dooms days deadlines

Deadline - Program

• Nov 6 NSF Graduate Research Fellowship
• Nov 14 Ford Foundation Diversity Fellowship
• Nov 20+21 SUNY StonyBrook visit

The following have all turned into a December 9 deadline... thank you country-hopping professors...

• Dec 30 Graduate Record Exam (GRE)
  
• Jan 1 Washington St. Louis application deadline
• Jan 1 Arizona State University
• Jan 2 Harvard University
• Jan 5 George Washington University
• Jan 10 University of Missouri - Columbia
• Jan 15 SUNY Stony Brook

Ah, no holiday for me.

Doing that thing you doo

Here we go. The new hair. Before and after (note the obscene natural volume... yeah, that's without the blow-dryer).



Japanese straightening. Now my hair is straight, but I have insane volume, and I'm just too lazy to keep ironing it out. So almost every year (or every other year) I have to get it permed straight so I don't have to deal with it. It's a bitch when you travel a lot and just aren't the high-maintenance type. Besides, constant blow-drying and ironing dries out and ruins hair cuticles.

So on a whim I went to the Hair Village in Woodside (near the 61st St 7-train stop in Roosevelt). Normally after washing it out a little, it stops looking like a wig (i.e. picture 2). I think I'm back to being comfy with it again. I just hate that the lady at the hair salon decided I needed to get a trim. I wanted my regular stylist at Sei Tomoko to do it... but oh well. Saves me a 2-week appointment trip, though I could use their free shiatsu massage (mmmmmm...massage...).

I think this year I'll let my hair grow out before chopping it down to a bob again. I like bobs. Maybe bob it for the spring? Or before excavation season? I don't usually look too well with super-long hair. And it always gets caught in zippers.

Comfort, thy name be Puffs Vicks

Wow this week has been a whirlwind. Not that the past weeks have been easy-breezy, but wow. Between my severe body-shutdown illness/period/thing, exams, and graduate program interviews, I have had the total of 8 hours of sleep this week... and my body craves more.

But yeah... Okay will amplify this entry tomorrow when I get back from a FULL Stony Brook day. SO EXCITED!

On the agenda:
-5am train to the end of the world, aka Stony Brook in Long Island
-chat up all the professors I want to potentially work with
-GROSS ANATOMY (i get to borrow scrubs... and potentially see real dead HUMAN bodies)
-hang out with all the grad students
-drink and have dinner with (and try to forget whether or not i passed out/gagged at sight of human bodies... or felt hungry thanks to formaldehyde)
-take night train back to nyc




Hmm, I'll let you guys know.
Then this weekend:
Saturday night: PRE-THANKSGIVING FOOD-LOVING with Lyssa and friends! YAY! (Which reminds me, I need to stock up on Sangue di Giuda)
Sunday morning: Pancake brunch @ Jess&Alex's

Man, either I have to curb my appetite a lot and resist the temptation of amplifying my love-tires from this summer... or go on a serious diet after this weekend. Ugh... I hate how i LOVE the holiday season.


Oooooo... Union Square HOLIDAY MARKET!!! Yeah, I'm broke this year so unless I find the PERFECT present for someone, everyone else will just have to make do with my home-made presents (which this year won't be a painting, but would most likely be some photograph I took and framed).

yaaaaaaaaaay!!!

officially a pathological procrastinator

Katherine Hepburn as Alice Adams in RKO's 1935 "Alice Adams".

Future wedding dress will be a rendition of this dress... even if I have to marry myself. Haha! I will also have to grow legs the size of Hepburn's otherwise it just wouldn't work as well.



Ughhhhhh... I can't see straight. My nose is stuffed. My throat is irritated. My glands are swollen. I have kleenex all over the floor trailing behind me like Hansel and Gretel's bread crumbs. I've managed to lose my house keys in my house, and on top of all that, I have the wonderful GREs in two days.

:-(
I just want me some warm dance biscuits... And for my neighborhood Walgreens to start carrying the damn Kleenex w/ the scent of Vicks vapor rub (because it makes me feel better sniffing vicks).

Is that too much to ask?

warmed up like dance biscuits

***

Bee skit @ (Nov 15 2008)
by thebeyoncenetwork

My sides hurt from laughing so hard. I just want to say that Justin Timberlake has been on some of my all time favorite skits from SNL (cue in Homelessville). Totally made my evening. I will probably have some amazing dreams of JTim and Andy Samberg in leotards forever.

