Surprisingly Successful Senior Year

The past few weeks have been overwhelming, but in a good kind of way!
 
1. My pre-law fraternity had a really successful fall rush - the largest turnout we've seen in over four years - and we've taken in some great new members that I'm super excited about. My PAD family will be growing a lot this quarter! I'm ecstatic to see that all my hard work over the past few months paid off.
 
2. I was invited to the Student Conference on U.S. Affairs (SCUSA). It's a very prestigious conference held at West Point every year, and the UC Davis International Relations Program is paying to send me there next week. Impromptu New York trip! I've been going crazy over the past couple of weeks trying to figure out travel, clothes, and my schedule (since I'm missing three days of class and almost a week of work), but it seems like everything is starting to come together. I'm both thrilled and nervous to be flying out next Tuesday night!

3. Law school apps. Oh my goodness, law school apps. I'm not even close to having a finished personal statement yet - oops - so I really need to get that taken care of soon, preferably before my October LSAT score comes out next Wednesday. However, this application season is off to a fantastic start because of all of the fee waivers I've been blessed with. As of today, I have fee waivers from UPenn, Michigan, Duke (priority track!), Northwestern, Georgetown, and UCLA among other schools. After I get my October score back, I'll likely have a few more trickle in and will then email schools to request a waiver.

I went to my school's Law School Info Day last Thursday and had great conversations with a lot of admissions staff. I walked out with six different business cards and email addresses, but somehow no new fee waivers! Oh well. With Penn, Duke, Michigan, and Georgetown, who needs waivers from other schools? (Just kidding. I would love more fee waivers. Even with all of the waived fees, I'll still probably spend over $1000 on law school applications!)
 
4. Classes and honors theses are also rather overwhelming, and not necessarily in a good way. I dropped my Ancient History class so I'm down to 19 units right now. Cognitive Neuroscience is a struggle and I'm not at all pleased with my performance on the first midterm. I'm doing really well in my U.S. History class though - I got an A on my first paper even though I wrote the paper at the absolute last minute. Next week's midterm for that class should hopefully go well! Advanced Arabic is a struggle but I'm learning a lot, and I'm debating going onto ARB 122 next quarter so that I don't have to stop learning the language. We'll see!

My honors theses are making my life a struggle. It'll be extremely tough to finish my IR thesis, PSC thesis, and get law school apps in this quarter. Hopefully I keep my sanity!