Living La Vida Broka

Today was the first day of my food study, and I made $15. :-) I don't get paid until the very end of the study, which will be in early December. It'll be nice to get it then though, because then I'll have $75 to use for Christmas presents! The food was pretty good, not stellar or anything, but definitely good enough. You should see the portion sizes they give out though- I'm not sure anyone could eat that much food. I got two whole trays full of stuff to eat, thank goodness I don't have to eat everything!

I have a syntax test tomorrow, and I can't even make myself care about it. I think I studied enough, but I did not study well. I am basically being irresponsible and playing around on the internet instead of doing any work (as you can see). I must say, Facebook aps are wonderful in these situations- I'm completely addicted to Restaurant City...

I submitted my NSF grant proposal today. When they told me about the grant last year, I was totally meh about it. For some reason I didn't want to do it, even though it's about $30,000 a year for three years and I wouldn't have to teach at all. Call me crazy, right? But this year I've been working on it for the last 2 months, and I finally submitted it today (right under the deadline)! I'm not really sure if I'll win, since it's a national competition and I'll be competing against linguists from freaking MIT, but it was a good learning experience for future grant writing. AND! (possibly the most important part), our graduate school gives you a free THOUSAND DOLLARS just for applying. I am nervous it won't actually happen, but hopefully that paperwork all goes through alright, and soon I'll be getting my moneyyyyyyyyy.

PS- They picked me for the study! 3 free meals a day on Tuesdays and 75 bucks, here I come!

Remember how I posted once about how much I love getting paid for experiments? Seriously, one of the best parts about going to a big research school. Today I signed up to do a food study, and it seems really sweet. All I have to do is go to the lab once a week for all three meals and I get paid $75! I mean, really?! I love food, I love money, how is this a bad thing? Plus, it'll almost be like I'm getting paid more than that since I won't have to buy my own food. Today I went in to taste-test some of the stuff, and it seemed pretty normal (and really tasty!). I also filled out a big pamphlet about my eating habits and attitudes, so they'll call me tomorrow to let me know if I'm in. I'm a bit nervous they won't take me though, because even though I think my eating habits are perfectly normal, sometimes other people don't seem to think so. But I guess we'll see, I'm keeping my fingers crossed!! ($75 wow!)

Halloween is my favorite holiday out of the whole year, even better than my birthday and Christmas. I love the horror movies, the candy, and seeing everyone's costumes. This Halloween should be good, even though I didn't buy a real costume this year. I am going as a peacock, and I only had to buy some peacock feathers for $10. I already have a shirt with peacock feathers on it, feather earrings, and teal eyeshadow and shoes to wear, so the feathers for decoration were all I needed to complete the costume. It should be awesome, I've always wanted to go as a peacock sometime and now I can!

Another cool thing is that my little sister is coming up to visit for a Halloween party with my friends tonight. She should be here in an hour or so, then we are going to Cici's Pizza for dinner and then getting ready the rest of the night. I hope this party is really fun, because I stayed in last night instead of going out. It should be though, I am really excited for it.

Happy Halloween everyone!!

I passed candidacy!! I am now a PhD. Candidate... boo yah!! The exam went really well, I wasn't too terribly stressed and once we got the ball rolling and they started asking me questions about my work, I settled in and felt really good about it. PLus they only deliberated for about 3 mins or so before letting me know I passed, so I think that means all three of them agreed that I did well. :-) I'm super proud of myself, and I think my parents are too, if the $100 check I just got in the mail is any indication!!!

Well folks, tomorrow is the big day... the moment of truth. I have my candidacy exam, which basically means they will review my dissertation proposal and tell me whether I can continue on to the PhD., or if I have to leave with a Master's and go home. It doesn't seem to be too difficult to pass, because it's basically the earliest step of working on your dissertation, but I am still nervous. One of the guys who took it last year failed and left, so it does happen. I am trying to relax tonight though, going over my presentation and details of my proposal only a few times so I don't over-stress. This would all be so much easier if I didn't also have a cold/the flu at the same time!! Oy. Well, I'll let you all know how it goes tomorrow!

So I bit the bullet and finally got rid of my Sears card. It was the first "real" credit card I ever got, but I really just wasn't happy with it. I feel like they played games, always changing the due dates and then charging super high late fees. I haven't been using it for the last few years except maybe a small purchase once a year. So today was the day I decided to cancel. I'm most likely not going to need credit for the next few years... just bought my new car, DEFINITELY not going to buy a house, and I have four more guaranteed years of funding at school. So I feel like now was a good time to cancel the card, in case my credit score does take a hit. But overall I'm happy, because now my credit card count has gone down to 3, which is a much better number for someone my age.