about
● nature
● inspiration
● archives
Monday, April 25, 2011
You Made That Pebble In The Road A Boulder @ 6:26 PM
Temporary roadblock. Unfortunately.
We all hate hang ups and snags in our mastermind plans. Today, I just hit my first roadblock along this application process. It has to do with my high school. Two years after graduating and high school is still the bane of my existence....oh the irony. Nah, that's just a joke, high school was actually a lot of fun for me. It's just being a bully right now.
Granite Hills, my high school, is officially back from spring break. So, following my fool proof plan, I called the records office and requested that my transcripts be mailed to MUM, only to find out that I have to do that
in person. Now, here's the hang up: I'm in
Alaska, my high school is in
southern California! We're talking so far south here, it borders Mexico! I apologize, Granite Hills, but I happen to be a starving college kid, there is
no way in heck that I'm about to spend over one thousand dollars in airline tickets just to fly back to San Diego so that I can request that you send a university my high school transcripts!
And beyond that, Granite Hills doesn't mail anyone transcripts. Oh no, they give y
ou the transcripts and expect you to do that yourself. Unfortunately for me, MUM has to have transcripts that have been sent directly from the school, not from the student. Yeah, you must be able to comprehend why I'm so frustrated.
I'm contemplating asking them if requesting that my transcripts be mailed over a video Skype conversation would be adequate enough. I mean, that's basically like being in person; I can show them my driver's license and birth certificate and social security card over the computer and everything!
I've also called my mom and complained.....errr....ranted, about it. She's going to see what she can get done, being the all-knowing super-human that she is.
Immediately following my disappointment with the Granite Hills records office, I called my mother just to rant aimlessly about how frustrated I was and also left a very.....crude facebook update on my profile regarding the manner. Yes, I know, so mature, right?
But I realized something in doing that....I realized that I'm not doing anything to make the situation better. If anything, I'm just spewing a bunch of negativity out into the world. And the last thing this world needs is more negativity; it has enough to last for the rest of its life span. No, what the world needs is the opposite of that, it needs more positivity. So I'm taking this little experience as an opportunity for growth. Instead of sitting here and stewing in my frustration, I'll think of it in positive ways, I'll imagine the situation working itself out in a timely manner. Everything is what you make of it; so why would I make this situation any worse than it has to be? This could be a very smooth process that could be fixed as soon as few little misunderstandings are cleared up.
Clearly, Granite Hills's records office and I are not seeing eye to eye. Perhaps the problem is merely in miscommunication; maybe we're not really
listening to each other. I'm going to spend the rest of my day letting go of my frustration and imagining this little snag untangling itself quickly and effortlessly and then give them a call again first thing tomorrow morning. Maybe approaching the situation from another angle without all of the frustration will help the tables to turn in my favor.
And honestly, situations are what you make of them. This doesn't need to be a massive boulder in my road, so why should I make it one?
Process, Process, Process @ 2:08 AM
Nearly ten days later and an update. Sorry, I can be bad at keeping up with things on occasion.
So, since last Friday a lot has happened. And then again, not much has happened at all.
In terms of the application process, I spent all of last Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday visiting the site to see if my application had been processed yet. Waiting on "pins and needles," is the popular phrase, I do believe. By Tuesday, I was able to officially log on to the myapp website, which meant that my application had been processed and the real journey was about to begin.
So, a little information and explanation...once your official request to be a student is sent in and processed, MUM sends you a student application ID and a link to a website that helps you keep track of how you're doing with the application process. As a side note, I find this website EXTREMELY useful! From this website, I discovered that I needed to send in high school transcripts, university transcripts (only because I'm a transfer student, not a first time freshman), two teacher recommendations, and a FAFSA (this is optional and only necessary if you intend to receive financial aid). Apart from the information I need to send in, I also discovered that I had to answer four essay questions, read an overview of the more in depth details of the university, and also do a few little write-ups to explain what I did and what values and experiences I gained in the year after I graduated from high school before I enrolled in a university. After I officially complete all of this, I will have an interview with my admissions counselor before a final decision is made about how well I match up with MUM.
On Tuesday I called my high school to see if they could mail out my transcripts relatively soon, only to discover that my high school is on spring break and no one was available to take my request. Unperturbed, I instead used my free Tuesday to read the in-depth overview of MUM and to call a woman whom I have volunteered for for several years and ask her if she would be willing to write a recommendation for me. I also asked my english 211 professor from this semester if he would write a recommendation on Tuesday. My english professor from my 111 class last semester actually resigned from her teaching position this semester so, on Wednesday, I stopped by the english department and asked for a way to contact her; she has since agreed to write a third recommendation for me. I also stopped by the admissions and records office of my current university and asked them to mail out my transcript this past Wednesday. OH! I forgot that I wrote my four essays on Wednesday! That was actually a lot of fun. I mean, I was worried about it, a little bit, but then I started writing and I just had so much fun and I really realized exactly how much i want to go to MUM. I feel like this is the only university that could ever be for me! And as of Friday I've contacted the ACT and SAT scoring centers and requested that they send MUM my scores as well, just as a sort of extra padding on my application (because I feel like I had fairly decent scores on my SATs and ACTs). Friday was also the day I managed to sync up my free time with my mother's and we knocked out the FAFSA together.
