Welcome to hell. Where tuition is only $30,000 a year.

I'm (almost) finished with grad school applications. My final school is the one I'm fairly certain will accept me, so one would think that I'd jump right on that bandwagon, right? Wrong. They require a very large check and have a much later deadline. So...we're going to wait until after the holidays...

They do not require quite as large a check as Northwestern requires. I'm applying to Northwestern because I think it's a pretty cool program. Terminal PhD, full tuition and living stipend, and the ability to wear a "Northwestern" sweatshirt unironically. Take away the 89-mile one-way commute and I'd be all set. However, I'm almost 100% positive that they won't accept me. Not necessarily because I'm unqualified (or because I had to use spell check to spell "necessarily"), but because they're pulling from a much larger and more prestigious pool than...oh...EVERY OTHER PLACE I'M APPLYING TO. So. There's that.

Nevertheless, there will probably be tears and large drinks when they do reject me. You won't hear about it for about three weeks, at which point I will have gotten over the humiliation and be able to turn it into an amusing blog post.

The cost for the application that they will most likely reject? $75. SEVENTY-FIVE. Look. I know it's not like a huge amount of money, but it kind of is, and it's a good 150% more than ANY OTHER FEE I'VE HAD TO PAY. And I'm applying to pretty much anyone with an application.

That's just adding insult to injury, Northwestern.

Meanwhile, today I did research in and "archive" that was, I'm not even kidding you, a file cabinet. Yeah. That was productive. I did, however, come to the conclusion that Moses Montefiore Synagogue? Looks like every '70s era Roman Catholic Church I've ever been in. And I also found out that the rabbi had a married daughter, a seventeen-year-old son, and a three-year-old. Wow. That three-year-old must have been a surprise.

I don't know what Northwestern wants if it isn't very important historical research like that.