More on academic pursuits

It's been over a week since I laid out my grad school options, and I'm still leaning towards the New Media idea. I talked to the woman in the Newhouse graduate programs office, and she informed me that the program typically gets about 40 applicants, and accepts about 9. That almost intimidates me, but I feel fairly confident that if I can keep my GPA up, continue to make the dean's list every semester, keep my part-time job until graduation, do well on the GRE, and pick up some freelance design work I can get in. A portfolio is not required, but I'd bet it will help. I'm already working on a site for an attorney, so that will be the first thing I add to my portfolio. I'm already taking a course in designing Internet services this semester, and I'm going to try to find more classes like that to take in these last few semesters.

Unfortunately, this semester is generally awful, and I hope it doesn't negatively affect my GPA. Maybe it wouldn't seem quite so bad if I were medicated and therefore not falling asleep every few minutes, but this is the hand I've been dealt and I really don't get any choice about how to work with it. I just have to keep trying my best. I probably won't do as well as I could've back in high school, before I had this beast of a disease dragging me down, but what can I do? There's no hope until I have effective insurance, and god only knows when that will be.