Trolling for Cash

Some of you know that I am hoping to attend a graduate program at George Washington University next year (actually, class starts in a month). Because my husband and I just moved and haven't sold our house yet, I haven't started working, I already have nearly six figures in student loan debt, and the economy is generally just terrible, I am searching far and wide for any potential scholarship money I can find. I've heard reports that millions of dollars in scholarship money go unused every year, so I'm on a mission to find it. In my searches, I haven't found any scholarship money for political-science based part-time post-graduate work with an emphasis on animal welfare. However, I have found the following scholarships:



1) Scholarships for distant relatives of Annetje or Lambert Van Valkenberg -- I don't know who these people were, but apparently they have money to give away and variations in the spelling of Van Valkenberg are permissible;


2) The Arabian Horse Trust Scholarship -- you have to demonstrate an "interest" in Arabian horses (hmmm...define interest);



3) The Patrick Kerr Skateboard Scholarship -- not a chance!



4) The American Fire Sprinkler Association Scholarship (this one is one of my personal favorites) -- you can win a $3K grant for writing an essay about "successful sprinker operation" in your town or state;

5) The Duck Brand Duct Tape "Stuck at the Prom" Scholarship (also a favorite, but I'm sadly over 10 years too late on this one) -- a $3K grant available to the couple who makes the best prom outfit from Duct tape -- ouch!!;






6) National Marbles Tournament Scholarship -- marbles shooters (or "mibsters" as I have learned they are called) can apply for a scholarship as long as they have participated in a qualifying national tournament -- does anyone really play marbles anymore?;






7) The Tall Club Scholarship -- females over 5'10" are eligible for this one (clearly I'm not although I do have some Louboutin espadrilles that might hike me up that high) -- I must add that one of my roommates in college was "Miss Tall San Diego" -- she was 6'4";





8) The Columbia 300 Jon Jowdy Scholarship for active participants in bowling -- again, not a chance; and





9) Scholarship for people who are trained to use Morse Code -- no comment.




I did find a scholarship through a non-profit organization in Santa Monica called "Gaia" -- it's kind of a yoga-based spiritual group operating on the Ghandi-ism of being the change you wish to see in the world. I think I have a good shot at that. However, I also seem to recall a recent story about firefighters saving an old historic church here in New Orleans -- that Sprinkler Association one might be promising after all ...

Coming out of the Closet

I developed a somewhat unhealthy addiction this fall television season. I typically pride myself on being above the really bad television trash, but I totally caved this fall. I've been keeping this problem to myself, but when I found out that I had company with Anderson Cooper, I figured "what the heck?" Yes, you know what I'm talking about: the genius trainwreck that is the Real Housewives of Atlanta. I sometimes will let 3 or 4 episodes of Gray's Anatomy go by and then it will occur to me that I have to watch it on abc.com, but I didn't miss one solitary second of Real Housewives (and neither did my fantasy football-addicted, political junkie husband, I might add). How could this happen to me? Where have I gone wrong? Can I delude myself that the show is an intreaguing anthropological experiment, thus having some semblance of educational value? Not a chance. The real reasons I tune in on Tuesdays at 8pm are these:

1) Kim, the token white chick who wears the wig (see inset photo), has an unbelievable talent for making Dior look like Forever 21 or possibly an adult entertainment outfit (see inset photo), is dating a married guy she calls "Big Papa" (who is really Atlanta real estate developer Lee Najjar, whose son is friends with Brody Jenner and Spencer Pratt of The Hills fame, if you believe blogs like "The Frisky"), and refers to the screeching tone-deaf sound she makes when she opens her mouth as "this God-given singing talent";

2) the over-the-top NeNe, who has arguably demonstrated the best parenting skills in my humble opinion, recently found out that the man she calls Daddy is not really her father, has an irrepressible desire to allow her breasts to run free at all times, is married to a real estate investor who lost missed his true calling as a minister, and "BAM!" is a "free bird" -- I do like this one for sure;

3) Sheree, the soon-to-be ex-wife of pro football player Ed Whitfield, loves to talk about how classy she thinks she is, decided spontaneously to start a fashion line, perennial frenemy of NeNe, and allegedly has a "secret daughter";

4) DeShawn, everybody's friend and the token NBA wife, started the DeShawn Snow Foundation (something to do with girls' self-esteem) and decided spontaneously to throw the "Night of a Thousand Stars" gala to raise $1 million -- bless her heart, she ended up losing tens of thousands of dollars that night, but she gets points for trying;

5) Lisa, the newlywed and allegedly the ex-wife of singer Keith Sweat (seriously, what woman could take a lifetime of listening to "Twisted", "Nobody", and "Grind on You" ?), I used to think of her as the boring one until she threatened to flip Kim over the couch on the reunion show, and after seeing the outfit she wore (hello, shoulder pads!!) to NeNe's "Big Hats Brunch" I had a strong desire to nominate Lisa for Bravo network's fashion makover show What Not to Wear.

Like I said, a genius trainwreck. I can hardly wait for the second season and there is a possibility that I will consider purchasing the series on DVD so that I can enjoy the trainwreck over and over and over for years to come (which I will naturally hide behind a stack of Masterpiece Theatre DVDs -- I'm still not proud of this). As for the above-mentioned Gray's Anatomy, it is teetering precariously on the edge of jumping the shark and becoming less believable than General Hospital -- seriously, when Izzy started having sex with the phantom of her dead fiance, I had to draw the line.

A Happy Ending to a DMV Debacle...

Victory!!! And it only took 9 weeks and 6 cumulative hours at the Department of Motor Vehicles.

Aves-vous Saks?

Ahhh, the holiday season has arrived.
I've made my cranberry-pear relish

and have also watched Love Actually, White Christmas, and The Thin Man.

And the other day, my Saks Holiday Catalogue arrived! [insert holiday choir singing "Hallelujah!"] I don't know if I mentioned this previously, but I have an addiction to word games: Scrabble, Boggle, Catch-phrase, cross-word puzzles, mensa quizzes -- if it's a word game, I have an internal mandate to master it. Those of you who know me also know that my mom and I lovingly refer to Saks Fifth Avenue as "the mother ship", so I think that sort of explains the extent of my shopping addiction. Thus, you can imagine my elation when I received my Saks Holiday Catalogue and found ONE HUNDRED SIX word game brain teasers sprinkled throughout. The sheer genius of this marketing concept is still awe-inspiring to me. The genius lies in the fact that, presented not only with pages of bedazzled holiday goods but with a challenge to your intelligence, you feel compelled to number a piece of paper from 1-106, start on the first page, and not stop until you're finished. When you get to the end, you inevitably have left 20 or 30 answers blank and must go back through over and over until you've completed each and every brain teaser. I actually had to put the quiz away for a day and come back and finish it, combing through the pages of Juicy Couture tchochkies (pink underwear in a pink candy cane, pink heart shaped USB port key chain, pink mini digital camera, pink gumball machine, pink...); swarovski-encrusted perfume bottles from Bond No. 9, a swath of neon (?!) from Ralph Lauren, Toy Watch, Marc Jacobs, and Prada; and jewel encrusted blouses, bangles, jeans, i-pod ear buds, -- even bedazzled zip drives. After combing the magazine 4 or 5 times to finish the quiz, I checked my answers against the key and happily found that I scored 89/106. The funny part is that I was so intent upon the quiz that I really don't remember much about the clothes, which means I'll have to go through the catalogue again...

PS. You know what else is genius? You can make your own church sign! http://churchsigngenerator.com/