danieleWrites

I have no idea what the expectations would be because every field and every program has its own expectations when it comes go collaboration. However, I am discovering the sadistic glee of making undergraduates do group projects. I'd get into the whole ethos of why, but it kind of boils down to the simple fact that most writing, and most work, along with most effective learning for most people is collaborative. This insistence on the genius in the garret inventing new brilliance is a bit counter-productive. So, my two cents here is that there is one, basic expectation in collaboration after elementary school: the less involved the faculty and/or supervisors have to be in the administration of the group, the happier everyone is. Learning to negotiate collaborative work is a skill few of us learn (I suck so hard at this, it's almost pathological) and few learning institutions encourage (academic integrity sides with solo projects). Which is kind of odd because most professional work is done in groups. Huh. Logic and efficiency clearly point to a division of labor that speaks to mutual respect and acknowledgement of individual strengths. I would tend to vote for division of labor. I would add that, for the intellectual and educational growth of all involved, there are instances when everyone needs to do work that one person can accomplish more efficiently and effectively. In my high school and undergrad groups, I wrote the papers we turned in, period, and that was actually bad for everyone in the group in the long run because the only way to get better at writing is to write something others will read. Sure, we got As on the paper, but I went on to get As on other papers and they went on to not. I think it's less of an either/or and more of a finding the right balance between fulfilling the needs of the project (and by extension the group as a whole) and fulfilling the needs of the individuals in the group. I will be giving this lecture next week.

Hey, sorry I misunderstood you. It's all good. Das Kapital is Marx's explanation of capitalism. It's a wonderful cure for insomnia, particularly if you get an early 1900s translation. The phone book is more lively. Huh, you bring up a good point. What relationship does capitalism have to the post-modern? Modernism is usually defined by capitalism and industrialization. (Anthony Giddens has a great take on it in the Consequences of Modernity.) When we break with the modern, what does that mean? Rejection of dominant ideologies seems to be a large factor and capitalism has been the dominant ideology, even the dominant morality, in Western Civilization for a couple of centuries. I'm getting all excited now. This is uncool. I have papers to grade.

I use They Say/I Say as a textbook in comp 1 class these days. It's really too simplistic for a grad student in a lot of ways. If you're one of those people that need help writing to begin with, that would be a good book. It has some really handy templates for transitions, signal phrases, and so on. But if you're that uncomfortable with writing itself, take a class instead. Zinnser is a good book on writing clean prose. I prefer Joseph M. Williams' Style: Lessons in Clarity and Grace since it's aimed more at academic writing while Zinnser is more about commercial writing. Buy the MLA style guide (or better, join MLA and they'll send you one with your membership). If there is a point of contention on writing rules, that's the only rule book that matters. Yeah, the OWL at Purdue has the MLA formatting guides, but the book is better. After that, this website rocks as basic grammar rule book: http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/index.htm Anyway, writing texts come in two basic flavors: rule books and rhetorics. Don't buy a rule book, other than your field's style manual, unless you hate using websites as a rule book. On a complete side note, you might find Willims' article "The Phenomenology of Error" very interesting. As for doing research itself, the MLA handbooks has some helpful hints. The problem is that research in an English department is different than most places. First of all, English houses literature and comp/rhet. They do research completely different. Look for books that discuss how to do literary criticism. Read PMLA and journals in your particular specialty.

I have epilepsy. It took over a decade and dozens of medications in a variety of combinations to get me seizure-free. Actually, I'd given up completely and had organized my life around the idea that I would always have some seizures with the medication I was on. My neuro hadn't, though, and put me through several cycles of secondary prescriptions and we hit on a combo that actually works. I can drive now. Freaky-deaky. I won't get into the side effects that I've tolerated over the years, but sleeping through a week and half during finals week one year was one of the worst, with the one that was contra-indicated to every OTC cold and flu medication ever a close second. It is very common for people with conditions that require long-term medication to have to try out several before they find the right one at the right dose for their physiology. So here's the thing. You have crippling depression. Do not let bad reactions to prescriptions stop you from finding the medical relief that you need. The nice thing about medications is that they come in families. If Lexapro caused a breakout, then your doctor won't prescribe something in the Lexapro family. Call you doctor and let them know how urgent your situation is, that way you can get an appointment sooner. Your doctor will listen to your concerns about medication and you can make choices together.

