(Halfway) Around the World in One Day

And finally…the journey’s begun. I’m at the airport, waiting to board my fight to NYC via Abu Dhabi. It’s the middle of the night – kids and parents are dozing off alike, people are striding around purposefully with their strolley bags (none of them as pretty as my purple one though :P), and classical, or ‘plinky-plonky music’ as Phoebe from Friends would put it, is playing on the speakers, interspersed with announcements.

There are two more hours for my flight. I’ve said all my goodbyes… tons of them. It still feels very unreal; I got my visa just three days ago, after months of desperate hoping and praying. I’m going to miss my parents, my brother…a LOT. But I guess it hasn’t really sunk in yet – till the very last day I didn’t know if I’d be leaving on time!

Checking in two heavy bags (22.2 and 23.2 kilos – thankfully they didn’t make a fuss). They made me weigh my hand luggage as well, which turned out to be 7.5 kilos. I was holding my breath, hoping they wouldn’t say anything… but say they did, oh yes – “Perfect!” Umm… sure! 😛

Filled out my immigration form, stood in a long winding queue, talked to the lady in Marathi,  and went off for security check. Found my departure gate, bought a new book, spotted a really cute guy standing in the adjacent line, found myself a seat. Surrounded by 8 little kids who looked utterly adorable. Said so to one of the frazzled-looking moms sitting there… she said sure, they look adorable right now, ‘coz they’re fast asleep. 😀

It’s 3 A.M. and I’m not sleepy in the least. Bright-eyed, bushy-tailed… that’s how I feel! It’s really nice being in the middle of so many people – everyone from totally different walks of life, different backgrounds… all together in this place and time – everyone’s paths crossing and overlapping in weird and wonderful ways. A sea of humanity… swelling and cresting and seething – all waiting to take to the skies. Beautiful… deep down, we’re all connected. (Huh. Perhaps I’m sleepier than I thought…)

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In the Mumbai-Abu Dhabi flight. Insanely sleepy… fighting to keep my eyes open. Dozed off before the plane took off from the runway 🙂 Drifted in and out of consciousness. I managed to catch the sunrise out of the window… the sky all lit up with a fiery orange glow… maybe I was emotional after leaving my country, maybe I was excited to see the Middle East (I could have sworn I saw domes and minarets down below… but those could have been clouds) and maybe it was just one of the very rare sunrises I’ve seen in my whole life, but this one was one of the most magnificent sights I have ever seen.

After the transit at Abu Dhabi airport (which is extremely lavish… dripping with opalescence and grandeur), I got into the next flight (Abu Dhabi – New York) and busily set about exploring the contents of the small television in front of me. It was a nice flight, got lots of food to eat. Not that I liked it much, but it’s always a thrill to see what you’re going to get next 😛

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Landing: The first thing I did when the plane touched down on American soil was to silently cheer ‘woohoo… terra firma!!!’ in my head. The second thing I did when the plane touched down on American soil was to bleed from a papercut I managed to inflict on myself in my excitement. Sigh. Symbolism, anyone?

Alright, so I reached the airport and stood in a very very long line at Immigration for over two hours. Saw a lot of interesting people, tried not to stare! There was a girl with green hair, and one with bright blue streaks on her legs (paint? stickers? I have no idea). There was a guy who looked exactly like Sheldon Cooper from BBT, and two others who resembled Dr. Webber from Grey’s. The great thing is, it could actually be true. Running into celebrities and TV stars is not an impossibility in New York City.

Anyway, so after waiting in line for ages, I finally reached the immigration desk, and promptly tripped over my purple strolley bag. So much for the calm and collected exterior I’d been practicing for the past two hours… when I finally faced the immigration counter, I ended up all giggly and apologetic. Oh well.

Immigration, baggage claim, customs, and I was out at last. NYC, here I come!!!

Admissions – Part 2

I’m back … got my silver lining, and how! It’s bright and sparkly, almost dazzling … lighting up my whole sky … seared across my vision, even when I look away, down on the ground, watching my step, pruning my garden … I can’t help but be aware of the sparkle in my sky … it’s always there now … a constant, a beacon of happiness … right there, in the background, even if I’m not looking. This indeed is the loveliest lining of silver one can ever have.