And yes, Justin TOTALLY owned the "Single Ladies" move.




"We're the dahncers."

The universe wants me to go to grad school!

My ass hurts from sitting non-stop in front of this computer trying to focus and get my last grant in before the deadline after a whirlwind (and chronologically frivolous) escapade out to the west coast.

When I went to upload the missing essays into the grant website, lo and behold in giant red letters:
The application deadline has been extended.
Submit before 11:59 pm (EST) November 17, 2008.

Isn't that lovely? I think God and the Universe actually want me to go to graduate school even though the American system seems to be so against it. Yeah, that's right. If you've had as much stress over the past month and a half as I have had, you would be conjuring the almighty powers that be right about now as well.

So instead of having a deadline 30 minutes from now, it's been moved to 3 days from now. YAY! Not that I'll be heading to sleep before finishing this application, I do have the evil GREs coming up. As a safety, I have decided to apply for Cambridge and UCL as well. Hopefully the European recession will continue to even out the sterling (sorry, I'm a horrible human being sometimes, but 2-quid to the dollar is a bitch of an exchange rate to be honest).




At anyrate, because I need a break (and am so good at procrastinating), I am linking my escapade photos. Very glad some halfway decent shots did come out of it (after a bit of tweaking, because my anciently modern camera is now falling sub-par). I just might take this hobby up into serious-level since my uncle seems to be convinced I have "the eye". Eh, it can be plan C should being all scientific not work out. Plan B is top secret.



Here's the link to my San Francisco escape with Nohemi:
http://picasaweb.google.com/kmarian.viterbo/HaciendoElGuiriStateside#







And the link to my relaxing getaway to autumn California with my aunt and uncle:
http://picasaweb.google.com/kmarian.viterbo/MarinCountyCA#

Nature always seems to have the answer for me.








Future escapades are currently in the works. Yay! Jess is totally in on hopping over to London to have tea with Saskia (and her future Duke-entitled husband). Who else might want to come with? The plan: 7-10 days, but NOT all in London because I will shoot myself if I have to spend that much time in a place that lacks sun.



***

Well here's the rundown:

Deadline - Program

• Nov 6 NSF Graduate Research Fellowship
• Nov 14 Ford Foundation Diversity Fellowship
• Nov 18 Graduate Record Exam (GRE)
• Nov 20+21 SUNY StonyBrook visit
• Dec 15 Washington St. Louis application deadline
• Jan 1 Arizona State University
• Jan 2 Harvard University
• Jan 5 George Washington University
• Jan 10 University of Missouri - Columbia
• Jan 15 SUNY Stony Brook

And then some breathing room... to ponder and worry about whether or not they'll actually accept me. Ugh, this stuff just doesn't end... At least I can do it with a potpie in my mouth, or a tapa?


Two down, and only the rest of my life to go.
I just keep telling myself, one day I'll be able to google-scholar myself!

Fog. It's like Heaven on Earth except with humidity.

Just got back from a wonderful break in San Francisco. A fantastic treat spending the weekend with Nohemi and relaxing for a few days with my Uncle Tony and Auntie Bombi. Yay autumn foliage and fog, and green gigantic trees. YAY! Will post later entry on that but the more important news:

New York (JFK)	$208* $237*	Nov 18, 2008 - Dec 17, 2008 Dec 24, 2008 - Mar 22, 2009 Mar 23, 2009 - May 25, 2009
Newark	$198* $237*	Nov 18, 2008 - Dec 17, 2008 Dec 24, 2008 - Mar 22, 2009 Mar 23, 2009 - May 25, 2009

Virgin Atlantic is having a sale!!! Who wants to come with??? Preferably sometime next year, late Jan/Feb or even early march? Let's go visit SASKIA! And then hop over a few days into continental Europe for face-sized pancakes in Amsterdam? Or...wait...yeah not Paris. Or erm...Madrid? Haha, or you know, whatever. Seriously, for us out there who are stressing out over graduate applications. How about joining me on an escape to the other side of the Atlantic?

That Newark fare is looking mighty inviting!

***

By the way, everyone should look up The Flight of the Conchords. I think they're a Kiwi group with music the likes of Tenacious D, except funnier, more ironic, extra dry humor, and actually catchy tunes. I just spent a 6-hour sardine-flight replaying their album.