Capitalism isn't post-modernism. It's modernism (Das Kapital came out in the 19th century). Capitalism has a single ethic: profit. Profit is not a human-oriented ethic. It's not about "good" or "bad" when it comes to people. It's about the simple fact that he who dies with the most toys wins. Capitalism is not all bad and it's not all good. As my Marxist sociology prof puts it: it just is. The problem is that not all human endeavor does or should fit into a capitalist system. Education is one place where a business model just flat fails. As English folk, we've pretty much opted out of a work that's compatible with the profit motive. It's why we're usually labeled "liberals" and seem to hate on capitalism. Meh. It is what it is and we either adapt or or we don't. As for an English degree. I think that an English degree is the most useful degree one can obtain. At it's most basic, English is all about doing critical analysis with a tremendous variety of perspectives available (lit theory is about as interdisciplinary as you can get), and then fashioning a cohesive, supported report on that analysis. This training can pretty much fit the needs of a wide variety of jobs in every industry. The limits as to what a person can do with a degree in English are set by the ability of the person to explain to a potential employer how they can fill a need. Now, this is where problems crop up with PhDs, which someone mentioned before, and it bears consideration. A doctoral degree is a clear indication of expertise, and it's also a clear signal to employers of expense. The conventional wisdom is that the more training a person has, the more expensive that person is. I might convince someone that a person with an English degree is a perfect hire for some middle management position, and then find them trawling career fairs for MAs. I have seen it happen. Like everyone else, I want tenure. I'm also realistic about the odds of getting it. My program will be spitting out about 4 PhDs every spring. It's one of hundreds. So, if there are, say, 300 newly minted PhDs every spring in the US alone, and there are only 30 tenure-track jobs, well. A smart student cultivates options. If I align my interests to the ways the world, and I cultivate a good relationship with the DGS/adviser, I can take classes outside of the program in order to broaden my prospects. I can also tailor my dissertation to show some appeal outside of academia. That means that a strong dissertation includes "applied". The basic mindset in the discipline is that the "so what" of any research is a deeper understanding of the literature and the people who produced it. There's no other what-can-we-do-with-that. Engineering is science applied. Scientists add new knowledge, engineers use it. What can we, in literature, do to use the new knowledge our discipline provides? The answer to that question is the answer to what kind of non-academic jobs we can get question. 'Cause in today's capitalist system, hard skills (applied) sell and soft skills (knowledge) do not, even though most employers from all industries agree that soft skills are just as important for their employees to have as hard skills.

