Michigan's Missing Glove
Musings from Jessica – Post #11 – 4 September 2009
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It’s been a while! Hope this is a sufficient update for now… I plan on blogging tomorrow, too, but I never quite know when I’ll have a free moment during Tech Week (which starts Sunday – and if it doesn’t kill me, will make me stronger).
Since I’ve sounded like a walking billboard anyway for the past two weeks, there’s no harm in doing it again:
Come see Voices of the Class! September 10-13! 8pm! $5! Chemistry Auditorium!
Okay, enjoy the video! More to come!
Tags: Jessica Hatch, Musings from Jessica, video post, Voices of the Class
College Admissions Checklist for High School Juniors and Seniors
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It’s late, and I’ve got this new thing where I try to get up at 9am or earlier (“…what is this ‘morning’ of which you speak??”), so I’m just going to generalize a checklist I made for my brother, who will be starting his junior year of high school this coming Monday. I have a few friends who are still in high school; they might be able to use some advice.
These are pretty much the steps I took as a high school student, and I’ve done pretty well for myself up to this point, so why not? You guys can form your own opinions on whether I’m sensible or senseless and give further instructions in the comments box. We’ll discuss it later.
- If, like my brother, you don’t already have one, get an email address!
- It will probably save you money if you get your SAT and other standardized test scores back on the Internet instead of through the mail.
- By senior year, you absolutely needs one. This is how most schools communicate with prospective students.
- Make sure it sounds professional: john.smith@____.com or JDSmith, whatever you want as long as it’s not sexyguitarist92 or something to that effect.
- Gmail has great email services for free.
- Begin narrowing down your list of colleges.
- I’m a weirdo: I had known where I wanted to go since ninth grade. You might not know so specifically where you want to go. A great tool to narrow your options is College MatchMaker on the CollegeBoard website. These are the people who organize the SAT and AP tests every year. They also write guides to college admissions, etc. The MatchMaker asks questions like, “Do you prefer a public or private school?” You then choose one of the options or “no preference,” and it eventually whittles you down to several schools that fit your tastes.
- CollegeBoard’s website can also show you various schools’ statistics and rankings (and what sort of SAT/ACT scores you need to get in). For example, here is the stats page for the University of Virginia.
- …then go on college visits!
- You might know the stats for every football player on FSU’s team, but do you know what the campus is like? Do they have a good department for your intended major? What about the food or what goes on over the weekends? You need to get a feel for life at each of these universities and eventually find the one that clicks for you. College visits will help with this, and most high schools count these visits as excused absences.
- This will whittle your list down further, preferably to somewhere between 3 and 5 colleges. (I have known crazy people who applied to nine schools, but we won’t go there.)
- These schools should be stratified as “Safety School(s),” “Back-Up School(s)” (one you wouldn’t mind going to if you don’t get into your first choice), and “First Choice.” For example, mine were:
- First Choice: UVA
- Back-Up School(s): William & Mary
- Safety School(s): VCU
- These schools should be stratified as “Safety School(s),” “Back-Up School(s)” (one you wouldn’t mind going to if you don’t get into your first choice), and “First Choice.” For example, mine were:
- I’m a weirdo: I had known where I wanted to go since ninth grade. You might not know so specifically where you want to go. A great tool to narrow your options is College MatchMaker on the CollegeBoard website. These are the people who organize the SAT and AP tests every year. They also write guides to college admissions, etc. The MatchMaker asks questions like, “Do you prefer a public or private school?” You then choose one of the options or “no preference,” and it eventually whittles you down to several schools that fit your tastes.
- Sign up for the SAT Question of the Day.
- Also presented by CollegeBoard, this daily SAT review (in a small, easily handled dose) is sent directly to the student’s inbox. You can then choose one of the multiple choice answers, which will redirect the browser to the CollegeBoard website with the correct answer and the reason why it is correct.
- I used this program when I was reviewing for the SAT, and it helped me succeed on the test – especially on the Math section!
- Also, when I was a junior, I waited until March of my spring semester to take the SAT for the first time. It gave me time to get acclimated to the pressures of junior year – as well as more time to study for the test. If absolutely necessary due to poor scores, you can take it a few more times in the fall of your senior year (as well as several times that spring of your junior year).
- Get a fastweb.com account.
- I still have the account my dad and I made back in my freshman year. It’s really a great help to find out about scholarships you didn’t even know existed.
- Speaking of senior year, APPLY FOR COLLEGE!
