Day Five Hundred & Twenty-two

Day Five Hundred & Twenty-two
Wednesday, November 9th 2011

I can't believe the GRE test date is in only ten days. I have been studying between a half hour to an hour everyday since the start of November, focusing mainly on mathematical theory. After a while, my brain starts hurting, & I haven't even gotten to actually doing practice questions yet! Will the workload ever cease? In a mere week I will go to UB (if the Peace Corps staff doesn't procrastinate their sweet time away to the detriment of my stress levels). When I return, I have to start applying to Illinois State University as soon as humanly possible. From what I've already seen of the application process, it is going to be very arduous. I was looking forward to the school break coming up this next week, but now I realize I will spend most of it immersed in numbers with a throbbing headache. I need a real vacation. I need a bubble bath.

My good friend Lauren (who is also my 13th cousin, consequently) is coming to visit from Selenge province. Her soum is literally on the border of Russia, & in a country with minimal lengths of paved roads, you can imagine what travel must be like. She luckily can get to her province center within an hour, as it is the same distance that I am from my own province center (roughly fifteen miles). From there, she takes an overnight train (at about eight or nine hours) to UB. Then, she must catch a morning or evening bus, a whopping twelve hours (average) on bumpy terrain with little to look at but sand & sky. Goodness knows I don't envy her journey, but I am very glad she will be here soon.

I am aiming to have my ISU application in by mid-December. I don't anticipate being too busy during the holiday season for the normal reasons (since Christmas isn't celebrated in Mongolia), but since Sadie is leaving to return to America to defend her thesis, I will certainly be busy with classes. If I can just get one graduate school application out by the end of this year, I will be satisfied. Theoretically I should also apply to the University of Maryland Baltimore County before the deadline in March, but I don't know if my heart is entirely in it. I should keep as many doors open as possible, I suppose.

Lucky for me, I send out my last Christmas envelopes today. I've sent out about ten of them over the past month or more, & this was my strategic way of not only ensuring they'd arrive in America on-time (knock on wood), but also because they're really expensive to send. I honestly spent about half of one month's allowance on postage alone. I'm not bothered by the cost, really, but it is ridiculous how much the post office charges these days. In any case, I think I get some good karma points at the very least.