ChipIn -- The Donation Counter

A friend of mine directed me to a website called ChipIn which allows people to donate towards a cause electronically via Payal. In this case, the "cause" as it may be is to fund my education. Chances are very few that anyone will contribute at all, but I decided that it's worth a shot to at least set one up and put it on this blog (invisible and uninteresting as it may be). I've also crossposted it to my Facebook, but again, I'm not confident that it will receive any attention at all.

Getting out those letters!

It certainly seems silly to spend money that you don't have in order to get more money, but I suppose that's how life goes!

I've a stack of letters for sponsorship that I'll be sending out by next week. They're almost all ready to go, I just have to print out the last few... 

And by "the last few" I mean the last two hundred. Between postage and printing, I feel really frazzled, but I'm hoping it will all be worth it! :) 

Aside from that, I've finally managed to finish my personal statement for the UCAS. I must have rewritten it at least fourteen times. I know I scrapped it and completely started over from scratch a tiring total of six times!

I'm now keying in the very last bit of my qualifications and then it's OVER!!! For the middle of November, I think that's not too bad even though I've been working on it since September.... (actually, who am I kidding? That's pretty bad! Translating between American school terminology and that of the UK is absolutely boggling).

And now comes the agonizing wait. I'm already chewing my nails with worry... I'm certain that Americans really do have that "uneducated" stigma attached to them, and UWE is such a great school with so many international students coming in all the time... I know I have what it takes, but I'm still so worried that I just won't make the cut! Urrghhh, I don't even want to THINK about finding a rejection letter in the post... I would feel very much as if I'd want to die! 

Equally worrying is (as always) the idea of funding this endeavor. As an individual prospective student, it's remarkably difficult finding legit ideas for fundraisers that interfere with neither the law nor the local schools or churches. I've a few ideas, though, courtesy of this website, so we'll see how that goes! 

Until then...!

It's here!

After a month of waiting, my new passport arrived two days ago. You can see the old one on the left -- the State government's clipped it and removed all the electronics, so it's virtually useless now but a nice little momento. The new one is on the right, and it's a little different from the old one! Whether that's because it's a newer version or one for adults, I'm not yet sure...

But that's it! I have everything I need to put my UCAS through the system. I do still need to contact my old professor and see how that reference is coming along, but hopefully it's something I can get within the next week. I've also rewritten my personal statement about five times now, and I'm still not entirely satisfied with its strength and presentation. If I have to, I'll keep going over it until I and my familial team of read-and-reviewers can't find any flaws anywhere.

I'm kind of crossing my fingers and biting my cheek, hoping that mid-October is still an acceptable time to submit the UCAS. I think January is the official cut-off month, but I was rather hoping to impress by appearing ready and in-control earlier than this!

Funding is probably my largest problem aside from actually getting accepted into the university. Most of my friends have pushed me to ask relatives for money, but I'm hesitant to let others do the work for me. I want to get to England on my own effort, even if I'm not so stubborn that I can't recognize that I might need a little help along the way. I've been pet-sitting and dog-walking for the past few months, but I'm holding off on really buckling down and striving towards super money-making plans until I've been accepted (or not, however it works out... but I can't express how much I really hope I'm accepted!). This is mostly because the sum of the three-years-long degree and living costs whilst staying in England will be a whopping $110,000.

The good news is that this final cost includes plane tickets, personal/travel insurance, and the passport/visa costs. The bad news is that I would have to be a very successful business person (and not a fresh out of community college 20 year old!) to make that much in a year -- let alone in a few months! Scholarships and grants are nearly impossible to find, and unfortunately I've found that those available do not apply to my situation (I was never directly affected by 9/11, I'm not a post-graduate student, etc.), so I'm embarrassingly relying on fundraisers and sponsorships for the majority of the cost. Whatever's left over, I do intend to get a loan for (urk! Never thought I'd see the day I'd willingly get myself into debt!). Since I am hoping to get sponsorships and such, I'd like to have proof of my acceptance to show to sponsors and donators so they'll know the effort isn't a scam, hence the wait until the university's decision on my acceptance.

I'd be lying if I said it wasn't stressful, that I have no doubts that I'll be accepted or be able to raise that kind of funding, or that I'm not at all worried about the journey as well as the outcome. But I have no doubts that just trying like I am is worth it, whatever the results, and I'm certain that I'll continue to try my best and push myself past my best whenever and wherever I can.

In The Meantime

Since there's really nothing else I can do except wait for my passport to come in, I've been doing loads of research on student life within the U.K., especially as it applies to foreigners.

There are loads of things I've discovered so far, and it's really satisfying to be able to answer every question that anyone's thrown at me so far. For instance, I now know that do qualify under the NHS for limited services since I'll be a student for longer than six months.. and that's a relief since American health care insurance is insanely priced and is only getting more expensive thanks to the new Obamacare system.

