Helpful sites

Hello there.  Are you doing well?  Lovely.  I had two London-related dreams last night, and one was simply that the prices of plane tickets went down.  Yeah, sad.  The weird thing is, they actually had.

I think I might be psychic.

Anyway, there are a lot of websites out there aimed at making the transition from America to the UK as easy as possible but wading through them can be a bit overwhelming.  I’ve compiled some of the websites that have helped me the most in preparation for my move.

UK-Yankee Forum: I would say this website has been THE most helpful, since, as a forum, it is updated just as regularly as anybody needs it to be and you can ask individual, specialized questions.  The people on this forum KNOW what they’re talking about.  However, I will say you can spend too much time on here and make yourself worry about things that don’t pertain to you or have the smallest chance of happening.  If you’re a student like me, start with this board.

UKCISA: This site will take you through the basics of applying for school, getting funding, figuring out where to live, and getting your visa.  This is for the beginner who needs an overview of the process.

Homestay: Like Airbnb, but you’ll be living with the family who owns the home.  This is a good alternative to hostels or arranging for flats you’ve never seen.  A great advantage to this is that you’re living with people who know the city.

Zoopla: If you plan on living on your own or buying, check out Zoopla.  You can search by the kind of property you’re looking for or area such as post code.  Even if you planning on having flat mates, it can be a good springboard to give you an idea of what’s available in any given area.

Flatshare: The most popular website for finding flatmates, although there are more out there.  You can search for any number of factors including preferences in the ideal flatmate, but I tend to just search by location and price.  It’s good to look at even before you’re serious about looking just to give you an idea of what’s available and what you can expect price-wise.

Of interest:

London property prices by tube line map, international scholarships, check to see if your creative programme is accredited

This is by no means a complete or exhaustive list.  It’s just a good jumping off point from which to start preparing.

Our story so far…

I can only assume you’ve found this post/blog if, like me, you’re preparing to go to postgraduate school in London and are worriedly whiling away the days waiting for yet another person to get back to you.  Or maybe you’re considering doing so, in which case… hold on to your butts.

I’ve been slowly compiling a timeline of my journey through the entire process.  I’m going to post it for other people to reference, keeping in mind that it isn’t over ’till the fat lady sings and she’s not even on stage yet.

early November 2014: submit application

24 November: receive offer for phone interview

24-26 November:  study for interview, (over-)prepare notes

26 November: phone interview w/programme director, told decision could take a couple of weeks

27 November (Thanksgiving Day US): receive acceptance e-mail

1 January 2015: fill in FAFSA – there isn’t really any use officially submitting this until you’ve done your taxes, I submit anyway

24 February: apply for SASS scholarship

17 March: put correct tax information in FAFSA, submit

31 March: start contacting potential homestays (homestay.com), start looking on school board for accommodation

1 April: hear back from most homestays within a day; only 1 says not available

7 April: book homestay for 21 August-21 September through homestay.com

8 April: submit enquiry to HSBC for overseas account

9 April: HSBC cannot open an overseas account for me unless I already have an account open with them

22 April: receive award letter, sign, send back to school loan administrator

23 April: complete entrance counselling and promissory notes for unsubsidized loan and Grad PLUS loan, send to school loan administrator

19 May: Buy my plane ticket!

Things that haven’t happened but are supposed to, with projected date

June/July: approval for loans from Department of Education

June: receive CAS, apply for visa

May the Fourth

Two bits of good news:

1. April is over.  Peace out, April!  Long live May! (actually, no, May, do not live long; live an ordinate and logical amount of time, please please please)

2. The ball has started rolling on my postgraduate funding!  I’ve completed my entrance counseling and master promissory notes, and my award letter has been sent to the Department of Education.  Now I get to wait until June or July (?!) to hear from them.

Yay!

May the Fourth be with you!

 

The plot thickens (and becomes difficult to stir)

If you read my New Year’s post, you’ll know I filled out my 2015-2016 FAFSA as soon as possible, i.e. Jan 1.  I figured I would send an e-mail to the school just to get an idea of how long it would take to process the information and get back to me about how much I could ask for in loans and such.  I received an e-mail back from them saying they don’t usually process those requests until April.

This makes me anxious for 2 reasons: firstly, I like to get things done ASAP.  I know on their end they have a lot more to deal with than one girl’s financial aid information.  In fact, they might not be able to do anything about my financial aid until April because the US student loan office might not process them until then.  The timeline just worries me a little because they won’t get back to me until right before I apply for my visa – will that give me enough time to hear back from the US loans office and get my information in order for the visa application?  They’ve done this before and know what they’re doing.  I just need to have faith in the process and the people carrying it out.

Secondly, on a pettier level, I really just hate waiting.  I keep reminding myself that 2 months have already passed and things ARE getting done.  Yeah, it’s a long time to wait, but having 9 months to prepare means I will be as ready as I can be when I actually go.  I’m grateful to have this time with my friends and family, so that I can appreciate their company while I still have the chance.

