Not until I have "Dr." in front of my name

What do I do in my free time?? Research graduate schools! Woo! SUCH FUN!  (I know you're jealous; feel free to join me anytime-- seriously. Misery loves company.)  This Grad school application thing is tricky for us science people- I really wish I had someone who knew how to do all of this, but it seems that everyone is lost.  Applying for grad schools is like learning a foreign language and everyone wants a different accent from you.

Here's a quick low-down science major's grad school before even thinking about filling out an application:
I have to get a professor to like me enough to choose me to study under him/her. To do that, I must research schools with a good program, find the faculty for the projects I'm interested in, educate myself on each professor's research, email each professor explaining my interest in his/her research and how it relates to me and why I'm interested and my life story and such, and then hope and pray that the 2 hours I just spent researching and emailing them wasn't a waste and they email me back. 
And after all of that, the email hopefully says something encouraging like.... "I'm not taking any grad students, but thanks for your interest" rather than...."Why would you waste your time when you are clearly not experienced enough in this field? Perhaps you'd do better off looking into job applications with your current degree."  Because while neither answer gets you anywhere closer to attending grad school, at least your hopes and dreams weren't crushed by the first reply. 

So needless to say, Grad school tries to defeat people even before their in, but that's okay.  Grad school will chew me up and spit me out eventually, but not until I have "Dr." in front of my name.  Until then, I'm super excited for all of the "No"s because I only need one "Yes" for my dream to become a reality.

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P.S. For those of you who are concerned, I have gotten a couple "No"s from professors, but nothing worse (yet).  The other quote does happen though- that was a friend's experience.  So be strong, grad-school-applying friends, words don't hut you.  You can hear all the negativity in the world, but hearing one "Yes" is all you need.  (And the more No's you get--statistically speaking-- the closer you are to hearing a Yes!)