Then there are the student discounts and such and so on, but that's all the really lovely stuff that's nice to look at. I wanted to know even the nitty gritty side -- like if an apple costs $5 or something like that (which thankfully it doesn't). Still, there are a lot of things to learn about every-day life in the UK that normally wouldn't cross a person's mind... like the idea of 6 o'clock tea, how late dinner is eaten, the fact that Pop Tarts and Kraft Mac n' Cheese cannot be found (oh, dear...), etc., just to name a few. Then there are manners and etiquette, accents to think of, the differences in language -- not just in spelling, but in usage... I've never had to use the word "queue" in my life, but I'm definitely going to try using that now instead!

Likely the most important thing I've been learning about is the UK's university grading scale. Imagine my surprise when I found that a 70+ mark is supposedly difficult to attain when a 70 is the lowest possible passing grade available in the US. Then there were the honours -- Firsts, Upper Second, Lower Second, Third, pass, and a spare for Oxbridge (a useful term I hadn't known until reading up on all this)... These are so very different from the American ideas of graduating with honours that I was a little stunned, especially because of the weight they carry not only in advancing to further degrees but in the chances of finding a respectable career! After comparing my current grades with a chart found on wikipedia (thank you, wiki!), I've found that I'm currently performing at the Upper Second Level. That's a relief, but I will definitely be aiming for First Level Honours.

Another thing I've been a little iffy on is finding my way around the UK. While I've been memorising maps and practising manoeuvering around using Google Maps (hey, technology is pretty great), I still haven't figured out how the UK goes about naming their, er... areas. There's a Bristol inside Bristol which is apparently in Avon but not anymore, and inside the first-level (third-level?) Bristol are even more areas like South Gloucestershire. The easiest way I can think to describe this is by putting them in American terms...
There's the city of Bristol, inside a county (such as South Gloucestershire) inside of a State (Bristol again)... only I think the UK calls it States "counties" and I've no idea what goes on from there. It's all very mind-boggling because it's the same language but still so incredibly different. If anyone cares to explain this to me (because I can't find the dratted explanations on wiki or Google), I would certainly be most appreciative!

Lastly (although this is not the least of my findings), I've discovered just how many regional accents and dialects there are in England, and I am alarmed. For such a teeny tiny little country, there certainly a lot of different ways to say things. And as concerned as I am with blending in so as not to offend anyone with cultural gaffes, I'm hesitant to throw myself into adopting a Bristol accent for fear of getting it wrong and offending someone. However, as charming as an accent might be, I'm not certain anyone would want to hear an American's southern country twang ringing in their ears for too long. So I've been practising the Bristolian accent in private, and it sounds all right to me, but then I'm just a silly American who probably can't pick up on the mistakes anyway.

Depression-Turned-Determination!

Sometimes people get discouraged... really easily. And sometimes, I'm that easily-discouraged person. Over the past week, I flip-flopped over the wisdom in my decision to attend university in England so much that I decided: "What the heck, I just can't do it!"


Future debt, my parents' debt, and my kitty-missing days all conspired against me to make me think that, hey, maybe an education overseas isn't all it's cracked up to be.


And then Jiminy Cricket  kicked me in the pants and I realized the following:

• If I didn't go now, when would I? Will I be any freer or abler to waltz out of this country than I am now, and would I be able to enjoy it more than now? How can I know... if I don't try?
  
• ... I haven't even started trying! That's right... I was so put off by a little negative thinking that I never even got around to submitting my passport application! How lame is that?

With these new thoughts in mind, I've decided to STOP DOUBTING and just go for it! Of course, I had already been so upset that I went shopping... The downside to shopping as therapy is that it's hard to stop spending once you start, and I shopped so much that I had completely depleted what little funding I'd saved up... or so I thought! Somehow I'd completely forgotten that I had another little bank account... and boy did it advance with interest.

So after a week's worth of plotting and planning and just plain getting myself together, I attempted to get my passport yesterday...

And hit a little stint. Walmart's passport photos weren't the best, and the courthouse turned me away with a nice little "Bless you!" -- a parting (or thankful) phrase common down here in the south -- to the retreating figure of personified bafflement. This morning I tried again... but alas, still no luck! I'd refunded the first two photos from Walmart, but even the third photo just wasn't right... First there was too much shadow, then the head is too small, now it's too big and the face is too washed out...

Annoyed and without any sort of make up (but not to be dispirited), I trucked on over to the local CVS, which was luckily just installed in our town about three months ago, and within a whopping five minutes had a working photo. CVS did charge a little more ($8.55 after tax in comparison to Walmart's $7.86 after tax), but for their speed and accuracy they definitely beat out Walmart in the passport photo department any day.

After nabbing the photo, I rushed A to her work and turned in my application to the courthouse near her work (two towns over), and was floored by the fees they charge... after getting lost a few times. There was the standard $140.00 for a new passport book and card since I was a minor the last time I ordered either, the $25.00 service charge paid out to the courthouse, and then there was an extra charge for postage ($6.00) and an extra charge simply for paying them (it was under a dollar, but still, I kid you not!). I found myself wondering why I didn't simply mail off the application myself -- I could have possibly saved myself a neat forty dollars had I done so.