So that's an update on everything I've done in the admissions process so far. That's what you've been missing out on the past ten days. I suppose I've been pretty busy, but it still feels like I'm so far away. Even after everything I've done this past week, I still have to wait for both my university transcripts and ACT/SAT scores to be received and I have to wait for two of my teachers to get around to writing those recommendations. I also still have to call my high school as soon as they get back from spring break for transcripts. And I have to do those short write-ups about everything I've learned from the things I had done before I started going to a university. And even after all of that, I'll have to go through the interview process before I'll fully be considered for a position as a student at MUM.
Oh yeah, I met my admissions counselor on Wednesday. Or, I met her as well as you can meet someone over the phone. She's so nice, such a positive person. And she was so genuinely interested in me and my needs as a student; it wasn't like she was just doing her job....she actually cared. She was such a wonderful person, we had a great conversation! And I had to call her a few days later to ask some basic questions about the meditation process and dorm life and the like....it was super late over in Iowa by the time I called but she was still so willing to help me out. I don't think I could ever convey how much I appreciated her time. She's really such an incredibly patient person.
Hopefully sometime soon I'll finally give you all a full run-down of what type of a school MUM really is and why I feel like it's the only place that's meant for me. Maybe I'll update the blog with that information during my break between Philosophy and Sociology this next Wednesday! :)
Anyway, I hope you all have a wonderful day, and I hope this obnoxiously long/overly detailed update on the application process has been somewhat helpful.
Friday, April 15, 2011
First Thing In The Morning Peace Of Mind @ 6:05 PM
An update on the whole situation?
Yes, an update.
So I've momentarily come to terms with the whole "oh no, what am I doing?!" scare. I've decided that life works the way it's supposed to work. Everything has to happen for a reason; if I'm not meant to go to this new university then I simply will not be admitted. However, if Maharishi University of Management
is where my life is supposed to take me, then I will be accepted. I suppose that seems like a passive way of living life, letting fate and the universe direct it all, but I sort of see life like a roaring river: the current is going in one particular direction, you can fight it as much as you want but that does not and will not ever change the fact that the river is still going where it needs to go, you can't ever change the direction of the current, so you might as well just float along with the waves, after all the water knows where its going, even if you don't.
And on that note, yesterday, I requested that an informational dvd be sent to me via snail-mail services. I'm actually sort of excited to see what the dvd says!
Today, early this morning in fact, I was contacted by the dean of admissions and we had an amazing conversation! We basically just talked about MUM and he answered all of my questions fully, which is impressive because I had an entire list typed out! He was just such a positive man, so open minded and so enthusiastic about the university and life in general. It was such a beautiful conversation to have first thing in the morning and it really made my day complete.
Needless to say, I pretty much jumped on my computer the second our conversation ended and filled out the application to become an official student for the fall semester of 2011. I've just filled out the basics so far, I still have to write a few essays, get a few teacher recommendations, and talk to my current uni (as well as my high school) about getting some transcripts, but the process as officially begun! And I have never been more excited for anything in my life!
On that note, I will end this entry and leave whoever might be watching this with a beautiful video that one of my dear friends from high school showed me just this morning. It's incredible and really makes you think about the world and life and the intricate beauty of it all:
The Mountain
(sorry, you have to click on the link because it's a vimeo hosted video, not a youtube hosted one so blogspot is making it hard to embed the actual video player :( if you need the direct web address, it's: http://vimeo.com/22439234 )
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
New Freedom? @ 4:38 PM
So I've decided that I want to blog about this. It seemed like a better idea before I actually started typing just now. I've decided that I want to switch universities, and I want to share the process.
The reason why this is such a big deal is because, well, basically....everyone thinks I'm joining a cult. There I've said it.
I'm not finding what I need at the University of Alaska, or in Alaska in general. I thought I would find complete freedom, I thought I would find open minds, but frankly, I've only found half of freedom and nothing but completely closed minds fully set in their ways.
Don't get me wrong, Alaska is beautiful, the people are beautiful in their own way. Alaska has given me everything I need to be confident enough to take this next step in the journey, but I feel like I need to grow in a different way on my own in order to come back and fully appreciate everything Alaska has to offer....I'm not done with this beautiful place by a long shot!
I just want a new adventure, a different sense of freedom: a mental freedom rather than a physical one. Being able to hike anywhere and everywhere is such a privilege when coming from the overly urban city life of San Diego. But I'm slowly finding that that sense of physical freedom is simply not enough for me when I feel trapped and caged in my own body and mind. Any time I open my mouth I get called a "hippy" and shot down. Sometimes I just want to have an intellectual conversation that may seem abstract, that doesn't make me a hippy. Sometimes I want to scream, "all I'm doing is asking you to just THINK for once in your life! just use your brain! stop seeing the basics! THINK!" And so in a sense, while I am more free than I had ever been in San Diego, I am still just as trapped.
Thus the change in scenery, change in pace, change in universities.
Yesterday I went through the "extremely happy/overly excited" phase of deciding to make a change in your life. Today, I'm going through the "oh shit, is this really the right choice?" phase. I feel sick to my stomach. I'm terrified this isn't going to be as good as I want it to be. I'm terrified it won't meet my expectations. How am I supposed to deal with that?
