Sunday, April 19, 2009

Stressed Out in McLeod Ganj

Hey everyone, how's it going out there???

Well, after Deer Park we took a taxi to McLeod Ganj, right by Dharamsala, which I touched on a little bit in the last post. A lot of people in my group are loving it and loving the homestays, I am definitely not. It's just stress central on soooo many levels. I decided not to stay on longer - for a lot of reasons, and so I'll be going home on the regularly scheduled group flight, which should be fun. It's kind of a bummer not to be staying but I am also so ready to be home, to not be around zillions of people all the time (that's one of the things that bugs me most about the homestays, barely a moment of privacy or time to myself at all, ever, it's making me crazy), and to chill out.

And then there is the college deal - I've heard from and been accepted at all the schools I applied to, except there is one more I have yet to hear from, and they all want deposits in like, ten days. YIKES! There are a lot of things complicating that, like one school hasn't told me if I got into my program (and that is really the only reason I want to go there, it'd be a definite deal-breaker), and I'm having a lot of trouble accessing financial aid package info from all of them. That is obviously a key factor in my decision and so I've just been spending hours each day emailing with schools and trying to see how I can get my fin aid info, but a lot of it is leading to dead ends and is just super frustrating. I feel like so much of my time and my energy this past month has been geared towards trying to figure this all out and work something out before these deposits are due, and it's just been an endless ring fo frustration that feels like it is really detracting, more and more, from my time here in India, and is a big part of why I decided not to stay longer. I don't want to lose my spot at any of these schools and it is hard to do any sort of ranking (like say, mail in deposits to a few top choices) b/c I just have no idea what the aid looks like! AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!! It makes me want to scream most days.

It sucks too b/c I worked my ass off so hard to get everything done before I left, get every freakin' form and piece of paperwork done. Tons of forms and photocopies and scholarship applications and essays, so I guess it feels like I worked like hell to get all my ducks in a row so I wouldn't have to worry about this in India, and now it's like I'm spending hours every day in front of a computer screen, trying to find ways to access info and running in circles! I am goign to ask the schools for an extension so I can look at everything once I get home, and call during normal hours and all of that, so we'll see how that goes!

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