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.