  Edward at urlLink RedTed Keeps a Diary urlLink posted this about my reading post below. I think the tradition of haunting the bookstores began a few semesters after I graduated with my BA. Right about the time my withdrawal symptoms really began appearing. Since then, I've tried so many times to get into a good Ph.D. program that I honestly can't ask my advisors for letters of recommendation anymore. So to fulfill myself in some small way, I continue the readings and imagine the lectures and discussions all the way. Sick and sad, I know. As undergraduates, John and I visited Stanford and Berkeley intending to apply.
The Stanford admissions officer was really nice as she explained that I could apply to the anthropology program if I liked, but I didn't have much of a chance since my two internships didn't exactly count as life experience. She said to go out into the world and work a few years, find myself, then come back and apply. It was good advice, if only it had worked! After graduation, I moved here to Houston with John as he was hired fresh out by NASA (and we were married, so moving is sort of part of that package). I was hired by MFAH, where I'd interned a few years earlier, but instead of working in curatorial as I'd hoped, I worked in Development.
I was happy to have a job at all because we were pretty poor, and in retrospect, learning how to support an organization financially, especially through grants and individual requests, was pretty valuable considering my life's course. But I missed being in school so bad. I wanted to cram my brain full while it was still a sponge. I wanted to surround myself with thoughts about the world. This was around the time that I first got involved with the United Nations, and that was an addictive drug in itself! I thought the best way to get back to the UN was more education. I applied to Rice and was turned down. I think that was because I refused to take the GRE, and while they didn't require it, they frowned upon the incongruity. The next year, I applied to graduate programs in Boston to match John's application to MIT. We were both turned down. This time, we were told the economic downturn resulted in 300%+ increases in applicants, and those without jobs were prioritized over those with. Whatever. Last year was the best attempt on record, I did everything right for the first time.
I made the site visit in October at the BioSphere 2 Columbia campus. I hit it off so well with two professors, we really could have had a dinner party after the interviews because we enjoyed talking so much. I think it was amazing to have things go so well when I was seven months pregnant and the aesthetic opposite of the students in the classes I visited. I got all my letters of recommendation in early, I took the computer GRE, my statement of purpose focused on NGOs and public policy, perfectly aligned with the mission of the program. Just after applications for early admissions went in, however, I got a nice email saying Columbia's Earth Institute would be phasing out of the BioSphere program at the close of the year. The program to which I'd applied was killed! I was offered a spot on the waiting list for the equivalent program at the NY campus, but had to decline because John had no place in NYC, his research was so perfectly paralleled with the work done at BioSphere that he'd planned on taking a research sabbatical while I worked on my degree.
Plus, the program in NY couldn't hold a candle to the one at BioSphere, and frankly wasn't worth the family sacrifices and 50K we'd planned to spend on my tuition. In retrospect, all happened as it should have. The Space Shuttle accident would have prevented John's sabbatical anyway, and I'm glad to be writing and spending lots of time with my baby and toddler.
Here's the irony, though, the meetings we're holding in NY in a few weeks will be hosted at the Earth Institute. I'm certain we'll meet the very people who reviewed my application materials. I'm looking forward to that! So Rice applications are due at the end of the month and I again found myself perusing the process at the Anthropology pages. I just can't do this all again. I'm too beaten. Someday my lust for graduate degrees will probably drive me to apply again, until then, I'm on a good track to be published soon and that, along with raising my children, takes enough of my time. I did, however, convince my mom to apply! 
