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redread

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About redread

  • Birthday September 13

Profile Information

  • Gender
    Female
  • Location
    Denton, TX
  • Interests
    Working with all things medieval, cooking, gardening, cycling, thrift store hunting, and walking my Labrador Retrievers.
  • Application Season
    2013 Fall
  • Program
    SMU PhD English Literature, Medieval

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  1. Woody turns nine this year (!!!), and Bailey is a mere five. Chocolates are so fantastic. What about yours?
  2. I love Levenger's stuff, by the way. I work as a library assistant--a job that I don't necessarily love--and I find that I have actually gotten worse at this job because I obsessively try to find things to do to distract myself from obsessing over whether I will be accepted to a PhD program and what I will do if I am rejected. I exercise a lot, and I cook quite a bit. When I am at home and begin to freak out, I find myself just walking outside and taking some deep breaths to reset my mind. Taking the dogs around the block for a quick jaunt works, too. I don't remember freaking out this much when I applied for my master's. Good luck to you!
  3. I'm so anxious. Part of me worries that I'll get rejected on a minor thing like a transcript coming in late. Here's to a nervous few months!
  4. I've got my sample, SOP, and CV all ready, and I got to the end of the online application for SMU yesterday. I see that they use CollegeNET, which means that I don't get to upload my nicely formatted CV; rather, I have to put all of that info into a text box. I found it really frustrating, so I copied and pasted my awards and experience sections from my CV into a separate document and cleared all formatting. I'm trying to make it look nice enough in the CollegeNET form, but it's not nearly as aesthetically pleasing as my Word doc is. I'm considering emailing the grad department after I upload this application (tonight!) with my CV and SOP. I notified my professors who are writing LORs, and all seems to be running smoothly. I'm only applying to one school, so my stress level is fairly low, but I am working a 40 hr/wk gig and teaching online, so I have little free time.
  5. I also agree with using They Say/I Say--it's probably well worth your while to read this book even if you decide not to teach with it. I wish I'd had it as a first semester instructor, but I only came across it for the first time a few weeks ago. And about introducing literature, I've had great luck thrusting David Sedaris upon my students, and his writing is especially helpful for an example of humorous expository/personal narrative writing. Some students do still balk, but they will do so regardless of how interesting a text may be.
  6. First: Congratulations! I'm also getting married in May 2012, but I'll just be finishing my MA in April 2012. Coming from the humanities, I'd have to say that there's no stigma attached to my decision. But that's also probably because the school is mostly female. Most of us seem to keep our names (as I'm going to do), and there tends to be a lot of nontraditional ceremonies. My fiance and I aim to get a lot of planning/DIYing done over this next summer/Winter break. I wish that I had some advice to offer, but I really just came here to congratulate you.
  7. I love the freedom of my program--there are only four required courses for my MA; the rest are electives. Plus, the courses that I teach are left more or less to my discretion. I have to follow certain guidelines, but again, there's a fair bit of freedom. There are some definite downers to this program, but I can live with them. And Michigan has seasons, unlike Texas!
  8. Ugh. Good luck. Do you at least have a template syllabus and course design to base this semester on, or are you completely on your own?
  9. For my graduate assistantship, I teach one section of freshman comp. For us, it's pretty open, as long as I teach toward a set of core goals that the First Year Writing program has agreed upon. They claim that it should only take 20 hours per week, but I generally go far beyond that. Being in a position to see student writing excel in technical and cognitive areas over the course of 15 weeks is pretty amazing--assuming that the students are willing to work with you. I've had good luck, thus far, and hope that it stays that way. Good luck with your assistantship (if you choose to take it)!
  10. I started a really hard Old English course last semester and knew that it'd take quite a bit of work, but still underestimated the amount of work that I could feasibly get done. Then I realized that I needed to know minute linguistic details...needless to say, I nearly shot myself in the foot. I know where you're coming from, and the only advice that I can give is to continue to ask questions and keep at it. Good luck!
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