So, things accomplished today? I:

• Sent out my passport application. Finally.
  
• Called FSU and asked about deferring my enrollment until the latest summer semester simply to buy some time. FSU doesn't defer admissions, by the way. If I decide to go, I'll have to reapply -- which seems a little silly, considering UWE can and will defer enrollment if you've already been accepted .
  
• Struggled through the UCAS as much as possible (and found a referee for it as well, thank goodness!)
  
• Wrote a few rough drafts for potential sponsorship letters, and
  
• Read through the British Council's pages on studying in the UK, plus affiliated links... again. 

... Is that really it? Phew, it certainly feels like a lot more! 

Now all that's left is to wait until my passport arrives so that I can finally (finally!) submit my UCAS application, but in the weeks that it'll take I'll continue to research, work, pinch pennies and do all I can to make sure I get to UWE. 

Lost in translation?: A quest in the maze that is UCAS

Nearly everyone who speaks English knows that, as British author Oscar Wilde once said, the US and the UK are countries "separated by a common language." Never were words so true!

It's been a ridiculous amount of effort running around trying to renew a passport (it should have been easy, right...? Wrong! Leave it to a tiny town to get everything backwards and confused.). 

In the meantime, I've been steadily filling out my UCAS application. The UCAS is sort of a third-party site that seems to be mandatory when applying to most universities within the UK. Unlike American schools, you don't send your application directly through to your schools of choice (and pay mega bucks to do so), but rather you can select up to five schools to apply to for a ridiculously low price of £21 or even just £11 if you've only got your heart set on one school. Compare that to the $30+ fees it takes to submit just one application to just about any university in the U.S., and you start to realize that maybe the UK is doing something right, here! 

Still, I was thrown for several loops when confronted with this enigma. What on earth constitute as qualifications? What do you mean, I don't have to send every single transcript of every higher education institution I've ever been to? Can it really be that simple?

Not if you have no idea what they're talking about! Translating from UK university-speak and applying it to American school terms (and vice versa, for that matter) is a task that has both my and my UWE-based advisor's heads spinning. In fact, after so much time spent staring at these familiar-but-foreign terms and conditions, I felt completely incompetent and drained (as any kick to the ol' pride will do).

Starting the Trip ... Here at Home!

It's no surprise to anyone who knows me that I have a thirst for foreign education. Since I was small, I desperately wanted to study abroad. I joined up with an exchange student program, AFS, during high school in hopes of attending a Japanese 高校 (koko, or "high school"), but at the last minute I changed my mind once I realized how deep into my parents' pockets I was digging. Do I regret that decision? A little! Who doesn't, in the words of Belle (from notorious Disney princess film Beauty and the Beast), "want adventure in the great wide somewhere"?

(You'll find that I use a lot of quotes from Disney... I think they're my inspiration!)

So now that I'm fresh out of community college and living in a tiny town with no job prospects, what's the first thing on my mind?

Gee, C, you never did go overseas to study! What a bummer! But there's still your BA degree.

Cue the University of the West of England (aka UWE, Bristol), entering stage left with spotlight whilst a narrator overhead reads "ranked top new University for successful research applications and is number one green University in the UK." If that doesn't impress you, UWE is also currently enjoying a nice cushy seat in the top five new universities and snagging the 59th spot in top-ranking universities (of which there are upwards of 100, not including the other hundred-something colleges of higher education that didn't quite make the cut set by the Privy Council. All of this is, of course, something gleaned from the Which University is Best blog here on blogspot.

UWE, pronounced you-we, sits in the southwestern city of Bristol, England -- an approximate 1.5 hour train-ride away from London. Of all its different majors and joint-majors programs, the one that interests me is the English with English Language joint-major.

Now, wait, I know what you're thinking! But don't worry; I don't plan on becoming a writer of any sort (aside from the casual blogging). I don't think I'm creative enough to be hashing out plot lines and coming up with character descriptions! Instead, I have my heart set on being an editor, where I can read for free and correct people's spelling and grammar (that doesn't mean that my own is flawless, though. After all, I'm still learning!).

Whilst most in my family will and do argue that I ought to stay here in the States and attend FSU's new Editing, Writing, and Media track, I can't find it in my heart to simply stay at home and content myself with the same old routine and the same old people. And anyway, where better to learn English than at its place of origin?

Is this yearning for the world foolish? Probably. Will I change my mind and actually end up at FSU? If I do, I hope it's for the right reasons. After all... I've made it this far without seeing the world, and I'm still young and untried. There's always my Master's degree if I want to study overseas. 


And that brings me to the purpose of this blog: my journey to the UK, one way or another, as a visitor or as a student, and the adventures that lie beyond.