Some (sorta) personal updates

Well, I don't like to make my blog very personal, but I thought I'd update my readers with some things going on in my life.

I. My Honours Thesis.

Well, I still believe that doing honours was a huge mistake, and for those McGill students reading this who may be considering this option, I would suggest otherwise (unless you have your thesis topic already thought out!). Of course, I was extraordinarily unlucky with personal issues which kinda destroyed my last semester (which need not be restated here), and then, when I was finally ready to get totally back into it, my Supervisor had to go on medical leave! In words of an advisor I went to see, I am swimming against a "shit stream".

This said advisor is actually one of my profs, and offered on the spot to take over as my supervisor. I guess this is a good thing, as she seems very willing to give guidance to my thesis, and to save it from utter destruction. However, it means that I am in it for the long haul, and I will likely have to completely rewrite everything I've already written. In short, I have one semester to do which is supposed to take two! It doesn't help of course that I just happen to have classes which require an exorbatant amount of readings this semester!

So this means, except for my Reading Week trip to Guatemala (in 4 weeks!), my life outside of school is virtually non-existent.... until, of course, the end of April!

II. Travels
As you could've already inferred, I am going to Guatemala over Reading Week! I am going by myself. Expect pictures on facebook!
I'm also seeing if I can work in a trip to South America / Easter Island sometime in Early May, but this may be tricky. I'll keep you posted!

III. Summer Internship
My most loyal readers may remember that I had the most difficult time finding a job last summer! Remember the big list of over 50 jobs I applied to? It took me until late July to find a job! Well, oddly enough, it's only January, and I've already found work for this upcoming summer! So... drum roll.... I'll be working with the US department of State! It's an unpaid internship of course, but should be an exciting experience. I prefer not to release more details about the job at this moment (I'll likely blog about it over the summer), but in the meantime, I am completing a rather extensive security clearance questionnaire. It would probably be quite unwise for me to mention the types of questions they are asking, but let's just sasy this has taken me quite a long time, and involves more than you might think!

IV. Beyond the summer.... grad school?
THE LIST
1) Nat'l University of Singapore (2 yr Masters): My top choice. An exotic/interesting location... great proximity for my research in Burma / travels in general.... no more winter..... quite generous with the financial Aid. These are all the reasons why I want to go to this school. I have turned in the application and everything, but I will not hear from them until at least around May. I have however had an interview with them (over the phone) back in December, during which they seemed optimistic about my chances.
2) University of Wisconsin-Madison (PhD): Probably my last choice.... but I've already completed the application. I may find out as early as March.... if I found out, it will be a good way to "bribe" the NUS people into letting me know quicker (ie, if UWM accepts me, I may have to let them know by a certain date, which actually may be before NUS would normally inform me of their decision).
3) School of Oriental and African Studies (1 yr taught masters)- University of London. I have not actually completed this application yet, but I will very soon... it's just a matter of me having the time to sit down and come up with some decent statement of purpose. Foruntatley, this application isn't actually due until June!
4) Leiden University - The Netherlands (1 yr taught masters) - See #3.

I was gonna apply to Cambridge, but I decided not to carry on with the application.

So that's where I stand now! Expect an update about all of this oh.... around March or April!