So family and friends, here I am. None of you have really heard from me or even seen me in the past 6 months or so. Sorry about that. Work, school, and life have kind of gotten in the way of me having any kind of social life. Social life… huh, I had almost forgotten what that meant. So what have I been doing? Last I updated I told you I had started at Kate Spade. I am still working there, just got my 90 day bangle for working in the company for more than 90 days. Yay. I really do love my job. It is so rare to work somewhere where you actually like and enjoy 100% of your co-workers. I would hang out with all of them from the 19 year old college sophomore to the 60+ year old with a kid in his 30s and everyone in between. So that is wonderful. Also Kate Spade is just fabulous and filled with such pretty things. Pretty things that I get a discount on and that look amazing on me. My nickname in the store is Kate Spade Barbie. I am constantly told by customers that the dress/shirt/skirt I have on looks better on me than on the mannequin. That helps boost a girls self esteem. That makes me happy and a happy Kristina is a productive Kristina.
Well, kind of. I hit a big bump in the road last year. I started to feel really, really off in October. I was sleeping a lot, my joints really hurt, I felt very not right. So I went to urgent care. They ran a bunch of blood tests because I had recently been in Indonesia and they wanted to rule out the big scary things like Hepatitis first. I don’t have any of those by the by. So I went to see a family doctor. Who then sent me to see a rheumatologist. He took a bunch of little bottles (19 to be exact) of my blood and sent them off to be tested. Some things came up positive but then the confirming tests came up negative. So? Well the answer is waiting a while and then running the tests again. Hooray. Because it is possible I have something along the lines of lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, or some kind of immune disorder. So I’ve been in and out of the doctors, on and off of pills, and mostly in bed. However, with the exception of Monday-Today I have been much more active with the help of some Chronic Fatigue Syndrome meds. This Monday might have been a flare up of symptoms because I slept all Monday and all Tuesday. No really, I slept 18 hours Monday and 21 hours on Tuesday. That is too much sleep. TOO MUCH. So I head back to the doctor in early Feb. so we will see what he says. I’m pushing through and have been getting a lot more work done in 2013 than I did in late 2012. So AMEN!
Something I did get accomplished in the fall was applications to several conferences and grant awards. And a majority of them came back very positive. I will be presenting at the East West Center’s International Graduate Conference in February (the 14th-16th) at the University of Hawai’i. I will be presenting on the history and future of female dalang in Java, Indonesia. I’m very excited to test this paper out in my home town. Why so excited? Because I will be taking it to Macau, China in June. Hopefully, one more grant will come through and the airline ticket will be paid by UH. My friend Yining will also be going and I am super excited to go to the International Convention of Asian Scholars Conference with this paper. It will be a great chance to meet new people, spread information about my research topic, and network. It’ll be great. Also a great friend form undergrad is moving to Macau soon and he will be there in February! I’ll get to hang out with him for the first time in years and in Macau! Hooray! I also got into two other conferences for papers (not including the one in October I missed because I was so sick… sad…) one at Cornell University and one in Bangkok, Thailand. I couldn’t afford the one in Cornell. For a short grad student conference with little hope of major networking it wasn’t worth it to wear myself out. Even though I really wanted to go, it would have looked good on my CV (resume for academics), and I would have seen a few friends from Indonesia… I just couldn’t swing it. As for the one in Bangkok, I had to choose between the one in Macau and Bangkok. The Macau conference is larger, I get to go with and split costs with a friend, and it happens at the right time. The Macau conference is at the end of June. So it would be right before I head to Indonesia and right at the end of my time at Kate Spade. I wouldn’t have to take time off work or off my research in Indonesia. It just fit better. So ta-da! Macau it is! It will be a traveling Tannenbaum in another part of Asia. Who wants a post card?
Another very, VERY exciting thing I got accomplished in the Fall was my application for the Fulbright US Student Grant. This is a very prestigious grant that would cover all of my costs (sans gifts for you people and a short trip to Bali) for 10 months of my study in Indonesia. It would be amazing to get this grant. It is a very trusted organization with strong ties in Indonesia and many, many other countries across the world. It would look A-FREAKING-MAZING on my CV and could help lead me so many places after graduation. I would forever be a Fulbright scholar. That whole concept just blows my mind. So I started the application in May and finished in October. Ya, it was a doozy. I had an interview with an on campus evaluation team (A professor in my field, a past Fulbright scholar, and the head Fulbright advisor) who asked me questions about my application and my future goals. They then gave me wonderful tidbits and information that I could tweak and refine on my application before I actually submitted it. They were great and very helpful. Then I submitted it to the National Screening Committee of the Institute of International Education (IIE)! Woo. Then I kind of forgot about it. Till the 15th when I happened upon a forum that was all about the Fulbright award and a place for those who had applied to vent/talk about the award. I then discovered that the deadline to hear back from the IIE committee if you made it past the first screening was Jan. 31st. Then I started to worry. Then I read that ta-da they normally send out the announcements earlier than that and they would for sure be sending them out the 17th or 18th. AAA! Let me step back and explain for a moment. There are two sections to the Fulbright Award. The Full Research section (what I applied for where they cover your research for 10-12 months in a given country) and the ETA section (those who are applying to teach English in a given country for 10-12 months). For each section there are two levels. In the first level the National Screening Committee of the IIE takes the around 9,500 applications and narrows it down. They narrow it to 1.5 to 2 times the applications for the amount of grants they have for each country. IE: for Indonesia they have 10 grants so they narrowed it down from 40 to 15-20 applicants for Indonesia. Or for China they have 60 grants available so they would cut it from 164 applications to 90-120 applications. After you have made it past the first round the IIE Committee sends the applications off to the individual countries. Each country has a bi-national committee that pics the grant winners out of the finalists. For Indonesia they take it from 15-20 down to 10. LONG STORE SHORT: The IIE cuts down the applicants to a small number each country can handle. Then each country makes the final choices based on how many grants (how much money) they have to give away. Whooo. That is a lot of information. Sorry. However….
I made it past the first round!
Yay! So Even if they picked double the amount of applicants to send to Indonesia I have a 1 in 2 chance of getting the grant. Maybe better. I’m really excited. I was trying not to get my hopes up too high… but… the hopes are up. Damn. So now the countries have from February to about June 1st to let people know. Why the large timeframe? Because some countries take more time, have more applicants, etc. So there ya go. Let the waiting games begin. Sigh. It makes me a little sick from the nerves… so do me a favor and don’t ask about it. I’ll let y’all know when I get declined or if I get it. If I get it y’all might be able to hear me scream from the mainland.
While I wait I still have a few distractions: work, language comprehension exam in mid February, dissertation proposal defense in March, comprehensive exams (scary 9 question test over all of theatre… ya…) in April, and of course general preparations for a trip to Indonesia in July come hell or high water. Although pray for no high water. Tsunamis scare me. Less than tornados… but that is not the point here.
I’ll give you more updates, news, and super exciting information about the world of translating and Asian theatre are time goes on.
Love you all,
Kristina
A Christmas Tree in Asia 