Perfectionism in grad school is one of the major ingredients for developing anxiety problems and losing sleep. I've been teaching composition for several years and I've discovered something that really irritates the fire out of me. The majority (really, the only) students that will do extra credit are the students that carry a mid to high A in the class. So they spend time doing extra credit because those extra points can't hurt! Well, a 90% puts the exact same grade on the transcript as a 100%. Instead of tending to their emotional and social needs, they do homework that serves absolutely no purpose. Actually, this serves a negative purpose because it hurts them in the long run. To say that research is more important than classes is the same as saying that water is more important than food. Sure, that's very true, but you can't succeed without both. Since graduate degree employment has become hyper-competitive in most fields, grades are still important. Perhaps the problem is less about shifting your priorities from grades to research, but rather learning to do cost-investment analyses and prioritizing based on that. This is pretty much all about organization. You wouldn't write a thesis without pre-planning it (recipe for fail, there), you should approach the entire grad school experience without planning and flexibility. I teach comp, so every I pre-plan my semesters when I create my syllabus. For example, I don't have final exams, and those I do have, I don't need to do much preparation for; what I do usually have are really long papers that are usually due during finals week. So, I don't want to spend the week before finals week commenting on a ton of student essays. My students write their long (giggle, five pages, long bwahahaha) papers in the week before finals week, and I write (draft) mine that same week. Of course, I've been developing the paper for a couple of months (I have more research and planning involved than they do), but I can focus on my actual writing without having to focus on theirs. This doesn't always work, but it usually does because that's the nature of my discipline. Hence the need for flexibility. My next pre-plan for my semester thing is to sit down with all of my course syllabi and calendar, and then do some general mapping of my time. I find that it's better to have my priorities in order before the assignments start flying than in the middle of the whole thing. I have been known to go to my professors the first week of class and get the assignment requirements of an essay due at mid-term. This kind of thing is particularly important for TAs because TAs have a wonderful/horrible mindset of putting their students first (your department well tell you this is wrong). Then, I return to my calendar every Sunday evening to plan out my week and schedule in "free time". No, honey, we can't go to a movie Thursday, I'm grading papers. No, students, I won't be checking and answering email at all on Friday evening and all day Saturday because I'm going to be away from the internet (and consequently going into DTs). I will also whip out the calendar and a project planning sheet whenever I get an assignment (it's literature, it's all essays). I maintain a project planning sheet for all of my assignments in order to keep track of my research and help me prioritize my time. So, I have two recommendations. Don't ask your professors about slacking; instead, tell them they never taught you how to read your field's scholarship in comp class and ask for some tips to be more effective at reading what's been assigned. Find your most effective method of organizing your time. Make sure you prioritize time for yourself to enjoy your hobbies (reading assignments don't count as a hobby even if reading is one of your favorite activities; don't read "Thermal dependence of locomotory energetics and aerobic capacity of the Gila monster (Heloderma suspectum)"; read Eragon). Spend a bit of time doing a self-inventory of your, ah, studenting (do you think better in the am or pm? what's your learning routine? how do you read? write? and so on.) This is something I've done as a teacher for comp 1 classes, but a smart person can adapt these ideas for themselves: http://www.criticalthinking.org/pages/structures-for-student-self-assessment/458 And finally, assess your perfectionism issue. If a prof called you on it, then it's likely an actual problem rather than our standard, cultural hyperbole. Your university's counseling center can help you with that, actually. But try here, too: http://www.counselingcenter.illinois.edu/self-help-brochures/academic-difficulties/perfectionism/ I live on the cusp of full-blown OCD. Learning to read efficiently was the single, most difficult thing I had to do. Don't read the preface? acknowledgements? index?! Actually skip over text?! Couple that with ADHD and reading was a nightmare, especially if I disliked what I was reading. Most perfectionists don't have problems skipping the copyright page, but they do have problems skimming.

A seminar paper is like a regular paper, only longer. A thesis is like a seminar paper, only longer. A dissertation is like a thesis, only longer. You can get how-to books on writing a thesis, and they can be helpful. You can (and totally should) go to the library and read other comp lit theses. ProQuest runs a searchable, full-text Thesis and Dissertation database. Though really, this sounds more like an invention problem, not a convention problem. Your thesis will have a central argument that you're developing. Do you have that yet? If not, start by writing a list of questions you're into exploring and then do some research to answer those questions. Once you've got that central argument, then create an outline or plan of some sort. You can take the central argument and the plan to your adviser before you get deep into writing. Though, you probably know what you want to do your thesis on. The problem is then how to develop the thesis (what kinds of things do they expect to see)? Make a list of what you think you should cover to develop your argument and take that to your thesis adviser, along with your central argument. That gives you a framework with which to talk about what he wants in your thesis and what you want in your thesis. Make a bibliography, while you're at it. Annotated can be helpful. Your thesis adviser probably asked for that right off, anyway, or has a reading list from you. A thesis is a conversation, both in the final product (you and the discourse) and in its creation (you and your thesis committee). Don't be in your thesis adviser's office every single day, but don't do huge chunks without some input. Revision is always necessary, but if you don't have to delete half of it and go in a different direction because you didn't communicate as much with your thesis adviser as you could, that would suck. So. Can't really help without knowing where you are in the process.

