Wow

So yesterday I sat in food.

In the kitchen of my apartment.

The uncleanliness has reached a new low.

Ick.

If you're bored...

You should check out this website: abandonedbutnotforgotten.com.

It is a compilation of pictures people submitted of abandoned properties in all different states, countries, etc.

If you're like me, you'll while away the hours looking through all the cool pictures. There is something eerily enchanting about abandoned buildings. Especially the old Victorian style buildings. I find the mental hospital/insane asylum pictures especially interesting. The pictures of the abandoned parts of Connecticut Valley Hospital make me really want to trespass and see for myself when I'm home. How incredibly creepy would it be to be in a place like that at night? *Shudder*

Anyway, enjoy! I'm off to bed because my body has been conditioned to the routine 10:30 bedtime.

Another Update

Sorry to keep posting so much, but I got a letter today accepting me at Boston University.

Total cost: $58,000 starting in May, ending next May with a Master's in Education- School Counseling. (Once again, financial aid comes separately.)

So that makes Fairfield the only one left to hear from.

Photographic Evidence

I got the official packet/folder in the mail today, and I decided I had to put up at least one picture, so here I am with my acceptance letter. They said scholarship information would be in the packet, but then there was a note saying Financial Aid and Scholarship information would be mailed separately. Boo. The folder also had information on health insurance and graduate student housing. It looked like there were some good options, but I really have nothing to compare the rates to.

I'm going to cancel my interview with Duquesne; they scheduled me for a phone interview on Wednesday, which won't work anyway because I'm at my internship at that time.

On a related note, I am thankful for:
1) A new(er) peer mentor who made me a cake and then the office sang "Happy Grad. School to You" to me last week
2) my friend Sanita, who spent a year psychobabbling with me as only two psych. students can before she went off on a mission last March. Even thousands of miles away, she took the time to make me a card and send me chocolate to celebrate. We used to talk about how we dreamed of being in Boston together for graduate school (she in clinical psych) and living together. She's a go-getter, so I would have been the one to prevent that from happening. But now it looks like it just might!!

Updates

So, I just got an email a couple days ago inviting me for an interview at Duquesne University in Pennsylvania for a counselor education program. Obviously I can't attend an interview, so I sent an email asking about alternative options, so we'll see.

I just got an email from UConn saying they've accepted me for their School Counseling program.

So that leaves Fairfield and Boston University to still hear from.

-mollie

Rite of Passage

So... I was on my way home from Erin's tonight, and was driving merrily along Geneva with dear Leonard, about to turn onto 820 N.

My merry radio-sing-along was interrupted by the flashing of lights behind me. I turned the corner. The lights turned with me. Oh... wait, like, me? I pulled over. Sure enough, so did the cop. And those lights are BRIGHT when reflected in your rearview and side mirrors.

So at this point, I turned off my radio, unbuckled my seatbelt and my heart started racing as I thought about all the things I was supposed to be doing. I grabbed my license out of my wallet, opened the glove compartment and rolled down my window and sat there like a good little girl. I was so ashamed of myself- all I could think of were all the people driving by looking at me and thinking "I wonder what she did!" like I do when I see someone pulled over. I promise I am a good little driver! I've never gotten a ticket or been in an accident!

As the cop was coming up to the car on the passenger side, I realized I had taken OFF my seatbelt in my anxiety-ridden state. Crap. Wait. Do I try to put it back on now? What if the cop thinks I wasn't wearing it all along?! I have to bend over to talk to him, so I guess I'll just leave it off.

He said "So, you've got a headlight out?" Without letting the shakiness of my nervous voice come out too much (lest he think I was about to burst into tears for sympathy), I said "Yes, sometimes it comes loose. I have to push it back in." I'm sure he thought I was making excuses to get out of a ticket, but he took my license and registration and went away. (By the way mom and dad, the registration in the car is apparently from 2008? He looked it up and found out it was still accurate, but still.)

He came back, gave me my license, and told me to get my headlight fixed ASAP.

I drove home, opened the hood, grabbed my flashlight from the trusty emergency kit I made a couple weeks ago, and promptly pushed it back on.

Lame. If only the cop could have seen me do it.

It was my very first time ever being pulled over by a cop. I know it's silly, but it scared me!

I need to go to bed now, but I'm waiting for my heart rate to go down.

The end.

Sorry if this is getting old to you...

