graduation, honors, clearance and pictures oh my!
You're going to have to click on the cut to see everything properly
So... ever since we turned in our medical packets about a week ago for the Peace Corps I've been checking on my status daily. I was starting to get concerned because we live in fredericksburg and all this stuff is sent to DC, so it should only have taken a day, if that to get there. They hadn't updated the toolkit either saying that they'd received it, so naturally Dean and I are worrying if it was too heavy, etc... I check my status today and I already have dental clearance! Dean doesn't have it yet, I guess because he has a lot more going on in his mouth than I do, but still, we're getting somewhere and it only took them a week!
Dean was also pretty proactive and called up our Peace Corps medical officer who said that the forms had been received today and that we should hear from them again in "a couple of weeks." It would be fabulous if we could get the whole clearance thing out of the way in the next month so that I can breath a little bit about wanting to travel this summer.
So... let's get a rundown of what is done for the peace corps and what is not done:
nominated-check
health clearance-not yet
dental-check
legal-check
I guess there are benefits to being in the system for over a year. I get the feeling that they want us out (in a good way :) I also have to say that I'm glad I had this whole time to work on the medical forms and get things taken care of with school. I would not have liked to try and schedule the eight million doctors' appointments necesary for medical while taking a full courseload AND volunteering to improve my case with placement.
Speaking of School....
As you all know, I'm a senior in college majoring in history. In order to graduate from Mary Washington College, you need to take three courses above the three hundred level. For me, that meant two seminars which required that I read about 200-250 pages per week and lead class discussion twice, in addition to doing research on the topic of my own paper, which was required to be about 20 pages long). The other class required is a senior thesis. The work is completely independent and you work on any topic that you like. The paper has to be a total of thirty pages without footnotes (of course, it does include footnotes, mine had about 90). So, this semester I had to write about 50 pages in the span of ten days, in addition to about 25 additional pages for mini projects leading up to these larger papers. Fun, I know. I picked gender and theft in Early Modern England and I found the following:
Women stole goods of greater value than men
women were more likely than men to steal clothes, money, and watches
no women stole horses
men stole coffee and tea, which on the face of it is odd because tea particularly was a feminine product.
Women who stole were more likely to go on rampant shopping sprees after they'd stolen something.
From this, I gathered that women were able to steal more than men because their jobs as servants and prostitutes put them in closer proximity to goods of value than men. A horse was worth about 5 pounds, but a watch would sell for 7 pounds. Women's consumption was also seen as a greater danger than men's, which is why the court summaries focused so heavily on their spending habits. Men were more likely than women to steal out of need.
Yeah, none of that might interest you, but I tried. I find outline form easier to read anyway. Every year, the best papers are selected for honors. And when I say the best papers, I mean the best handful of papers. So, there might be 200 people who write a thesis in a year, but only 5-10 are generally selected for honors. I have been honored with being selected for honors. I am really excited about this actually. And I'm really proud too. It's one thing to get honors because you have consistantly high grades (I got 'em), it's another thing entirely to be told that your work is head and shoulders above the rest by not only your thesis advisor, but also two other faculty members with expertise on the subject. It's not completely official yet, as I haven't gone through the "honors defense," but I've been privately assured that all the professors on the board find it to be honors quality. So yay. Hip Hip Hooray!
The best thing is that I don't think my GPA will end up as badly this semester as I feared that it would... which means Summa Cum Laude. Can I get another Hip Hip Hooray!
In honor of my honor (hehe, honor), Dean bought me the scent I've been wanting since I first smelled it in one of those magazine pullouts: Lancome's Hypnose . It's described as an oriental scent, and for me at least the strongest note is vanilla, although there's a spiciness right underneath it. It's fantastic and I love it.
I've made a few other "luxury purchases" lately as well. Never owning a bag worth more than ... $20? dollars, I splurged and got this bag from bananarepublic. It's HUGE and I can even fit my MacBook in it. That is love, no?
I'll be nice and put everything else under a cut, but you totally need to click.
Also, after going through my entire life without a damn wallet and losing roughly 3-4 student id cards, I bought a wallet that holds my life inside it. It, of course, also fits into my giant tote bag of wonder.
This is not to mention the pair of slippers that I got at DSW that I'm going to wear with this outfit when I present my thesis at the senior symposium, go to the history major banquet, and give my honors defense (except the pants are coming from anthropologie instead)
In addition to all this, I got my haircut and it looks fabulous. I mean, really fabulous. I can now wear it curly or straight with little effort on my part for either outcome. That, and the price was completely reasonable and came in well under thirty dollars including tip. The gold chain in the picture is also new from bananarepublic. It hits mid cleavage and gives a swanky flare to the most boring of t-shirts.
Lastly, after wondering what in the heck I was going to do about shampoo in the peace corps, I stumbled across solid shampoo made by a company called LUSH (they have them in Germany too--and you can order online). I ordered the Karma Komba shampoo with few expectations as well as this delicious smelling soap that smells like coconut and vanilla, yum. Let me just say that my hair has never been softer and more manageable in my life. I have bought salon products, but their results pale in comparison to the Karma Komba. The smell is better in the solid shampoo too. I just can't say enough how soft my hair is. It's pricey for shampoo, but if you want to treat yourself, it's definitely the way to go.
