The Dam Bursts

Good lord, it's finally happened. I've hit the point where I'm actually, legitimately considering the idea of applying for graduate school.

GRADUATE SCHOOL. What the hell.

Now, of course I can't afford graduate school; I could barely afford the first degree I got, and that's even taking into account that I got it from the threadbare bargain store of education that is the University of Manitoba. But my employment history to date has been such a mortifying chain of underachievements and disappoinments that something has to be done, even if it means throwing good money after bad and chasing a second piece of paper even after the first got me nowhere.

Consider this: you know those applications that you have to send to universities just to even be considered for admission? It costs minimum fifty bucks a pop just to file the application. (Yes, really. And that's lowballing it! For example, the Universities of British Columbia and Saskatchewan ask $90; Queen's, and the University of Regina, ask $85; the University of Alberta says 'screw it' and demands the full $100.) And each application must be accompanied by at least one official transcript; these transcripts, despite being mere sheets of paper with my own numbers on them, will cost me ten dollars each. (Yes, really.)

So if I apply to four or five schools, hoping reasonably that I might get into at least one of them -- I will actually be spending more money than I make in a week. And I work full-time! At a dollar fifty above the current minimum wage, no less!

Such is the whimsy and merriment that I have to look forward to, if somebody doesn't smarten me up and talk me out of it first.

Bloody graduate school, I swear. Rasserfrackin' mumble grumble why I oughtta.