I get my taxes done by a CPA. I make my kid do his taxes by hand while I watch. I did my father-in-law's taxes on Turbo Tax. You should have no trouble doing your taxes either by hand or with Turbo Tax. I recommend by hand (it's free), if you don't have a lot of stuff to work with. It's a matter of figuring out where your W2s and 1099s go and doing some basic math. Tax programs of any kind can get you locked into things (like Eigen pointed out) because they can't think of forms in any other way. The upshot of CPAs is that they can find tax breaks you wouldn't otherwise know about. The downshot is that they're not only really expensive, but pretty much pointless for anyone not using a Schedule C.

There are a few things you can do. First, explore non-teaching career options with your current degree and with a PhD in your field. Don't get tunnel vision (it's a psychology degree, see only psychology jobs!). Be a bit creative with it. Someone with a psychology degree might find themselves uniquely situated to be a lobbyist, work middle-management, become part of the blogorati, become a movie director, do international diplomacy, and so on. The lack of debt puts you in a wonderful position, particularly if you can keep it up. If all you have to look forward to is a job you're less sure you're interested in (teaching at a university) that you'll have to compete with everyone and their dog for, of course you're going to get depressed and think you're not interested in your field. Stifled prospects means stifled creativity. Being a first year, this also gives you options to take courses that might help you out. Our hypothetical psychologist could take political science courses to broaden their job market appeal. Departments are very aware of hiring situations and they're ranking and prestige depends on not only quality graduates, but quality, employed graduates. If you can find some potential employment prospects outside of academia that interest you that might require a few non-departmental classes, that's something you need to discuss with your adviser so you can get into a more interdisciplinary route, if you like. Second, take the summer off and turn it into your 'gap year'. Instead of hitch-hiking across Europe (it was the thing to do in the 60s) or going home and taking up a part-time job, use that time to explore further interests. If our hypothetical psychologist was interested in lobbying or diplomacy, spending a week or two in Washington DC or NYC and the UN might generate some ideas and, perhaps, a renewed interest in the program. If you can't come up with any interests at all, use the summer to do nothing at all. Go lay in a hammock and read trashy novels all day long. Plan to go back in the fall, but don't make it a gotta-do thing. If you find yourself getting completely sick at the thought of going back once August rolls around, give yourself permission to drop out, or to go talk to your adviser about sitting out the fall semester for your mental health. (Your psychologist can help you with this.) Third, keep in mind that for the 24 years you've been around, you've been in school for, what, 20 of them? Everyone gets burned out. I have no idea of it's possible, but you might see if there's a way for you to take a gap year of sorts. Maybe get into the Fulbright Scholarship program where, instead of going to school, you go to another country and teach English for a year, or some other "study abroad" or "humanitarian" thing that universities are always encouraging students to do. Doing something interesting, worthwhile, and, more importantly, not your program of study, can give your brain a break. This break might be enough for you to get enough distance so that you can make a decision about whether or not to drop out without wondering if you're doing it because of First Year Blues or whatnot. Fourth, check out what kinds of opportunities are available to you with the degree you have. What jobs are out there? What can you do with it if you drop out? Don't just think "Join the Army!" because, really, the Navy is less stressful on your joints. Maybe you need to move to a different field. Maybe you need to open a small business. Maybe you need to join the Peace Corps. Fifth, you're seeing a counselor, great!, but don't listen to the people who tell you that it's just a first year thing. They mean well, but it doesn't feel good to have your feelings dismissed like that. Sure, most first years go through this kind of existential crisis. Sure, all of us get burned out at some point and wonder WTF am I Doing to myself! We daydream of the joy that baristas must feel. Whether or not you're feeling the perfectly normal thing we all feel at some point or not isn't nearly as material as the fact that you are feeling it. There is nothing wrong with feeling the way that you do. Give yourself permission to feel that way. Give yourself permission to realistically consider changing your life trajectory (don't call it dropping out). Give yourself permission to do what's right for your future, not what other people think you need to do, or worse, what you think other people think you need to do. The people who matter, the ones who really do care about you, are the people who would rather that you have a life where you feel good about yourself rather than a life where you're suffering because you got backed into the "can't quit" mentality based on plans you made when you were a teenager. Only in a PhD program would someone feel horrifically guilty for not sticking to long-term, expensive plans based on teenaged dreams. Give yourself permission to make mature, adult choices based on realistic assessments of yourself, your future, and your interests. There is a catch: right now, you don't have any interests, so you can't make mature, adult choices. I'm intensely interested in physics and I regularly mourn my not-in-a-physics-program life. However, if I dropped my English program, I could do so in a reasoned out way supported by evidence and research because I would be able to say that as much as I love writing, I also love physics, and I notice that the work that I'm doing know is focused on physics. (It's not, because I'm actually doing sociology in an English program, cool, huh?) You can't do that because you've lost interest. Sixth, consider medication. I'm assuming that the word psychologist means that you haven't seen a psychiatrist. A lot of people reject anti-depressants for a variety of very good reasons. However, you're well aware that you're depressed and that you have no interests, not even in whatever it was that drove you to start a PhD program. Depression will suck the life right out of you. Medication for depression can return your body to the proper chemical balance it needs in order for your thoughts and feelings to function optimally. Your lack of interest is likely to be more of a chemical problem than an emotional one. A few months of your body being un-depressed can help you get into a place where you can make decisions for yourself. Talk to your psychologist or your doctor.

