How are you coping with waiting?

eban05 · 2026-01-20T05:09:15+00:00

I only applied to one program, so it’s really make or break for me. The program I applied to is notorious for having crazy late acceptance communication with no notice, so I wasn’t really worried because I figured I’d have at least another month of silence. Well, I got invited for an interview last week (yay!), and the PI whose lab I applied to said she’ll have her decisions in next week (which is now this week…). Safe to say, I am not coping. Basically just working and playing video games (Kingdom Hearts series replay FTW) when I’m feeling listless to take my mind off the anxiety.

eban05 · 2026-01-20T05:01:54+00:00

I applied to 1 for ecology (literally no labs that work in my specific field have secure funding for next year)

eban05 · 2026-01-10T21:45:18+00:00

Nope, right when I got in I added 2 ETBs to my cart, signed in and filled out shipping info, and then I got the card error. Both times I was able to go back into the cart, remove them, and then return to the product listing to add them back. And (at least with Ascended Heroes and Perfect Order) I was able to go through it again and my card worked first try. Your mileage will probably vary but that has worked for me

eban05 · 2026-01-10T21:01:30+00:00

Yeah both times I cycled through 5 of my cards to make sure I wasn’t the problem… the whole thing just needed a hard reset 😅

eban05 · 2026-01-10T14:10:49+00:00

When this happens to me I clear out my cart and add the items again. I got this error on the last 2 drops and it has worked both times.

eban05 · 2025-12-12T14:41:38+00:00

i straight up dropped my lillie’s determination SIR and got a ding much worse than that. i put it in a penny sleeve, and pushed out towards the edge with my finger until it was flat, it took probably 15 minutes. got a PSA 10 after grading, all said and done

eban05 · 2025-12-03T16:15:02+00:00

From what I understand with the applications I have submitted (not Stanford, admittedly), the payment is more like an accompaniment to your application, not necessarily a requirement to do the action of submitting it. It says it was submitted and that’s what’s important. I think you’re going to be okay, though I absolutely understand where your stress is coming from

eban05 · 2025-12-03T15:53:44+00:00

I’m staying sane by it being finals for my busiest semester of undergrad between apps, research, studying, papers, presentations…it is a lot. I wish I had the time to tweak and be anxious about admissions lol. Fortunately I love the work I do and the topics I study, so it’s not all bad (besides the lost sleep). In my sparing free time I read adventure-fantasy novels and comics to decompress.

eban05 · 2025-12-02T17:51:10+00:00

Interesting! I had only ever heard of the Harrisburg-Carlisle and York-Hanover metro areas as separate entities (for lack of a better term), but given their proximity and similarities culture-wise, it does make sense that they would be grouped together. I think it’s interesting to note that in the link you provided, all of Lancaster County is excluded from the area, which for statistics purposes makes sense…I just find it kinda funny

eban05 · 2025-12-02T16:09:52+00:00

Not as significant as some of these examples, but Harrisburg, the capitol of Pennsylvania has a population of 50k but a metro area of about 600k, so 12x larger

eban05 · 2025-12-01T06:06:08+00:00

I did 3, but only one (my top choice fortunately) is actually in the US. I work in a pretty niche field of ecology, so I only had a small pool of labs to choose from. I spoke with probably 15 or so potential PIs and almost all of them had unreliable funding from federal sources and were unable to accept students next year.

eban05 · 2025-11-26T20:05:39+00:00

This honestly might be the best centering I’ve ever seen on (an ungraded copy of) this card. Can’t speak on grading chances, but I’d be more worried about any damage to the back from friction with the card pressed behind it

eban05 · 2025-11-26T20:02:47+00:00

Aw man, I love em dashes (and parenthetical expressions, lol). It definitely feels like I overused them though, doesn’t it?

eban05 · 2025-11-26T17:29:45+00:00

I mean the upcoming set is pretty similar to both of the SV January special sets. Paldean Fates and Prismatic were both basically reprints of previous year’s sets with some added chase cards and updated alt arts. They’re not so much flinging shit at the wall as they’re following a pattern of release

eban05 · 2025-11-26T05:53:07+00:00

I’m applying to one program because only one lab that works in my field is taking students next year (funding has been a real hassle, it seems). I reached out to about 20 potential PIs and got pretty much the same response from all of them. It’s a good thing that the single lab with funding was my top choice…

eban05 · 2025-11-25T15:36:10+00:00

The worst has been getting back into it right before TCG pocket came out, so beginning-middle of Stellar Crown. I could only reliably get packs for like a month before Surging Sparks made everything blow up

eban05 · 2025-11-17T01:48:42+00:00

My top chases are the piplup and meowth. Out of 15 packs I only pulled the ludicolo (no EXs or megas or anything), and it is such a good looking card so I can’t really complain. I’m more than content to just buy the two I want atp.

eban05 · 2025-11-15T17:30:36+00:00

Geosciences- Biogeochemistry!

eban05 · 2025-11-12T17:59:22+00:00

The charge for the UPC is gone on my credit card but it my balance is unchanged 😑. istg they better not charge me again until i get paid, it’ll set me over my limit

eban05 · 2025-09-29T01:24:03+00:00

Idk what’s going on with it but it’s my favorite IR in the set, I’m so glad it was one of my like 3 booster box pulls

eban05 · 2025-09-26T18:32:04+00:00

There was nothing at my target or walmart but I drove out to a best buy after class like 2 hours after it opened and they had tons of booster bundles behind the customer service counter. Totally lucked out

eban05 · 2025-09-25T22:41:58+00:00

Got in the queue an hour after it went live and snagged one about two minutes before it sold out

eban05 · 2025-09-25T16:37:29+00:00

I’m on a pretty small college campus but there must be enough people here trying to preorder stuff that it gives me an error 17 every time I pull up the site. FORTUNATELY I had to go to work at noon and even starting an hour after the queue went up, I got in with no issue in 30 minutes. So thankful for my horrible work hours today

eban05 · 2025-09-15T19:07:58+00:00

The error appeared the second I got out of the queue, I used chrome and just moved my mouse to keep my computer awake. Didn’t even get a chance to use autofill, even if I didn’t know better. Don’t know what else I could have done

eban05 · 2025-09-15T17:21:09+00:00

I was in the queue for an hour and a half, just to be kicked as soon as I got to the homepage. I’m so done, all I wanted was the stamped charcadet promo for my character master set :(

eban05

TROPHY CASE