I wish I had taken a picture to document my excitement on Tuesday. Because I was absolutely walking on air. I was crying and shaking and laughing and dancing.

And now the reality of money is putting a damper on my ecstatic-ness. (Saying ecstasy makes me sound weird.) The pit of excitement in my stomach has turned into a pit of worry. The only thing worse than getting denied from Harvard would be to get accepted and not be able to go.

In related news, I filed a Harvard financial aid form on Thursday night. There is a whole page for students who graduated from certain schools, were born in certain places, or who have certain last names. Seriously?! Why couldn't I be a Baxendale or Downer from New Haven? I also filled out my FAFSA. Being a graduate student, the government will consider my income independent from my parents'. I have never been so happy to be so poor.

Now we wait to see if I get free money.

-mollie

p.s.- Thanks to Sean for taking me out to dinner on Tuesday to celebrate. Thanks to my sister for dropping off a massive box of jelly beans on Wednesday night when I was too tired to go out because I didn't sleep on Tuesday night. And thanks to my parents for sending me a wonderfully large package of Devil Dogs and Pick-Em-Ups, or Passion Flakies as they're called in some corners of the internet. Everyone knows the way to my heart is food. YUMMMMMMMM.

p.p.s.- I have come across a weird phenomenon of being embarrassed when people ask me if I've heard anything from graduate schools. I say yes, then they ask where. I get so embarrassed to say Harvard. Like, to the point of feeling so awkward that I kind of mumble it and then my face turns bright red. That's kinda strange.

Whoa. Slow down!

So, about Harvard.

Their program director has sent me an email, their admissions director has sent me an email, and today I got a phone call from a current student congratulating me and asking if I had any questions that needed answering. That student also just sent me an email and gave me her phone number.

I am being wooed by Harvard.

Holy Smokes. This is for real.

p.s.- just FYI- yes, I might post about every little step along the way to my next big adventure. It still hasn't quite sunk in yet- I still can't bring myself to accept my acceptance even though there's nowhere else I'd rather be in the fall.

p.p.s.- Looking at the information I've been given so far about how much it's going to cost to go to school and live there makes me want to barf. Uhhh... yeah the $4000 BYU charges for a year is looking... pretty darn good.

p.p.p.s.- Uhh... I may have just realized I used quite a few cell phone minutes on Tuesday. Sorry mom and dad.

Defying Gravity and Dancing Through Life

So... most of you already know this, but today was the big day. The day I've been waiting for since ... forever.

I got my acceptance to Harvard.

If you're thinking "What? I didn't know she applied!" it's because I didn't tell anyone. Well, very few. Like 3 people. Because I was afraid to apply and deal with public rejection, so I kept it to myself.

Until today.

I got accepted at Harvard. Holy crap.

So here's more info on the program. It's a one year (sorry if I told you two years earlier. The details escaped me) Ed. M., Master's in Adolescent Risk and Prevention, with an optional second year School Counseling licensure, which is what I plan to do. There's a lot more than that, but there's info coming in the mail, and I'm too hyped up to sit down and read the website more.

To be honest, I got info. about it from a friend of one of my professors who went through the program a couple years ago. I read about the program on their website and fell in love and decided to apply. I didn't spend that much time bogged down in details like "Do they have jobs for you? Do they have housing? Are you on campus all day?" because I was really more worried about getting myself accepted, and didn't want to get too invested in all the details and be more disappointed when the rejection letter came.

But it didn't come. Because I got accepted to Harvard! I absolutely cannot believe it. I am excited, but I am very humbled. It would not have happened without divine intervention, and the support of my parents, sisters, past teachers, boss and friends. So thank you to you all for making this a possibility for me.

I'm off to eat ice cream and order a Harvard sweatshirt online.

-mollie

p.s.-So, my dad said "So I guess that's where you'll be." And... that sounds so final! I'm not sure it's sunk in enough yet for me to say "I'm GOING to Harvard"- I'm only to the point of saying "I got accepted at Harvard." But... knowing it's only a 1-2 year program, and with some short encouragements from my boss who said "Really mollie, you can't NOT go!", it looks like that's where I might be in the Fall. As I said, it hasn't sunk in enough to say I AM going there yet. That will come with time.

bits and pieces

1) I went to Wal-mart on Monday to get a leak in my tire fixed. It had been slowly leaking until last Saturday it looked noticeably low and when I measured the pressure, it really was low. I filled it with air and took it to walmart.