Admissions season is over, and so are the long days of waiting – now is the time to exult, to rejoice, to jump up and down whooping in celebration. Or on a quieter note … to feel good about yourself, to thank your lucky stars, to keep smiling on the inside, knowing that something wonderful awaits you.

I got accepted, you see. I got into my dream school! And not only that, I got options – some really good options – and isn’t it simply fabulous to be able to make a choice and decide? To have several wonderful people wanting you to join their place … to be courted, wooed, coveted? It’s been amazing, and I have finally made my choice. And yes, right there … I’ve committed the next five years of my life! It’s terrifying and overwhelming at some level, but I’m mostly just really,  really excited. A whole new life, rich and varied, lies ahead of me. I know it won’t be an easy road – there’ll be obstacles, potholes, fallen trees – but oh, it’s a new un-trodden road … and I simply can’t wait to start on my journey.

So it’s true – every cloud DOES have a silver lining. Even when the clouds are dark and menacing, covering up the whole sky, blocking out every possible sliver of light … it’ll be there. Sooner or later, we will have our silver linings. And then we can fling away our umbrellas, lift our merry faces up to the heavens, and dance away in the rain. 🙂

Admissions – Part 1

Prisms may exist, but you can’t get rainbows without sunshine. It’s been a little cloudy, folks …

I always knew the grad school applications process would be stressful, but I never realized exactly HOW incredibly soul-crushingly gut-wrenchingly stressful it would turn out to be!

The exams … oh my goodness. They kept coming one after another, like a lineup of cold, emotionless controlled knights in midnight black armor, ready to slay me, ‘coz how dare I try to cross the borders! I swatted and deflected the blows, in some cases winning outright, in some, not so much, and a couple are still being battled out. I studied and prepared and did countless practice tests, and believe me, it took a lot of time and effort.

However, exams turned out to be child’s play in the entire duration of the application season. Giving exams is the one thing where I actually have some (or in this case, a LOT of) experience, and it is essentially clear-cut: you study, you prepare … and in the exam you can solve questions using standard tools and techniques, and a dash of common sense. The real complications arose when I started looking up schools and programs I would like to go to.

Here, there is no correct answer … no formulae, no constants, no helpful assumptions. If you want to figure out how to go about the process of applying, you are on your own. And the questions never end. How many schools should you apply to? Which schools should you apply to? How do you know a school is ‘safe’? How exactly do you judge one school’s program against the other, based on the information on their websites? Won’t every school be advertising and selling itself as the best? Should you go for a school’s reputation – apply to top places, or mediocre places are alright as long as you know that you will have a ‘good Ph.D. guide’, which is again solely based on his or her webpage?

You trawl through a myriad of murky questions with no clear-cut answers. The more people you ask, the more opinions you gather – the more confused you end up being.

Alright, so ultimately … you manage to make a decent list of places you have decided to apply to. Whew, what a relief. Barring all the second-guessing, you are good to go, and can actually start the application process. Smooth sailing? Oh no, the rough seas have just begun. This is where you start writing your statement of purpose, if you haven’t begun yet (and honestly, it really should have begun long before … two weeks before the first deadline is not the best time!). This is when you go around procuring transcripts, and calling up delivery services to post them off in the shortest possible duration of time. This is when you log onto the testing service sites and pay them ridiculous sums of money so that they can send your official test scores to all the schools you have shortlisted. This is when you make sure your referees are ready with your letters of recommendation. Along with all this, you start filling in copious and tedious details in the online application forms. And one way or the other, you always end up spending a lot more time on this that you’d think is necessary. This is the point when you realize that although you had finally ‘finalized’ your SoP, you need to add/edit/delete a million things for each school. If you are a persnickety being, this time is even tougher on you as you will obsess incessantly over every sentence, the construction, the flow, the commas, and spend forever making sure it ‘sounds right’.

And now for the checklist. Online form completed, transcripts posted, test scores mailed, receipt of reco letters confirmed … fees payment done … aaaaand … submit! Congratulations, it’s over! Apart from a few worries about whether your transcripts and scores have been received and acknowledged, your work is pretty much over. Now it’s out of your hands, and into those of the admissions committees. Step back, heave a sigh of relief, and change back your life’s status from distressed to de-stressed.

And wait for the silver lining.