Before you get a dog, find out what the laws are about dogs. In my current town, it's against the law for a dog to be chained up outside to a fixed object (post, tree, fence, whatever) for any reason for any length of time, even if supervised. A dog may be tied to a trolley system, but only while a person old enough to be responsible is on the premises. So, people with dogs in my town have to make plans for that. In my previous town, the rule was that if you let the feral cat live on your property for more than 3 days, it was legally your responsibility. In most locations, it's against the law to own a snake longer than 6 feet in length without a permit. And so on. Most people never think to check city ordinances about pets before blithely getting one.

I'm a bit confused. Are you being asked to do some of the, ah, creation (for lack of a better term) aspects of her dissertation or are you being asked to do lab-work in experiments that she's designed while perhaps tutoring her in her weak spots (while this is undoubtedly the wrong way to phrase it, it gets at the gist of my question)? I'm not at all familiar with your field, but it seems like it's the kind that involves testing hypotheses with specific methodologies. I can see this being ethical if you're running the equipment and teaching her the accepted methodologies (the grunt work), but not if you're involved in any of the design or analysis phases. If she's not directing the experiment (for lack of better phrasing), there's a problem. I think that, were I in your shoes, I would have a conversation with my adviser asking, specifically, what kinds of things that I shouldn't do for her, just to make sure that I don't accidentally cross some academic integrity line without any of us meaning for that happen.

Who is doing the rankings? If it's US News & World Report: part of the ranking is the collective ability of the students to score well on the GRE, part of the ranking is reputation based on surveys done by peer institutions, and part of it is things like how many are admitted, how many graduate, student-faculty ratio, and other statistics. A number of schools are opting out by not participating. Anyway: http://www.usnews.com/education/best-graduate-schools/articles/2013/03/11/about-the-best-graduate-schools-rankings

It seems unlikely that these departments have much influence over each other. You might talk to the graduate school itself, rather than the department, to see what the school's policy is on a pair of students applying to grad programs. The problem is that it's barely February. You and your SO can badger the programs to see where they are in the admissions process (have they even read applications yet?!), when they generally start sending out offers and waitlisting people, and to find out if you've been waitlisted or not. But, it's barely February. So do the hardest part of grad school for now: wait.