- Summer before Senior Year
- Most colleges release their admissions essay questions in May or June or use the same questions year after year. Start brainstorming and writing first drafts of the essays during the summer when ideas are fresh and you’re not juggling writing with the rest of college applications AND schoolwork. They’ll sound much nicer that way.
- Fall of Senior Year
- Set a more specific personal schedule for when you will get each aspect of each application done (e.g. Personal Information for NYU due Sept. 5). Deadlines will help motivate you to get things done.
- January 1 of Senior Year
- Apply for FAFSA as soon after this as possible to get the best aid for that coming year.
- Also, file for your school’s financial aid by their priority deadline so as to get the best aid for that coming year.
- March/April
- Congratulations! You got into some schools! Be sure to send back your letter accepting or declining admission ASAP (and definitely before the acceptance deadline)!
- The Whole Year
- Keep your grades up and don’t get senioritis! Just because you got into a school doesn’t mean they can’t kick you back out.
- Summer before Senior Year
Hope this helped!
Hugs, Jessica
Musings from Jessica – Post #9 – 1 August 2009
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Happy First of August, everybody!
By the way, that noise you hear, like a sixth grader practicing his cello in the apartment above yours? That’s the train that goes by my house. Oh yes. I was surprised to hear it on camera because I’ve gotten so used to it in real life that I didn’t even realize a choo-choo was chugging along at that moment in time.
Enjoy!
Tags: busy day, Jessica Hatch, Musings from Jessica, video post
Anticipating the School Year
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I miss having free access to the OED online.
I miss Bodo’s Sundays.
I miss the libraries and the lovely architecture.
…especially the Harry Potter Room.
I miss social living.
I miss having a tight schedule and actually needing to use my planner.
I MISS WRITE CLUB!
I’m itching to get started on Voices of the Class.
I can’t wait for Fondue Fridays and Monday dinners in Lambeth.
I miss the opportunity to do great things at every turn.
I miss living in a city that has approximately twice as many people as Chester and more restaurants per capita than New York City.
I miss Thomas Jefferson, UVA, the whole shebang – I’m a Wahoo through and through (I even miss “The Good Ol’ Song”) – and I can’t wait to move back in!
…just 30 more days…
(I’m working on my proposal to gain entrance into Intermediate Fiction Writing, so maybe starting on that will make term get here faster.)
Of Ramen and Roaming
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Brief post since I’m hanging out with Dustin (who happens to be cooking Ramen… at midnight…), but we’re visiting NoVa tomorrow! Yay!
The trip was scheduled since Dustin needs to take a math placement test for the fall, but we’re going to make a day of it: head up to George Mason in Fairfax so he can show me around, then he’ll take the test while I find some cozy nook in which to read. After the test, we were going to go to D.C. (a short train ride away), but the test is at one specific time each day, and tomorrow that time is 2:30-4:30pm. Instead, we’re driving to nearby Arlington to see the new John Krasinski/Maya Rudolph film Away We Go (apparently “select theaters” in Virginia means “two hours away”). But yeah. It should be a fun day. I promise you pictures!
Tags: Arlington, Away We Go, DC, Dustin, Fairfax, John Krasinski, Maya Rudolph, Northern Virginia, NoVa, Virginia
The Post of Many Bullet Points
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I was uber-productive today, but I still feel like I’m falling behind. For instance, I went on a massive job hunt…
- put an ad in the Village News for tutoring in foreign languages and history. Cost me $10 for three lines for a week. Not too expensive – you’ve gotta love local newspapers. Hopefully it was ten bucks well spent.
- applied online for a cashier position at Target. I’ve heard people complain about standing on their feet all day, but I don’t think it would be so bad. I’m really hoping for this one.
- applied to one restaurant: Howlett’s Restaurant and Tavern. They’re re-opening in the Chester Village Green, a phrase that will forever remind me of “Scenes from Our Italian Restaurant” (oh, Billy Joel). We’ll see how that goes. They were openly begging for assistance, not like some of these other places where I basically had to lick the manager’s feet for an application.
- then I hit the Chesterfield Towne Center mall, which was a blur of me looking sexy yet professional and getting offers/getting turned down in an alternating loop. I vaguely remember applying to Victoria’s Secret. Everywhere else I learned that either they weren’t hiring (The Limited, Hallmark) or I needed to fill out forms/wait until a later date/apply online (The Gap, Charlotte Russe, Hot Topic, basically everywhere else).
- I also went to Commonwealth 20 (where I got an application – movie theatre is not on the top of my list, but a job’s a job!) and checked up on Barnes & Noble. I think B&N liked that I was trying even though their lack of need for new hires sounds like my lost cause waiting to happen. Maybe my quixotic nature is endearing. I mean, the manager wrote down my full name on a scrap piece of paper in case they run over the applications again. That has to mean something…
Please gimme a job??
