Limbo

I know it has been a long, long time since we have posted anything. Now I cannot speak for my sisterly half but I have been waiting so long to post because I wanted some real news to blog about and I have been in application limbo for the last several weeks. Now this application limbo is not the "how low can you go?" kind of limbo where you dance under a stick. This is the "wait a long time to hear anything back from your grad school and then when it looks like you are going to find something out have that thing be that you will have to wait even longer" kind which is a lot harder to say and a whole lot less fun to do. Because this does not appear to be likely to change anytime soon I will now show you into my own little limbo.

Now first a word about this limbo. It is not the peaceful kind where you just sit and wait and relax; the safe and boring kind. This is the kind of limbo where just when you think everything is nice and steady something comes along and sets off a loud shrill warning siren.

First off, when I got back to the UW after an amazing Christmas vacation introducing my girlfriend/preance Alexandra to the family I checked my email only to discover that one of the people I had asked for a letter of reference had trouble figuring it out. I had to scramble around to make sure it got out soon as mail takes forever to get to Canada. (Alexandra and I sent each other Valentine's cards at the end of January and have just now recently received them; mine on Friday and Alexandra today) There is a website for checking the status of your application so after my source sent out my letter and my pulse returned to non-aneurysm levels I checked it out. It said they had nothing of mine. Needless to say we were very upset as the deadline was a week away and it seemed like somehow nothing had made it through. After emailing the professor in charge of the admissions I was relieved to find out that they hadn't updated it in a long time and sure enough by the end of the week I was all finished.

It sounds like all should have been calm and quiet in limbo, and for the most part it was for a while. I was supposed to hear back somewhere in the late 20s of January. So we waited. And waited. And waited. Which is really all there is to do in limbo. The last day they said we would supposedly hear back passed without one word from the department. After even more panicking Alexandra found out from some friends who were both applying for PhDs there and in the know that they had a lot of applicants and were taking a long time to decide and call everyone, especially people in exotic foreign lands like Seattle. Even so they would email me before they called but there was still no email.

Another week or two passed. We were getting restless again. Finally Alexandra and I could wait no longer and so she asked her teacher who also happened to be in charge of organizing the admissions (also someone whos work I greatly respect and admire by the way) and she said I was at the top of the short list. In other words if anyone turned them down I would be one of the first to fill their spots. She told us not to worry too much and to be "moderately hopeful". We have received a few more bits of news and gossip here and there and things are actually looking pretty positive. We are still in limbo now.

So after all of that waiting and scramnling around getting an application together we are still here in limbo. At least now it looks like we are entering the safe boring part. I for one am happily putting up my feet, enjoying a nice refreshing glass of tea and letting out a long and contented ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh of relxation. Let's hope we stay in this comfortable place until they tell us fore sure what is going on.