You might be in a 5 year program, but you don't have 5 years left! You're a 2nd year, so you have, what, 3 1/2 or 4 years left? Now, mental health is a serious issue. It does you no good to stick with the perfect program if you end up needing in-patient therapy. Your program has a selfish interest in your mental well-being, as well. They don't want to be known as the school that gives their grads anxiety disorders along with a degree. Of course, you're getting a PhD. Jobs for PhDs are more along the lines of "beggars can't be choosers" than anything else. There is no guarantee that you will get your PhD and then find a job opening in your comfort zone. There are more Podunk Us than there are cosmopolitan universities. So, what can you do? That kind of depends on your ability to adapt to your environment. You've been there for a year, probably a year and a half (not counting the time you've been home during break, right?). You've made friends and you've done some things. Cow tipping isn't much fun if you're used to opera (and vice versa). You're, no doubt, still experiencing some culture shock. You're in America, but not like any American you're used to. (These people are totally alien, amirite?) I think that the first thing you need to do is go to the university's counseling center and get some counseling. You're feeling trapped, rather than bored. A person with a social circle, but not a lot of options for entertainment, would be, in general, bored. That's not you. Trapped is not just feelings of boredom, or feeling like a stranger in a strange land, but also feeling rejected and rejecting at the same time. Trapped is a loss of power, perhaps even a sense of fear and/or distrust in the natives. I was married to the military before I joined it myself. I've moved a ton. Some places felt like a noose around my neck. Other places were just dull. Once you've spent some time with the counselor and worked your way through your feelings (are you unable to adapt? or do you just need a safe space to work through a foreign subculture?), go speak with your adviser. You're not the first person in the program to have trouble adapting to the small town in the South lifestyle. Tell your adviser that you're having trouble adapting to the culture of the area and ask if s/he has any suggestions for a big city person in a small town world. This will do two things for you: 1) it will give you another person who might have some ideas on how to help you adapt, and 2) your adviser is getting the heads up that your life isn't perfect, so if things do get to the point where you just can't stay a second longer, your adviser won't be surprised by the information. You obviously have a great student work ethic, so the usual clues about a student in distress aren't appearing. The program likely thinks your world is gravy. If you find a way to diplomatically let them know your life isn't cake (asking for advice is a great way) while also showing (not telling) them that you're doing your absolute best to overcome and adapt, you will have a method to continue to develop their respect and their help, and, if worse comes to worse, they won't get as snitty if you have to leave. This is, of course, assuming that your adviser and professors are normal human beings that have the usual amount of caring for others. Some people are just plain mean and there's nothing you can do about it. Lastly, see if you can organize a regular trip into the nearest urban area for some fun. A once a month trip to a big city can do wonders. I have a buddy who moved from Brooklyn to Manhattan Kansas. We'd go to Topeka two or three times a month and we'd drag him along once a month. While we did our thing, he'd ride the city bus for an hour. It was enough of home for him to adapt.

Start with the school's counselor. You're in a place where the stress of living Ms. PrimaDonna is going to drive you crazy and you don't feel that you can leave. A counselor can help you keep something of an even keel. You have several options, but none of them are going to be terribly attractive. The first one is to have what we in this area call a "Come to Jesus Meeting". Sit her happy little butt down and tell her how the cow ate the cabbage. After you put a lock on your door that she does not have a key to. Tell her, quite plainly, that she does not have a right to enter your area, it is against the law for her to do so, and you will no longer tolerate it. If she wants, as your "landlord" to come into your space, she must provide you with 24 hours written notice. If you can afford it, get your own dorm-fridge and keep it in your room. If you can't, get a locking tool box and put it in the main refrigerator and then chain it to the shelves in the refrigerator. They don't have to be major chains, unless she's a master criminal in addition to a diva. Very clearly outline your expectations for the next several months: to be left completely in peace without her bothering you, touching your stuff, or causing problems. You've already opened a dialogue with her parents, so re-open it. Not that they'll do anything, but keep them in the loop. I'm not sure what's going on, but it seems weird that you'd be on the hook for breaking the lease if everything is in her name. Perhaps I'm confused. If you have a signed lease agreement, you have rights as a tenant and you can make her life miserable for not following through with those. Find out exactly what your rights are and what you can do about them. Drop a line to Mumsy and Daddy Warbucks and let them know that Princess is breaking the lease agreement and you intend to take her shiny happy ass to court if she doesn't knock it off forthwith. Just don't go to People's Court. Another option: break the lease and consider that 1650 a good investment on your mental health. Drop by the U's housing office and put her on the toxic roomie list, if they have one. Finally: suck it up.

