So, last night I received a call from Ohio State and they have excepted me into their gender studies Masters program. My heart still feels like it wants to explode. Not only am I now assured that I am going to grad school, whether I go to Ohio State or another school, I am also assured funding because Ohio State funds all the people it accepts with TAships. This means that I get a monthly stipend and I don’t have to pay my tuition.

The poor woman on the phone last night who called me… I didn’t know what to say and just said thank you over and over again. She called me 8 days after the deadline for all the paperwork. According to her, there were 65 applicants with only 12 selected, 4 for the PhD program and 8 for the Masters. She also told me that the pool was extremely competitive with almost everyone have GPAs above 3.85.

This is the most incredible news I’ve heard in a long time. Now I just have to see what the other schools things of me and then make a decision if anyone else says they like me.

Whoo hoo!

why is it that when I want a technological thing to work it never does? Yet, when someone else comes along and buys the same product, it works…inexplicably!

(Today is a list thing)

1. Bluetooth headset still on the blink. I can hear everything fine, but the other caller just hears a loud tone.

2. Linksys Bluetooth USB adapter isn’t supported for headset use in OS X, only the D-Link is.

3. Linksys wireless router, BEFW11S4 v.3, is not working very well after three years of perfect use.

4. I think the Apple Store stiffed me on the video card in my G5. I have a GeForce FX 5200 and the packing slip says Radeon 9600. For those of you who have missed the significance, the 5200 has 64MB of Video RAM and the 9600 has 128MB.

Basically we can see that I’m a technology whore and need a constant fix of bleeding edge products, otherwise, I would have nothing to write about on my blog.

I am doing alot of searching on the web right now, since I’m unemployed. A couple of thoughts for posterity:

1. Why is the US Navy recruiting in Spokane? It’s not on a coast, guys, get a clue.

2. The US Navy is offering many jobs and at competitive wages.

3. In my searching, I found a guy complaining of crappy customer service. Read it while its fresh. The gist of it is: “This is America and we need people who can speak ENGLISH….Enogh venting.” This guy can’t even spell correctly much less complain about someone else speaking the language.

4. The US Navy is definitely hiring and if I wasn’t dead-set against taking orders from someone just because they were higher up on a “chain of command,” I might be singing: “Way, hey! Blow the man down!” which is ironic, if you know what the lyrics mean.

So, its cold right now. So cold that the rain is freezing as water droplets and hitting the ground. The weatherpeople call it “freezing rain,” which is appropriate. What is less appropriate is when I get ready to go to the car and slip down the steps because there is a half-inch of ice covering every flat surface around me. It was like nature decided to bushwhack me and I fell for it! I tried to cross the road in front of my apartment and got almost halfway before I slipped again and with nothing to steady myself, I went down. HARD. I decided to turn around and crawl back to the stairs to get up again and go back inside nursing my injured pride and elbow. I have to say that being from SoCal I haven’t experienced this before and therefore I had to give a caveat to everyone in the Spokane area. Be careful, you’ll slip.

NPR’s Weekend Edition has a Digital Culture article about customer service in the age of the web, which is short but good. I myself have had some issues with customer service, but not on the web. Rather, I have seen the ugly side of retail shopping this past holiday season. Attempting to return a bag to GAP for Katie, I was told that the gift receipt that came with the gift was NOT good enough to invoke a cash refund. See, they don’t know how it was purchased originally, even though every item in the store has a barcode on it and so does the receipt, they can’t track the money at the register. They could only offer me a gift card for the original amount of the bag. This would have been fine if it was my gift, but Katie doesn’t shop at the GAP and we already found a bag she really liked at Eddie Bauer. Still, they would NOT give me a refund, even though I was unhappy with the merchandise and didn’t want it. We tried three different stores and all three were firm in their conviction that the gift receipt didn’t mean anything and that we as consumers couldn’t be trusted with any cash on our own and the GAP would take care of us. After speaking with a manager at the third store in Portland, I told her that if this was not resolved to my satisfaction, that I would NOT shop here anymore. She replied that a gift card was all she could do. Katie acquiesced and got the gift card while I stalked out with displeasure written all over my face. I will not shop there anymore. If returning a gift WITH the receipt is so difficult, why not shop somewhere that will allow me to keep the consumer choice of where to spend my money? There are many other places that I can buy jeans and socks instead of the GAP. My caveat to you, dear reader, be sure that GAP product is what you want because your money is not coming back to you once you hand it over.