I think I've run out of steam, so I'm going to stop here for now.
So... ever since we turned in our medical packets about a week ago for the Peace Corps I've been checking on my status daily. I was starting to get concerned because we live in fredericksburg and all this stuff is sent to DC, so it should only have taken a day, if that to get there. They hadn't updated the toolkit either saying that they'd received it, so naturally Dean and I are worrying if it was too heavy, etc... I check my status today and I already have dental clearance! Dean doesn't have it yet, I guess because he has a lot more going on in his mouth than I do, but still, we're getting somewhere and it only took them a week!
Dean was also pretty proactive and called up our Peace Corps medical officer who said that the forms had been received today and that we should hear from them again in "a couple of weeks." It would be fabulous if we could get the whole clearance thing out of the way in the next month so that I can breath a little bit about wanting to travel this summer.
So... let's get a rundown of what is done for the peace corps and what is not done:
nominated-check
health clearance-not yet
dental-check
legal-check
I guess there are benefits to being in the system for over a year. I get the feeling that they want us out (in a good way :) I also have to say that I'm glad I had this whole time to work on the medical forms and get things taken care of with school. I would not have liked to try and schedule the eight million doctors' appointments necesary for medical while taking a full courseload AND volunteering to improve my case with placement.
Speaking of School....
As you all know, I'm a senior in college majoring in history. In order to graduate from Mary Washington College, you need to take three courses above the three hundred level. For me, that meant two seminars which required that I read about 200-250 pages per week and lead class discussion twice, in addition to doing research on the topic of my own paper, which was required to be about 20 pages long). The other class required is a senior thesis. The work is completely independent and you work on any topic that you like. The paper has to be a total of thirty pages without footnotes (of course, it does include footnotes, mine had about 90). So, this semester I had to write about 50 pages in the span of ten days, in addition to about 25 additional pages for mini projects leading up to these larger papers. Fun, I know. I picked gender and theft in Early Modern England and I found the following:
Women stole goods of greater value than men
women were more likely than men to steal clothes, money, and watches
no women stole horses
men stole coffee and tea, which on the face of it is odd because tea particularly was a feminine product.
Women who stole were more likely to go on rampant shopping sprees after they'd stolen something.
From this, I gathered that women were able to steal more than men because their jobs as servants and prostitutes put them in closer proximity to goods of value than men. A horse was worth about 5 pounds, but a watch would sell for 7 pounds. Women's consumption was also seen as a greater danger than men's, which is why the court summaries focused so heavily on their spending habits. Men were more likely than women to steal out of need.
Yeah, none of that might interest you, but I tried. I find outline form easier to read anyway. Every year, the best papers are selected for honors. And when I say the best papers, I mean the best handful of papers. So, there might be 200 people who write a thesis in a year, but only 5-10 are generally selected for honors. I have been honored with being selected for honors. I am really excited about this actually. And I'm really proud too. It's one thing to get honors because you have consistantly high grades (I got 'em), it's another thing entirely to be told that your work is head and shoulders above the rest by not only your thesis advisor, but also two other faculty members with expertise on the subject. It's not completely official yet, as I haven't gone through the "honors defense," but I've been privately assured that all the professors on the board find it to be honors quality. So yay. Hip Hip Hooray!
The best thing is that I don't think my GPA will end up as badly this semester as I feared that it would... which means Summa Cum Laude. Can I get another Hip Hip Hooray!
In honor of my honor (hehe, honor), Dean bought me the scent I've been wanting since I first smelled it in one of those magazine pullouts: Lancome's Hypnose . It's described as an oriental scent, and for me at least the strongest note is vanilla, although there's a spiciness right underneath it. It's fantastic and I love it.
I've made a few other "luxury purchases" lately as well. Never owning a bag worth more than ... $20? dollars, I splurged and got this bag from bananarepublic. It's HUGE and I can even fit my MacBook in it. That is love, no?
I'll be nice and put everything else under a cut, but you totally need to click.
Also, after going through my entire life without a damn wallet and losing roughly 3-4 student id cards, I bought a wallet that holds my life inside it. It, of course, also fits into my giant tote bag of wonder.
This is not to mention the pair of slippers that I got at DSW that I'm going to wear with this outfit when I present my thesis at the senior symposium, go to the history major banquet, and give my honors defense (except the pants are coming from anthropologie instead)
In addition to all this, I got my haircut and it looks fabulous. I mean, really fabulous. I can now wear it curly or straight with little effort on my part for either outcome. That, and the price was completely reasonable and came in well under thirty dollars including tip. The gold chain in the picture is also new from bananarepublic. It hits mid cleavage and gives a swanky flare to the most boring of t-shirts.
Lastly, after wondering what in the heck I was going to do about shampoo in the peace corps, I stumbled across solid shampoo made by a company called LUSH (they have them in Germany too--and you can order online). I ordered the Karma Komba shampoo with few expectations as well as this delicious smelling soap that smells like coconut and vanilla, yum. Let me just say that my hair has never been softer and more manageable in my life. I have bought salon products, but their results pale in comparison to the Karma Komba. The smell is better in the solid shampoo too. I just can't say enough how soft my hair is. It's pricey for shampoo, but if you want to treat yourself, it's definitely the way to go.
I think I've run out of steam, so I'm going to stop here for now.