My personal favorite: Business Time. Here's a snippet of the lyrics:

Ahh yeah, that’s right baby
Girl, tonight we're gonna make love
You know how I know baby?
Cuz its Wednesday, and Wednesday night is the night that we make love.
Tuesday night is the night that we go and visit your mother, but
Wednesday night is the night that we make love.
Cuz everything is just right, conditions are perfect.
There's nothing good on TV, conditions are perfect.
You lean in close and say something sexy like " I might go to bed I've
got work in the morning." I know what you're trying to say baby.
You're tryin to say "Ooh yeah, it's business time, it's business time."  

It's on my GENIUS list.

why do i do this to myself?

Crucial point in my life... and I'm having a quarter-life crisis at the worst possible moment. My timing, as always, is impeccable.

Why do I do this to myself? I should count how many sleepless nights I have. There just never seems to EVER be enough time in the day. Maybe I should just move to Jupiter. Granted its atmosphere hardly affords the beautiful blue sky Earth's got, but blue is overrated anyway. Besides, I've always had a fondness for the warmer hues of the color spectrum, as well as Texan-sized eye-ball-looking storm spots.

Jupiter. More daytime.

The downside, I would never be able to weigh myself on a scale for fear of realizing my density can only be rivaled by three elephants.


I should tell myself I do this so that one day I can Google-scholar myself and be proud I've got numerous entries.


http://cusj.columbia.edu/symposium/viewarticle.php?id=45&layout=abstract

*what what! Bone-a-fide scholar, yo.
:-D

dancing on the tombstones of life

now playing: Jack Johnson - Never Know

Jack Johnson is (surprisingly) rocking my socks off.



In this uberly-globalized world, Philippines now (cheesily) celebrates All Hollow's Eve. The Filipino Channel (TFC for those pinoy-savvy) is filled with odiously westernized celebrities in HORRENDOUS halloween costumes. I mean we have an amazing culture of witches (ie. wak-wak, mangkukulam), monsters (i.e. mananaggal), and scary stories (people are incredibly superstitious for a devoutly Catholic country)... yet the popular media prefer to celebrate lame-ass American holidays (yes, even Thanksgiving--the day Americans celebrate Native American peoples kindly sharing food and turkey to ingrateful Puritans who would later destroy them--has made it across the Pacific). Not saying that I don't like celebrating these holidays with friends and family, but seriously, Philippines has an amazing culture of holidays yet they refuse to give it equal media-time. It leaves a bitter, sad taste in my mouth.

At any rate, normally Filipinos celebrate November 1st--like Mexicans and Spaniards (thank you 300 years of colonization)--as All Souls' Day, and November 2nd as All Saints' Day. When I was little, my town would have all the girls dress up in amazing gowns and we paraded across all the barrios holding candles and flowers, praying and processing into the local church to offer gifts to the Santo Nino and get presents for being the prettiest girls.

On All Souls' Day Filipino families head over to the cemeteries to pray for their deceased loved ones, and then party and dance and eat Lechon afterwards. Yes, we quite literally party on graves. It's pretty fun actually. We spend the night lighting candles, then eat. Yay for fiesta!




Ah, but those were the days. Mine, on the other hand, has been spent locked up in my room listening to Pandora-dot-com and my surprise mixes of Norah Jones, Jack Johnson, John Mayer, Bob Dylan, Allison Kraus and Dolly Parton (my study, read, write mix). My eyes are burning and I can't seem to get past one sentence.

I am a hot mess, if I do say so myself. And no, it is SO not a good thing.



On a happy note, I've finally managed to send off those postcards I've been meaning to send. I hope they make it to their wonderful destinations. It took me a while to write a measly paragraph on each of the postcards... I hope they're not too cheesy or stupid.

Side note: The best book of NYC postcards I've found (I've spent weeks scouring New York for beautiful postcards) has to be the New York Times's book of New York City postcards chronicling decades of the newspaper's best historic photographs of NY. It's really pretty and I can't bring myself to rip out the postcards to send to people. It's just too good of a compilation and I wants it all to myself.

I really should take Paolo's advice and just print out my own postcards since I have amassed an entire collection of stunning NYC scenery... Except I do enjoy finding gems in unexpected places.