A week ago I emailed my number one grad school choice to ask about their program requirements. Although I was afraid I was asking a stupid question, I received a very encouraging response.

Admission requirements include four classes, only one of which I have successfully completed. The others are not readily offered, and while there are two nearby universities that offer the classes, one is ridiculously hard to get into and the other is at an inconvenient distances. Not to mention costs involved.

I had spent the last two weeks pondering ways to get these classes I needed under my belt. I was (and maybe still am?) planning to attend a local state college (60 miles away) for three quarters to get five classes under me (one is a prereq for the classes I need and would be useful, the other is just a class I’m interested in). The costs involved is kind of ridiculous though, especially in terms of childcare. Altogether it would cost me about $20,000 to go that route.

The response from the grad school offered an additional option: attending Linguistic Society of America‘s (LSA) summer institute. It’s four week program that offers a variety of linguistics courses to help further develop linguistic knowledge. To my luck, they offer introduction classes.

With this new alternative presented to me, I can get the requirements I need for a fraction of the price. Added bonus is that the hubs and the girls would be able to go visit Grandma and Grandpa who live in CA. If I can spend the next year saving up the money we need for the summer institute / mini vacation, I can plan to apply to grad school in fall of 2019, attending fall 2020.

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I’m currently reading a book about creating habits so I can better manage my time at home. I highly recommend no one ever take four years off of work if you have depression, no social life, and poor time management skills. I tell you what, it is a sure fire way to make you feel terrible about everything. I feel lucky that social media exist since I have received quite a bit of encouragement there.

As I work toward building better habits, I will most likely blog about that in an attempt to reinforce them. I’m really awesome at making plans and really terrible at following through. Hoping I can change that about me.