It's in

Just submitted my app to Caltech.  Still have to submit the test proctor form and take the tests (due by mid-March), but the app itself is in.

It's a long shot; I know that.  Hell, even if I'm accepted, I can't afford to go unless I get some significant financial aid (and *not* loans; thanks, but I'm not going to be a 44-year-old with $200k in fresh undischargeable student loans).  But, as they say of the lottery, you can't win if you don't play.

Part of submitting it is being willing to accept what everyone's been telling me: that I'm actually almost an ideal candidate for such a school.  I don't see it, but I'm also looking at my life through the filter of having lived as me for decades.  I know my perceptions of myself tend to be biased downward, and so I'm willing to accept that I may be wrong here.

It's also essentially a no-risk situation.  All I'm out is the $70 for the app itself and maybe $10 in the cost of transcripts.  So, we'll see.

I've started looking at housing prices near various schools.  Even if I keep my current job part-time, I'll need a roommate or subsidized housing.  That's one of the bigger deals when (think positive, right?) I get an acceptance from anyone.  I mean, tuition coverage would be great, but in some ways it's the housing that is more important.  Like, for a UC, I've got the money in IRAs to pay for tuition, but I can't use that money for housing - actually, as I write this, I'm not sure that's true.  I remember seeing something about expenses for tertiary education including housing costs.  I'll have to look that up.

I don't mind having a roommate, though winnowing down my stuff (or putting a lot of it in storage) would be more necessary with a roommate than living on my own.  But subsidized housing would just be easier overall.

Another angle on that is that my gay-couple friends who just bought a house live about 16 miles down the street from one of the private schools.  They've been nudging me about coming and living with them if I get in there.  Now, honestly, I'm not sure how serious that nudging is, and they've got a significant amount of their own stuff to deal with.  But it's a potential option.  It's far enough I'd likely have to drive (there's a bus, but the ride is about an hour) or get a bike (which wouldn't be all that much faster and, well, LA drivers and bikes aren't a good combination).  I'd rather be in walking distance, but that's when things get expensive.

Oh well, baby steps.  I've started cleaning my apartment.  I need to figure out how to get rid of my guest bed, since nowhere I'm going to go will have the space for it.  The only other major furniture items are my dining room table (which I like but, frankly, didn't cost that much and probably wouldn't work out anywhere) and my bed (which is probably also not going to fit wherever I go, but there's more likelihood of that).  oh, and my bookshelf, but that's modular and could be used for a lot of things in a lot of spaces.  Everything else either comes apart easily or could fit in the back of my Eclipse.

Not having bought a ton of furniture may end up being in my favor.