| Current mood: | thoughtful |
| Current music: | Serpents. Nitin Sawhney. Beyond Skin |
Options
My best option for next year might be to join NYC Teaching Fellows. If accepted, I would get a fully funded master's degree in education in two years and also be able to make enough money to pay back my undergraduate loans (particularly the extremely large ones that I will have to get this year), back taxes, that dreadful collection agency, and maybe even my father's funeral bill. That would leave me in a much better position to take out my own private loans for further postgraduate study in Brighton or elsewhere. Though financial considerations are important, they would not be the sole justification. The education degree itself would be good to have. Also, while staying in New York City, I could start collaborating with certain of my friends to create an organization (ideally with a dedicated space) dedicated to migrants' civil rights, incorporating public arts, education, legal advice, and political activism in an environment reminiscent of 1960s and 1970s organizations such as the Asian-American Basement Workshop. Such activism would both be a worthy cause in itself and, incidentally, make me a more interesting candidate for reading an advanced degree. Right now, the only thing I can really put on my application to the University of Sussex is my bachelor's degree in individualized studies (with a concentration in migration studies and transnational studies). If the admissions' office in Brighton believes that is sufficient to grant me the Overseas Research Scholarship, which would bring my fees down from that of an international student to that of a British student, I would be most grateful and would probably advance directly across the Atlantic. If not, I think I may have found a quite desirable fallback. Or is it a fallback?
In any case, the National Archives research room is only open from 8 am to 4pm, so if I'm to begin my planned research for my Chinatown class, I had better get to sleep.
