Candidate #0000 - Post 15
49 days until graduation.
Leaving for ACPA: TODAY!!!
Music I’m blasting (let’s hope none of my residents will call and complain):
Dawson’s Creek Soundtrack
Mood:
tired, anxious, excited, nervous, exhausted, thrilled, apprehensive
It’s 1:30 a.m. What am I still doing up?
One of my friends is picking us (another one of my friends, who is coming to ACPA with me and will be rooming with me) up at 8:30 a.m. to drive me to the airport. Our flights leaves at 10:40 a.m. We’ll get there around 1 p.m., which will give us enough time to settle into the hotel before going to registration and then the Candidate Orientation and getting ready for tomorrow.
My bags are half packed. I have two folders with crazy amounts of information about every institution that I’m interviewing with (which is way too many…haha). I have glanced over the information and made little summary sheets for me, but there’s still a lot more reading/research I need to do. When? Who knows!
Today was kind of a day from hell (excuse my language). I had only a few hours of sleep (because of doing research the night before). I spent the morning trying to deal with an issue with compensation for my student staff, which has been an ongoing concern since the fall semester (VERY VERY long story…let’s keep our fingers crossed that it’s just a miscommunication because otherwise 2/3rds of my staff may quit next week). We had our Complex Staff Meeting. Then lunch. A One-on-One with my supervisor followed by a meeting with my complex manager to discuss my draft of a new rental handbook for my area. At the same time, I was trying to work out some issues in regards to a program that is supposed to happen on Saturday and lots of things have been going wrong. The whole time, I was thinking about a concern, which a paraprofessional staff member has shared with me, and trying to figure out what I could do to help the student. Potential residents kept calling inquiring about vacant apartments and wanting to set up meetings with me and not understanding that I was not available from Friday through Wednesday. I had a two-page To-Do-List of things that needed to happen before I could leave that I was slowly trying to work through. And then class in the evening, while I was still trying to work through some of the problems mentioned above.
But then things got A LOT better. My colleagues gave me a Good Luck card…well, I’m not supposed to know yet what it is. They told me I can’t look at it until ACPA. And I’ve been good…I put it in my bag and haven’t read it yet. I will some time Saturday afternoon, I think. That was just such a cute gesture! Oh, I love them. And some of us went to dinner after class and it was so nice. Now, that graduation is coming closer and closer, I’m starting to think more and more about how much I’ll miss everyone. The other graduate students! The staff! My students (One of them just told me that she is going to Colorado for an internship next semester and she won’t be going home for Thanksgiving…so if I end up somewhere on the West coast and since I also won’t be going home for Thanksgiving, we could totally meet up somewhere. How much fun would that be?)
So I should really get back to packing. Most of my clothes are still on my bed instead of my suitcase. But I have a feeling I’ll be too much in an emotional turmoil tonight to get much sleep anyway. I get really nervous/anxious/excited before any big event in my life. I remember the night before I came to the US as an international student during high school – I was 16 – I didn’t sleep that night at all. I was reading a book to try and calm my nerves but most of the night, I lay awake and wondered what it’d be like. Then, the night before I left for college – now 18 – all I kept thinking about was what if something goes wrong. My parents won’t be there. Nobody I know will be there. What if my English isn’t good enough and nobody will understand what I’m trying to say? What if I get on the wrong bus and never make it to campus? What if I didn’t find the way from the bus station to the campus? After all, I’d never been there before – had no idea how far the campus was away from the bus station. And I wasn’t even sure where exactly I had to check in.
Okay, enough reminiscing about scary nights. Tonight shouldn’t be all that bad, but I still have this weird feeling in my stomach…butterflies. Maybe some vanilla ice cream will help. Vanilla ice cream makes you happy! (I truly believe that. It’s always worked for me.)
Well, wish me luck and I will let you know next week how ACPA went.
Leaving for ACPA: TODAY!!!
Music I’m blasting (let’s hope none of my residents will call and complain):
Dawson’s Creek Soundtrack
Mood:
tired, anxious, excited, nervous, exhausted, thrilled, apprehensive
It’s 1:30 a.m. What am I still doing up?
One of my friends is picking us (another one of my friends, who is coming to ACPA with me and will be rooming with me) up at 8:30 a.m. to drive me to the airport. Our flights leaves at 10:40 a.m. We’ll get there around 1 p.m., which will give us enough time to settle into the hotel before going to registration and then the Candidate Orientation and getting ready for tomorrow.
My bags are half packed. I have two folders with crazy amounts of information about every institution that I’m interviewing with (which is way too many…haha). I have glanced over the information and made little summary sheets for me, but there’s still a lot more reading/research I need to do. When? Who knows!
Today was kind of a day from hell (excuse my language). I had only a few hours of sleep (because of doing research the night before). I spent the morning trying to deal with an issue with compensation for my student staff, which has been an ongoing concern since the fall semester (VERY VERY long story…let’s keep our fingers crossed that it’s just a miscommunication because otherwise 2/3rds of my staff may quit next week). We had our Complex Staff Meeting. Then lunch. A One-on-One with my supervisor followed by a meeting with my complex manager to discuss my draft of a new rental handbook for my area. At the same time, I was trying to work out some issues in regards to a program that is supposed to happen on Saturday and lots of things have been going wrong. The whole time, I was thinking about a concern, which a paraprofessional staff member has shared with me, and trying to figure out what I could do to help the student. Potential residents kept calling inquiring about vacant apartments and wanting to set up meetings with me and not understanding that I was not available from Friday through Wednesday. I had a two-page To-Do-List of things that needed to happen before I could leave that I was slowly trying to work through. And then class in the evening, while I was still trying to work through some of the problems mentioned above.
But then things got A LOT better. My colleagues gave me a Good Luck card…well, I’m not supposed to know yet what it is. They told me I can’t look at it until ACPA. And I’ve been good…I put it in my bag and haven’t read it yet. I will some time Saturday afternoon, I think. That was just such a cute gesture! Oh, I love them. And some of us went to dinner after class and it was so nice. Now, that graduation is coming closer and closer, I’m starting to think more and more about how much I’ll miss everyone. The other graduate students! The staff! My students (One of them just told me that she is going to Colorado for an internship next semester and she won’t be going home for Thanksgiving…so if I end up somewhere on the West coast and since I also won’t be going home for Thanksgiving, we could totally meet up somewhere. How much fun would that be?)
So I should really get back to packing. Most of my clothes are still on my bed instead of my suitcase. But I have a feeling I’ll be too much in an emotional turmoil tonight to get much sleep anyway. I get really nervous/anxious/excited before any big event in my life. I remember the night before I came to the US as an international student during high school – I was 16 – I didn’t sleep that night at all. I was reading a book to try and calm my nerves but most of the night, I lay awake and wondered what it’d be like. Then, the night before I left for college – now 18 – all I kept thinking about was what if something goes wrong. My parents won’t be there. Nobody I know will be there. What if my English isn’t good enough and nobody will understand what I’m trying to say? What if I get on the wrong bus and never make it to campus? What if I didn’t find the way from the bus station to the campus? After all, I’d never been there before – had no idea how far the campus was away from the bus station. And I wasn’t even sure where exactly I had to check in.
Okay, enough reminiscing about scary nights. Tonight shouldn’t be all that bad, but I still have this weird feeling in my stomach…butterflies. Maybe some vanilla ice cream will help. Vanilla ice cream makes you happy! (I truly believe that. It’s always worked for me.)
Well, wish me luck and I will let you know next week how ACPA went.
posted by StudentAffairs.com at 1:53 AM
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