Hopefully as the time draws closer I will have more helpful information to share and confirm that there is nothing to worry about time-wise.  For now, though, I just have the worry.  Thankfully I’ve started doing yoga.

Namaste.

Wanderlust

Denali National Park

I’ve always wanted to travel.  When I was a kid we took an annual trip to Florida (yes, where I currently live) and the occasional trip to see relatives in Ohio.  Other than that, we stayed in Maine most of the time.  I guess that’s because most of my family lived in Maine, too.  In college, I had neither the money nor time to really go anywhere, although I took a few school-funded trips to Washington, D.C. that I really enjoyed (aside from the conferences, which were what we were ostensibly there to attend).

After college, my imagination ran wild.  I lived in Alaska, an experience in itself, but I never went anywhere else.  I daydreamed about all of the places I wanted to visit, although they seemed improbable.

Central Park, New York City

Now I’m staring down a move to England.  I mean, if I just stay there for 2 years, I’ll be fulfilling about a quarter of all my travel lusts.  But just knowing I’ll be there, so close to the rest of Europe, I have to take full advantage of proximity and cheap transport.

I’ve gone a little crazy on my Travel Pinterest board recently.  It’s helped with waiting, although 2 weeks into a 9-month wait is hardly the definition of stir-crazy.  The hardest part isn’t just waiting, it’s waiting with nothing to do.  So I’ve given myself something to do: plan my trips.

Feel free to take a look at my board and give me suggestions!  I want to know about cool, little-known places to go and great ways to meet locals.

Eileen

It’s Legit!

It’s official.  I’ve paid the deposit to secure my spot with the school.  It looks like I have to go now.

 

Just kidding!  I’m ridiculously excited!  I’m basically the Target Lady of London.

An Admission (of Awesomeness!)

The Application

Though I didn’t realize it at the time, my school has one of the least grueling applications for screenwriting out of the many programs in London.  A lot of the other programs required a long and short writing sample, synopsis for several other screenplays, and the soul of my firstborn child.  Wait, maybe I’m thinking of something else…

Anyway, the hardest part for me was squeezing my original 600-word personal statement into 200 words.  This took me hours of hair-pulling and six different iterations.  I wanted to explain everything in my life that led me to pursue screenwriting, but I kept it to the things that best suited me for the program and why I chose that particular program.  In the end, it was mostly just a test in brevity.  Some people are good at being brief.  Writers are not.

The other part of my application, aside from the actual form with my name and such, was my writing sample, which had a word or page limit, depending on the program.  Since I was applying for script writing mine had a page limit.  I had to submit a 20-page sample, which was a piece of cake once I cut one of my pieces down to the right length and had a couple people edit it.

Okay, I SAY it was a piece of cake, but as someone who has only taken a couple of screenwriting classes and rarely lets anyone read my screenplays, it wasn’t easy.  First I edited it – about three times.  Then I finally sucked it up and had my parents and a friend read it.  Their notes were so minor that I felt sure I was missing something (call it creative writing workshop paranoia).  Nevertheless, I read it over a couple more times, felt satisfied, and submitted it.

The Interview

I only waited about three weeks for a response.  I got an e-mail from the director of the program offering me a phone interview.  I had a few days to prepare and spent hours looking up what kind of questions are asked in postgraduate interviews.  I’m forgetful on a good day and a space cadet when I’m nervous, so I made a list of notes about key things.  In the end, I probably over prepared a little bit.  I expected them to ask questions about my strengths and weaknesses as a student, an experience where I worked as part of a team, or why I wanted to move to London.

Zee notes

My interview was held the day before Thanksgiving.  I talked about the writing sample I had submitted, as well as my favorite playwrights and screenwriters (the notes came in handy here).  Without specifically giving away other things I was asked, I think the ultimate purpose of the interview just to make sure I’m serious about screenwriting and didn’t just wake up one morning and decide I wanted to write movies.

The Acceptance

At the end of the interview I was told I should hear back from them in a week.  I settled in and tried not to dwell on it too much.  I even told my dad that it was going to be the longest week of my life.  Not even twenty-four hours later, as I was preparing Thanksgiving dinner, I receiving an e-mail offering me a place in the program.  Of course, once the stress of getting accepted has abated, you start realizing all of the other things you have to do: visa, financing, housing…

Eileen

An American Bookworm in… London?

Erm, not quite.  Not yet, anyway.

The good news?  I’ve been accepted into a graduate-level screenwriting program in London!

The bad news?  I’m still in Orlando, Florida.

I just found out I was accepted, actually.  Yesterday.  And the application process was the easy part, apparently, because now I have months ahead of me of waiting, getting student loan approvals, waiting, applying for my visa, and waiting.  Oh, did I mention waiting?

So I might as well do something productive with that time.  Or something that, on the surface, looks productive and a bit informative, when really it’s just a way to kill time.

So… just 10 more months to go! (where’s the sarcasm emoticon?)