Despite all the driving around listening to a mix CD and the soundtrack from Elizabethtown, I still haven’t:
- started my Irish lessons
- or put together Anna’s care package
- or fully unpacked yet!
Perhaps my guilty feelings of non-productivity have inspired the format of this entry. I am such a bullet-point-o-phile. At least I’ve kept up the blog post a day thing! (So far…)
I also have a larger summer to-do list, which includes:
- getting school stuff together for the 09-10 school year (Fiction Writing application, meal plan, parking decal, etc).
- finally finishing the first draft of Tor House, more recently called An American Farce (it’s been two years, dammit!!)
- take some kick-ass photography
- take a kick-ass road trip or two
- discover some new music
- make some money for next summer!
This larger To-Do List is still in the works – as that impromptu list so obviously told. I’ll post an update when it’s more inspirational (so much so it’ll probably need its own playlist). And it looks like I still have more job stuff than I thought I’d have to do at this point (all of those follow-up/do online/drive to the other side of the Richmond area instructions). I didn’t care today though. I got home from all that walking in those killer heels and ate a late lunch (5pm!) of taquitos and watched an episode of Buffy. Yaye, not thinking!
Ah, yes. Three-fifths of my Spring ’09 semester grades have been posted.
- ENLT 255 (Nobel Prize for Literature) – 3 credits – A
- ENMC 382 (Celtic Revival) – 3 credits – A
- FREN 102 (Beginning French, Part II) – 4 credits – A
And though they haven’t been posted yet, my TA emailed me today that I have an A in ENGL 382 (History of Lit, Part II – 3 credits) and I tallied an A- for MDST 110 (Intro to Digital Media – 4 credits), a class the prof warned not to expect an A in!! My official overall GPA with just those three classes posted to the SIS has come up to a 3.815 (!!), and I’m too lazy to calculate the rest in. We’ll just figure it out once they’re posted, too. I don’t think I announced this, but a few weeks ago I declared my English major… that explains the three Lit classes this semester. Check out how awesome I was with THREE CLASSES with TWENTY-SOME BOOKS to read in one semester!!
Ok, so, I just started reading House of Leaves, which is supposed to be a psychologically terrifying book… and I’m the chick who couldn’t sleep a week after she watched The Ring. (Not the whole week, just the seventh night after I watched it. And there isn’t a TV within 50 feet of my room.) The thing hasn’t gotten past the intro (not even to the exposition yet), and I’m freaked out. It’s the darn writer’s imagination at work again; I swear this sounds so hoity-toity, but it’s both a blessing (yay, I just wrote in a new and innovative style! I can so see this getting published!) and a curse (holy crap, what if the little girl who becomes a zombie in Night of the Living Dead eats me in tonight? I hate little kid ghosts, ghouls, and other HSTs <– Anna will know what I mean. Hint: Mr. Iowa says this a lot on Buffy). I’ll probably sleep with the light on (again) tonight, or sleep in a more central part of the house. Being by myself all the way over close to this creepy cellar door outside spooks me. It would be better if Daine lived with us (his room is RIGHT next to mine), but he doesn’t. 
But yeah. I’m gonna go figure that out. Buenas noches, chicos!
Moment of Truth Part 1
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Little musings about studying and UVA transfer decisions, since they come out today. Figured I might try doing a vlog post, might as well since I’m procrastinating anyway. Not the most flattering footage of me… I’ll have to try again some other day. This would be SO much easier if my laptop came equipped with a webcam.
Voices of the Class Post 2
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I got the part! I am part of the Voices of the Class ensemble cast 2009!
Things are finally looking up for Jessica theatrically at UVA. I am so excited for next fall.
Tags: acting, playwriting, Spectrum Theatre, SUCCESS, UVA, Voices of the Class
Voices of the Class Post 1
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I’ve got a callback for UVA’s coolest sketch comedy show! It’s tomorrow from 1-4pm, so send the positive vibes my way.
If I get the part, I’ll be a member of an ensemble cast, get to move in a week early out of no expense to myself, write, direct, act in, choreograph, etc. a great show, make lots of friends in the process, and not feel like such a worthless actress anymore!
Let’s hope I can persuade them into loving me. Which is basically what an audition is after all. Hopefully Post #2 will be just as happy as Post #1 this time around.
Tags: acting, audition, callback, playwriting, Spectrum theater, theater, UVA, variety show, Voices of the Class