As well, I have had some problems with my new Logitech Mobile Bluetooth headset. Calling someone invokes a loud, screeching tone that drowns out my voice, though I can hear the person fine. Calling Technical Support at Logitech produced a lesson in futility. The person on the other end was obviously new to the job and immediately had to go ask someone else. I could have written out his answer in the time he took to get back to me. “Sir, we think it is probably the phone that you are using and urge you to call the manufacturer.” So much for anything TECHNICAL in the call. This was after I informed him that I used another bluetooth headset and it worked GREAT. Why not keep the other one, you ask? Because I’m stubborn and want the sleekness of the Logitech along with the cool case/charger it comes in, that’s why. The good news is that they agreed to send out a replacement headset to me, free of charge. The bad news is that my email to SonyEricsson has resulted in a request to call them as well. I can’t wait to see how they blame Logitech for the issue.

Happy New Year.

We are finally home from Portland after almost two weeks and it really feels good.

Tonight I noticed something about the choice of where one spends their time. Ben and I watched Saving Private Ryan tonight and that was time well spent. But after, when I had gotten ready for bed, I asked myself what I wanted to do… did I want to watch the home and garden channel or did I want to read a book that I need to read for class this Spring. All of a sudden it occurred to me, I was choosing between my home and my education. My stereotyped role as a woman and the role that I have chosen for myself.

I suppose they are both my chosen roles, but you know what I mean.

Now I know that this must have come up before… I chose to read for class instead of vacuum; I chose to write a paper instead of doing the dishes… but now I’m thinking what a funny dilemma for me to have had when my husband is usually more domestically minded than I am.

I think this is what saves the situation. That, and the fact that what I really want to do is read my book. I find HGTV is really more of a zoning out activity for the end of the day when Ben is on his computer and I’m needing to rest, but not to sleep.

So the book it is. A murder mystery actually by an author that I have already read and did not like. The main reason was that he overuses metaphor. For example:

“The man’s coat was as red as the evening sunset. As he walked down the avenue, crooked as his own wrinkles, he stopped and stared at the poster, like a man staring at his own fate…”

Blah, blah, blah… that was me and not the actual book, but you get the idea. There are probably metaphors in ever sentence or at least ever other. After a while it stops becoming descriptive writing and starts to just be annoying.

But anyway, a girl is killed and a good cop, among a bunch of corrupt cops, tries to find the bad guy while searching for the meaning of life. His own daughter disappeared and his wife is dead, so he is alone and mainly works and then goes home to contemplate what life is about. I don’t have a favorite character so far and I’m about 100 pages in; we all know that’s not a good sign. Like the author’s writing, the main character is also annoying and all the others are too innocent, not innocent enough, or dead.

I did just finish The Color Purple, another book for class in the Spring. While disturbing, I did find that I loved this book. I have always enjoyed Alice Walker. The book, also a movie, won the Pulitzer Prize. As I began reading, I wanted to know what made it that kind of novel.

The book is epistelary, written in letters to God and others, and as I read it I began to see the subtle skill and direction that Walker has, that I’ve noticed in her other works. She is a poet, even with the most delicate and horrific subjects. She has a way with writing, with words, that deserves an award.

So I’m home, off to read my book and maybe to write a little myself.

I haven’t been around much lately, but I’ve been busy trying to get back into the swing of whatever it is you swing into after traveling from Spokane to Portland to Ashland, OR to Sacramento, CA to Ashland, OR to Portland to Spokane in 10 days.

In other news, the rumors are true…Ralph got me a dual G5 2.0Ghz! Her name is Georgia and Katie already is jealous of our time together. This computer is SUPER FAST and I have no complaints at all about performance.

More to follow when I’m more coherent