life.

So I decided to post an update on some of the things going on in my life for all of you who don't live with me and don't hear me talk about the day-to-day stuff.

--- I'm writing my master's thesis this semester. It's going to be around 60-70 pages, I think, and I've got about 20 so far. The paper is on tolerance, dealing with moral pluralism in the biomedical setting. If everything goes smoothly and it gets approved, I will graduate on May 12 with a Master's of Arts degree in Ethics and Applied Philosophy.

--- As of now, I have nothing planned after May 12. I've submitted applications to seven philosophy Ph.D. programs, although I'm not 100% sold on the idea of doing school for another 5-6 years. I've already been rejected from UNC-Chapel Hill (which I'm ok with) and I'm still waiting to hear from the other six. For your information, many of these schools receive over 200 applications for 7 or 8 spots in their program. I just want to get accepted to two so that I feel like I have a choice. I also would need an offer of full-funding, cause I definitely won't agree to 5-6 more years of school if it means being in debt, too.  I'm expecting to hear rejections from some of the more highly ranked programs first, and then hopefully a couple offers from the mid-range programs. I'll keep you all posted as the letters come in.

--- I'm a Teaching Assistant for Introduction to Philosophy, and I LOVE it. This semester brings new students and a different professor with a different syllabus. I have much more freedom and much more responsibility than last Fall. I created my own syllabus for my own Friday discussion section, with my own assignments and my own rules for class. I take attendance, grade papers, hold weekly office hours, and answer emails from students. It's the real deal.

--- Even though I'm living with my family, I've been attending a different church. As I've told many of you, I also inadvertently joined a singles small group. I didn't know it was going to be a singles group, and I'm definitely the youngest member. We meet biweekly, and we represent a wide range of ages and backgrounds. While this is not exactly what I would have signed up for, it's a good reminder to me of the variety within the body of Christ and the edification that can happen because of that diversity.

--- Here's a short list of other, random, less-important details of my life: I'm technically the president of the graduate philosophy club (so I'm trying to put together a couple events for that), I recently experienced one of the more embarrassing moments of my life (luckily only one person witnessed it), my schedule is such that I get Tuesdays and Thursdays off (which is awesome), my commute to school is over an hour both ways (so any music/podcast/audiobook suggestions would be very well-received), and  yesterday I negotiated a friend down from taking me out to get a drink at the bar to getting drinks at Starbucks after class (clearly, he doesn't know me well).


So, that's pretty much all you would ever want to know about my life right now. I just wanted to write it all down because I know that I don't cover it all in conversations with my long-distance friends, and the ones who know about this little blog of mine care enough to be interested in the details. :)