An End in Sight

Friday morning at around 3am, I was coughing and sneezing my sickly head off and was checking my mail. What I found was an email from UCSB saying a decision had been made regarding my application - I've been accepted!

I'm so excited and proud of myself! And a little in shock. To be honest, I really had my doubts about whether I'd make it in or not, what with being out of school for nearly 4 years and not really knowing what I was doing with all my application stuff. I'm assuming my statement of purpose was okay, since I got in and all, but to this day, I still don't really get statements of purpose. I thought mine was kinda crappy, truth be told. But, you know, I got in, so I must've said something to get their attention. Hooray!

This marks a HUGE change in our lives. I'll finally be quitting my job by the end of this summer (wahoo!), which is an enormous relief. I don't think I could have withstood another whole year of that crap, especially with a cubicle-mate who seriously drives me frickin' bananas and petty colleagues in other states always at the ready to backstab anybody who doesn't do things their way. Also, on top of me quitting my job, Sam should hopefully have an easier time of finding himself a job. *knock on wood* Universities should be less prejudiced against hiring disabled people (everybody says they're an equal opportunity employer, but it's not true at all, in our experience), and they should also have more adaptive technology at their disposal. So, we're hoping that with luck and careful planning on our parts, we can get Sam a full-time job at the university. I think that will bring Sam some much-needed fulfillment in his life too, and that prospect excites me almost more than me going back to school.

But even though this whole thing is just everything we could ever realistically hope for, the prospect of going to grad school is also terribly frightening, and I've really got to fight those momentary pangs of panic. Grad school is a not only a huge change but also a HUGE commitment, and my stupid worrywort head of mine keeps wondering if maybe I'm going to grad school for the wrong reasons. Or maybe it's not right for me, or I'll be getting in over my head, or I've lost so much of my Japanese that I'll be really behind. (Yes, I'm neurotic.) What if I spend all this money on grad school then find out I'm pretty much in the same situation I was in when I graduated college - thousands of dollars in debt and without direction or a reasonable job in mind to repay all those loans? This is an enormous leap of faith I'm taking here, and the fact that there's so much at stake really scares the crap out of me. I keep reminding myself that I don't know what I'd do otherwise, and I'm doing this so I won't be floundering around anymore in a dead-end job that I hate. And if grad school cost half as much as it does, I would be comfortable with that. But... gosh, that's a lot of money. I know people go into grad school needing loans on top of loans and pay them back for years and years, but all that debt totally freaks me out.

Still, despite all those fears, I'm really excited. There were a lot of dreams I was afraid I'd never get to, and this is an opportunity to make them happen. And once Sam finds a full-time job and I find a part-time job, most of our living expenses should be covered, so maybe the money situation won't be as bad as I'm making it out to be. And I may not have been doing well on my resolutions, but the important goals - getting rec letters, preparing my statement of purpose, studying for the GRE, submitting applications, doing taxes, submitting the FAFSA - they have all been completed in record time, and I'm proud of myself for that too. Now that I've got my first acceptance letter (Maybe I'll get into Berkeley! Who knows?), hopefully that will help me with new goals, like relearning Japanese grammar, vocab, and kanji. It feels great to be actually fulfilling my goals, and it's such a relief to know there's an end in sight for this rut that I've been stuck in.