year of high school and all through college, part of the college time long distance. So this guy was basically her Mike, only it was an even longer term thing. She ended up breaking up with him her senior year of college, and it was her idea to end the relationship, although obviously she felt a little bad about it. They lost touch after that, and she went on to date more guys and then she eventually met my dad a few years later and they fell in love and the rest is happy history. At her 30 year high school reunion back in 2004 she found out from mutual friends that her ex was now pretty badly brain damaged from a fall (that she later found out took place way back in 1998). A couple of weeks ago, she learned that he died. She ended up deciding to write a letter of condolence to his mother, even though she hadn't spoken to her since the break up all those years ago, and today she told me that his mother wrote her back, and one of the things she wrote was "If parents could choose their childrens' spouses, we would have chosen you for him." And Mom told me she cried. I would have, too, because how could you not? I guess that does make me wonder what his mother thought of her actual daughter-in-law, because she did have one, but that's beside the point. I just think it must be so weird for Mom to think about the whole thing. I can't imagine any of my exes not being here anymore. The weirdest thing, though, the most spooky thing, must be the validation that she definitely made the right choice all those years ago. I'm sure that even though it was her decision to leave the relationship, there must have been points in her life afterwards when she asked herself if that was the right choice. And to compare where she is now, happy and getting ready to go on vacation to Cancun with my father, with where she would be had she chosen to stay with her ex instead, must just be...I don't even know. A relief, surely, but really unsettling somehow, too, to think of how close she was to another life entirely. And I know that if they had stayed together it would have changed the course of events anyway, and maybe he wouldn't have gotten brain damaged and died because he wouldn't have been in the situation that caused his brain damage in the first place, and so on. But still. It just had me thinking this afternoon about how everything happens for a reason, and how you never can tell which way your path is going to curve next.

On that note, I'm going to continue the Crest Whitestrips experiment and then go to bed.