(no subject)

Well shit. I just got my first rejection letter for Dissertation Year fellowship grants. It was from the Spencer Foundation, and I didn't even make the semifinals. Of course the fellowship is for education Ph.D.s and my work is only somewhat relevant, but I had to try for it. The form email was well worded, but as always still makes me feel like shit. I'm so scared about not getting funding for next year, I don't know what to do.

(no subject)

oh my - today actually hasn't been that bad. After feeling grumpified over the rejection I sat down and wrote some more of chapter one (on pg 22 now). THen I went into the conservatory and had a productive voice lesson and satin on the music history class I've started going to. very interesting chatting with the kids, who are all apparently in the halq cholgu (or reconstucted national instrument) department.

It turns out that there is a typhoid outbreak here in Tashkent, but no one is saying anything (except feghana.ru): http://enews.ferghana.ru/detail.php?id=32967037659.791,1647,4705653

I'm really wondering if the death flu that R had that we went to the clinic and got antibiotics for WAS typhoid. I'm debating the vaccine issue, since it is expensive and typhoid is NOT fatal if you take antibiotics. I really don't think that vaccines are always a good thing.

Regardless, I think it is insane to have nurses going house to house asking about illness (I ran into ours today when coming home from the conservatory) and not have the papers say ANYTHING about it. If people knew typhoid were going around then they could be proactive about boiling water, washing hands, peeling fruit, etc. According to the article the population has been told to boil water, etc - but I haven't heard anything about it. Argh!