Operation: four weeks

This week has been...really up and down and random. It's that time in the semester when you can kind of breathe for a bit, except you really should be starting on final assignments, which is what I'm trying to do. However, I started off this week with the following text: "Who put the bread in the toilet?" This was after I had come back to the house I'm sharing with three other students and found a partial loaf of bread in the bag...in the toilet. Yeah...we talked and couldn't figure out how it got there. The start of the random week.

I bike to and from campus usually because it's faster and I like to mock the cars who can't go through the red lights even though no one is coming. Small pleasures...gotta take advantage of them! On Monday I was biking on Lancaster Ave to campus, content in my bike lane and then WHAM someone flings open their door and I had to swerve to avoid either hitting the door on the right or the car on the left. Yikes! I made this little squealing sound and just kept going. What was I going to say? I don't think they even noticed, honestly. Then it happened AGAIN on Thursday. Seriously, Philly! Respect the bike lanes! The second time, the guy at least shouted "sorry!" after me. Speaking of biking, the Penn insurance actually reimburses you up to $25 for a helmet. How great! Except the form looked a little complicated so I put it off for "later" aka the later that probably won't really happen.

As the title suggests, we have about four weeks left of the semester aka HALFWAY MARK. I'm sure once March hits, we'll all be like, "Wait, we are almost finished? There's still so much I want to do!" However, it is cold, maybe going to snow (!!), and we are trying to balance friends, classwork, conference preparations, sleep, family stuff, and laundry. Oh and showers. Everyone during midterms was saying how they had to schedule their showers in. Or at least I was saying that.

Still, us IEDPers always make time for some enjoyment. I went to a contemporary dance performance on Thursday (Kibbutz) and it was so beautiful and intense. Then I had to bike back during the "polar vortex" aka slushy snow. Miserable...On Friday, someone in my cohort does a West African dance class for anyone interested. Very low key. I finally went and it was fantastic! It's always great to make time for such activities, especially because it gets a bit dull just doing work all the time. Although I still went to the library after...

Here are some photos from the great dance class. I had class and then work so...I wasn't dressed quite properly. I'll be ready for next week though!
 







 Annnnd the other weekend was Felix's birthday, a fellow admissions blogger and IEDPer. It was really fun and there were some other people outside of our cohort there also. Maybe they don't want to be on my awesome blog so...I'll just put the IEDPers up!

We're all chugging and slinking towards the end of the semester, and making sure we have some fun in the process.

"It's not easy to go out of your comfort zone...but it's what makes you learn and grow the most." Meet Micaela from Peru!

As I've mentioned before, IEDP is very international--most of us have studied, worked and/or lived or are from abroad. For me, the transition to the US for school was a BIG change, but I wanted to talk with Micaela, a fellow IEDPer from Lima, Peru, to hear what she had to say about her decision to come to the US to study and what her thoughts are so far. Here are some snip-its of what she said: 

I have been working for 9 years in the education field; I have taught to kids in elementary school, to undergraduates at University, worked in a Latin American NGO and worked in a research center. After those years working, I really wanted to go back to school, because I think I need a lot of tools and knowledge to continue working in education. I chose to come to the US mainly because the best schools of education are here. Penn was always my first option, since GSE is one of the best schools in the field and the program, which I am sure you know really well from Rachel’s posts, fitted my career plans really well. 

But the process wasn’t easy. Doing all the applications from Peru was a real torture. There weren't much people that I knew that have applied to these universities, and the Peruvian system is not the fastest, easiest and friendlier, so trying to find out how and where to do all the paperwork that universities asked for was really difficult. 

After I was accepted and I made my decision, trying to find a house in Philly while being (and working full time) in Peru was the next challenge. One thing that helped me a lot was that GSE contacted me by mail with other Latin American students in my program. They really helped me with a lot of things. I would say that this is something that all new students should do, trying to ask for the contact of current students and ask them all the questions that you have. I even skyped a couple of times with one of them. 

All these difficulties were definitely worth it. I am now more than halfway my first semester here and I couldn’t be happier. At first it was difficult, especially because of the language. I didn’t have a hard time adjusting to the city or the school system, but not being a native English speaker makes everything a little more difficult, especially because of the amount of reading and writing that we have to do. My brain is having an English overdose, but I guess is getting easier. I’m kind of scared of myself now when I walk everyday to my house thinking what I have to do in English!!!! I haven’t talked to myself in a language other than Spanish in 31 years, so it’s really weird.

I haven’t been here for very long but I feel like I’m learning more than ever. The professors are great, the university has a lot of resources for us, and my classmates are amazing. It’s not easy to go out of your comfort zone: leaving your country, your language, your family, your friends, your boyfriend…. but in my experience it’s what makes you learn and grow the most. 


There ya have it folks! There are plenty of 'necessary annoyances' to come to the US to study and to also start a Masters Program. However, the amount of knowledge we are gaining, the experiences, the people, the crazy work-load...we will all finish at Penn with MORE than we had before, no matter what way you look at it. Well, except we have less money...but MORE earning potential. 

I'm off to a wedding this weekend in Connecticut, so I will not be here to meet all the prospective students at the GSE Fall Open House. However, I encourage everyone who is interested in the programs to come visit! There may even be FREE stuff!!