House of Mouse

No, this will not be a post about Disney. Sorry, friends. This is a post about the scritching and scratching going on in my walls.

I work retail. This week has been hell. I got home Thursday night [[read: Thanksgiving]] after working until 11. I got into bed, warm and snuggly. I started hearing... things... in my wall. I tried to ignore it, afterall, I was exhausted, and trying to prepare for Black Friday. It got progressively louder, and I gave up and slept on the couch.

Mom, in all of her glory, offered to check the walls and under my bed for critters. She didn't find anything... so I thought I was just insane.

I slept peacefully Friday and Saturday. Comfortably, actually.

Fast forward to Sunday, 11:45 pm. I change into PJs, ready to settle in and work on the homework I'd been putting off all week (oops...). I stop by the bathroom, and hear scratching. Again. I calm myself down, reminding myself that Mom and the dogs (and cat!) didn't find anything.

Then, I see a tail.

Then furry ears.

Above my head. Standing on exposed piping in the ceiling of my basement bathroom.

I immediately ran upstairs to tell mom (i.e., wake her up).

She's agreed to call the landlord and have an exterminator come out, but until then, I'm going to have nightmares about mice crawling on me in my sleep.

I'm cruelly forcing my dog to have a slumber party with me in the basement so he can catch anything that wiggles out of the wall.

The only thing consoling me at this point is the fact that... if there are mice... there are no snakes.

Grad School Nightmares

I realized that, for one reason or another, I have been neglecting my poor blogspot. I've chosen the more traditional route of physical writing. With a pen. And a "journal." Yes, they still exist. Truth be told, readers, there are sometimes things I don't want to share with the world.

I also realized that I was posting links to things I found interesting, with a few comments thrown in. The "internaute" version of plagiarism. Boring. So, I guess I'll have to cut that out. Not completely, of course, because sometimes I find things that are worth mentioning. For the most part, my aim is to be a little more personable.

I'm facing the issue of writing a "statement of purpose." I don't know how to write about myself, let alone my accomplishments.

"Dear Grad School: Please let me in. Thx."

I don't think it will work. I don't know how to be witty and intellectual at the same time. I don't want to be factual and boring, but I don't want to lose my sense of academic integrity. I mean, hell, I'm applying to Ivy League schools, I need to sound like I'm worth the risk. But, I want to stand out. I want to be remembered. I want to prove that I'm not just some girl who fucked up her first chance at college when she was given enough scholarships to not only pay for 4 years, housing, and food, but enough to PAY HER to go to college. This will follow me for the rest of my academic career, and I hate it. I screwed up for a boy, yes. It's true. I thought getting married was more important than education at the time. But I was also 19, alone, and afraid. Now, I'm a bit wiser, and a bit older. I'm ready to take on both academic and romantic challenges, but I will never pit one against the other, ever again. I hope my past mistakes won't prevent me from getting the education I want and deserve. I think, deep down, I hope that I actually deserve it. Some days... I'm not so sure.