Mishmash Musings

I was reading something about Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) today, and was kind of shocked to see this figure: according to a recent Social Security Administration (SSA) study, a 20-year-old worker has a 3-in-10 chance of becoming disabled before reaching retirement age. That’s a 30 percent chance, which means that almost one in three people will become disabled to some degree. Wow, that’s pretty frightening!

If this does happen, you can of course get Social Security disability insurance from the federal government — provided you can navigate through all the red tape and paperwork required to start receiving benefits. I know a couple people who have tried applying for SSDI, and pretty much gave up on the whole ordeal because they simply couldn’t get everything in order.

Seriously, this is kind of a scary knowing that I have a 30 percent chance of becoming disabled. And then I might not even receive the benefits that I’m entitled to just because of paperwork snafus? If something catastrophic ever happens to me or my husband, I would probably go to a company like Allsup for help. They provide social security disability representation, and boast a 97% success rate in getting benefits for people who go through the process with them. That’s comforting to know, especially when my family’s very livelihood would be at stake.

I’ve already begun the grad school application process, and boy, is it a lot of paperwork! Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if I hadn’t attended 6 (yep, that’s s-i-x) different schools on my way to obtaining a Bachelor’s degree. That means I have to fill out transcript request forms for all those different places, which is absolutely nuts. Plus, trying to remember my approximate dates of attendance for each is driving me crazy as well. I began my college career nearly 20 years ago, so it’s not as easy to come up with this info as you might think!

Besides the transcript request forms, I have to ask three people for recommendations, and of course write my Personal Statement. There’s no specified length for the statement, but most resources recommend writing between 1-2 pages, so that’s what I’ll aim for.

As I mentioned before, I’m not applying to a highly competitive program or anything like that, so the application process isn’t exactly rigorous. But it is tedious, which makes me want to finish as soon as possible!

Now that I’ve pretty much made up my mind to apply to grad school, I’ve got to think about replacing my laptop. The one I have now is five years old, and since it was a cheapo Gateway model to begin with, it’s really not fit for serious use. Plus, it’s positively sluggish by today’s standards and extremely bulky to boot. Can you tell that I don’t like it much?

Well, I decided to get a jump on my laptop search by checking out Buy.com tonight. While I was on the site, I saw this awesome Toshiba Satellite on sale for just $699.95 with free shipping. That might sound expensive at first, but when you consider all the features and the fact that the suggested retail price for the machine is a whopping $1199, then you realize what a terrific deal it really is. Yep, we’re talking 41% off the MSRP… wow!!

So what makes this Toshiba Satellite worth buying? It comes with a lightning-fast 2.2 GHz AMD Processor, 2GB RAM (expandable to 4GB), 250GB hard drive, 15.4-inch display, DVD Super Multi optical drive for movies and games, and a whole lot more. It even comes with a fingerprint reader, which sounds very high-tech and James Bond-like to me!

I’ve read some really great reviews from people who have bought — and loved — Toshiba Satellite laptops, so when I get around to making a purchase, you better believe this is the one I’ll get!

Well, I got a phone call from the recruiter at that company I interviewed at about 6 weeks ago. It turns out that I didn’t get my dream job after all. The recruiter was very polite about the whole thing and actually sounded truly apologetic when he said that they went with someone else for the position, but that didn’t do much to take the sting out of the rejection. I wanted that job more than you know.

On the bright side, I guess I should be happy that I still have my old job to go to. Indeed, I had to work there today to cover for someone who was sick, and I have to say that I approached my tasks with renewed energy and appreciation. I’d been mentally pulling away from the place ever since interviewing for the other position, but now that I know I have to stay, I’m out to do my best again.

I am pretty bummed about how this all played out. Perhaps it would have been easier to swallow had I heard about the rejection a little sooner after the interview. But six long weeks of uncertainty, hoping, speculating, what ifs, etc… it really took a mental toll on me. I know I’ll bounce back in a few days, but for now, I’m allowing myself to wallow a bit!

I’m thinking about it. I’ve been looking at a few different M. Ed. programs, and have come up with a short list of schools that I’d like to apply to. I don’t need a fancy name on my degree or anything like that. I’m going for convenience and value here, really.

The programs I’ve singled out have requirements that I already meet or exceed, so I wouldn’t have to go out of my way to prep for the application. Furthermore, no GRE is required, which is a biggie for me, as I would have to prep for at least six months just for the math portion. Obviously we’re not talking about competitive, Tier 1 programs here since no GRE is necessary, but as I said, I’m just looking for the degree first.

I’ve sent out a couple of email inquiries already, and depending on the answers I receive, could start the application process as early as next week. The deadline is May 1, so I can’t dally too much about this. I’m kind of excited at the prospect of being back in school again… I hope this works out!

My back hurt so much last night that I ended up sleeping on the floor. Our mattress is just too old, but we can’t afford to replace it right now. It sags in the middle and doesn’t give me nearly the amount of support I need. I would love to be able to get a sleep number bed, but who knows when we’ll have enough cash for that.

I actually don’t feel too bad after having slept on the floor. The bedroom is carpeted, so the surface is very firm without being too hard. I put an old blanket down first to use as a “mattress” and then just crashed right on top of that. I was still a bit sore when I woke up, but I wasn’t stiff or anything, which was definitely progress. This is not a long-term solution though, so I do need to find a way to get a new bed!

Apparently, traffic has gotten so bad at the Warrington Bank Quay train station in England that the station operators decided to post a No Kissing sign to deter drop-offs from lingering too long in the pass-thru lane. Instead, if you plan on kissing your loved one before sending him or her off to work, you’ve got to go to the short-term parking section. Does the sign actually work to deter would-be kissers and speed things along? I have no idea, but at least they’re trying something!

Isn’t it funny how the commonest item can just set you off on a trip down memory lane? I was rooting around in one of my closets today, and came across a couple of old Latin textbooks from high school. As I was flipping through the pages, I saw lots of notes in the margins. But not notes on the lecture or anything like that. No, these were notes that I was writing to my friend who sat next to me in class. We’d write in our books so we could have “conversations” without the teacher catching on.

So anyway, I have my half of all kinds of conversations in my book here. They say things like “That’s so nasty!” or “Did you hear about Katie and Mark?” I can only imagine what those comments were about.

I spent about an hour with that book, remembering the various people from my class. We had some good times in Latin…!