While there, I had to kill time grocery shopping. I brought a list with 4 items on it. I shopped for 1.5 hours and left with 25 items. I spent $50. But I definitely think I got more than I usually do at Macey's for $50. Hmmm.

When I went back to get the car, they told me there was no leak and charged me nothing. Well, I looked like a dumb girl who doesn't know anything about cars. But I guess it's good- I didn't have to pay for anything. Although, if there had been a leak, they said they'd fix it for free because the tires are on warranty. Anyway. So I did my grocery shopping there for nothing.

2) On Thursday night, there was the "Psych Idol" thing on campus. I didn't have anyone to go with, so I felt a little self-conscious, but it was absolutely 100% worth it to go (for free) and see all my psych professors (past and present) get up on stage and sing and dance to "Jump Around," after an introduction from a little Japanese professor who admitted that she loves rap music, and most of it is "too bad to play at BYU, but you have to remember I grew up in Japan, so the F word doesn't bother me." Oh man. I haven't laughed that hard in a long time.

3) I met with 25 students at THS this week, and by Friday afternoon, I was tired. Not to mention after THS I spend 2 hours a day making phone calls for Freshman Mentoring. So I got home and did not want to talk to anyone. I talk ALL day.

4) I went to a men's volleyball game against #1 Pepperdine last night with Tamanna. It was fun. We won the match in 4 games.

5) Yesterday one of the Denver girls sent me an email. Apparently we got another $115 deposited in our bank accounts because the travel advance was supposed to be $265 (don't know how they came up with that #) and we had only been given half of it, so the other half got deposited on Friday. That was pretty Awesome with a capital A. I want to go shopping with it, but I guess I will save it.

6) Today I've done laundry and cleaned my room and determined what is wrong with our broken vacuum (a broken belt). So the rest of my day is going to consist of some homework, visiting Erin, replacing a vacuum belt, and maybe going out later.

7) Yesterday when I paid my rent I found out our landlord has already sold our contracts for next year, without telling us. So here's really hoping that I get into a New England program. Although if I stay here, maybe I could move out of the 2 mile radius and see what I can find.

p.s. on that- I still haven't heard anything from any schools other than BYU.

And... the end.

doggy heaven

well, the other dickerson children seem to have neglected a big event in family history, so i will post.

Nikki, our puppy, that we got... uh... Christmas of 94ish? was put down today.

Unlike my older siblings, I do not remember life without a dog. And my only memories of getting her are from opening the box with a food dish in it and the video we took of Erin's pink-pajama-ed butt in the camera taking her out of the cage saying "She's so beautiful!!"

Yes, fleece or pretty much any other fabric was covered in dog hair within 20 seconds of entering the house, and yes, she barked obnoxiously and thought she was so sneaky when she jumped off the couch when we walked in the door, but the couch pillows were all skewampus. And yes, she dug her way out of the backyard, and we had to chase her out to main street, and she used to jump up on the table and eat food all the time, but that time when she ran and jumped into the pool and freaked out and Evan had to scoop her out was pretty entertaining. And the way she barked at bread was pretty good too.

And yes, when you tried to take her for a walk, she pulled on her leash until she couldn't breathe and pooped about 5 times before making it to main street, but she always wanted to be at your feet waiting to be pet. And yes, she scratched her way into boxes or cabinets during thunderstorms, and her hair was always tangly, but she always got so excited to see everyone. And sometimes she snored during dinner, or her legs moved in a dream like she was chasing something, or sometimes she'd pass gas and get up and leave the room, disgusted by her OWN smell, but she was never mean, well, except for if you were trying to pry a tennis ball or random household object from her mouth. And she probably took a lot of abuse from us as children. And yes, her nose smears are all over the glass door at the front of the house.



But she learned to raise her paw and lay down. And that little wispy patch of hair on her head was pretty cute.

And then there was that time that the piano tuner thought her name was Mollie and mine was Nikki. That was awkward. But regardless of all this, I just have to say it will be weird to go home again and her pillow will be gone, and there will be no food dish. And I miss dropping food on the floor and simply yelling "Nikki!" while waiting for her to come eat it. And I will miss her waiting to greet me at the door when I come home after being away.

Yes, she was just a crazy misbehaved dog, but she was OUR crazy misbehaved dog, and that's the point. And she'll always be my puppy.

-mollie