What Gnome said, with an added caveat. Anything you can put meat in, you can put beans in. If you make tacos, replace half or more of the beef with a can of beans. It's cheaper if you use dried beans and stick them in containers yourself. Find the discount grocers in the area, like Aldi or Save-a-Lot. Though Aldi's prices have gone up since they put in the card machines. It used to be cash only. Eat healthy, period. It's cheaper to eat well than to get over being sick. Drink mostly water (not only cheap, but good for you). If you can, get or bring a bicycle. If not, walk. Invest in a good pair of shoes for walking around in. Make sure you have a good coat and jacket if you're going somewhere that it might be cool. I'm officially in the South and it's butt-hurt cold out right now. If you TA, don't cultivate a "professor" look. It costs too much.

This makes some sense. It is illegal for a school to require tuition for nothing. If courses are not offered in the summer, tuition should not be paid. Period. Tuition is the costs of taking classes, not the costs of maintaining a certain status. If they want to charge a fee to maintain admissions status, that would be different. But you can't charge for classes not delivered. There are no serious tax implications involved in not taking classes in the summer and not maintaining full time status in the summer. The only tax implications I could possibly think of for not taking summer classes is not having that semester's worth of tuition as a deduction on annual taxes. However, since a school can get in all manner of trouble from the federal government for playing fast and loose with financial thing, I think that either the OP got her wires crossed about having to pay tuition, but not having any classes to take, or the OP needs to drop by the school's finance office before heading over to the ombudsman, or the Department of Education. The school sounds very strange, the way they do business.

I love this part: nom nom nom nom chompsky! Pacman roolz.

Way back in the stone age, I took the intro to literature course for English majors at a big R1. Long story short: the prof was a really great woman, but only if you were female. She picked readings from her specialty, so we read a ton of feminist and proto-feminist work. We started class with 15 people, 4 of them male. We had finals with 1 male. She had that Woman's Studies Professor attitude about male privilege, that they should recognize it and, if they find feminist texts and discussions uncomfortable, it's a good lesson for them. The net effect was that the course was a hostile environment. So, what to do? Hard to say. Fuzzy has a lot of good ideas. The fact is that there's some Title IX issues going on in the class and with your adviser. You might be someone willing to live and let live, but not everyone will. Some professors need to get slapped by Title IX. Some professors don't have enough self-awareness to realize they're running amuck of Title IX. If you decide to speak with her, practice first! Come up with some sentences that broach the subject, that turn the problem away from the professor and toward the sexism (I'm not certain why Suzy's critical style is too aggressive and needs to be softened while Tommy's aggressive style is praised and encouraged. Can you explain what the difference is?) You can be phenomenological. Change your fashion sense. "Do gender," as Judith Butler puts it, differently every class meeting, or every meeting you have with her. If (when) it's remarked upon, tell her that you're doing a phenomenological test on the way people react to gendered text, with your clothing as text. Offer to share your notes with her.

I know a dude with an IQ that got him into Mensa and the Triple Nine Society (or would have it he'd been more on the ball). He's a complete moron. He's the opposite of smart. He makes smart look like an achievement only rocks fail at. I've got the same kind of numbers (inherited genes, go figure), but what difference does that make? Well, it's easier for me to read and understand a scholarly journal. And. Yeah, that's about it. I'm better at reasoning things out in a shorter period of time than the other 99%. Big. Fat. So what? Who cares? Last semester, I created an exam that was worth 5 points. It had three sections to complete. Section One was worth 1 point, section two worth 2 points, and section 3 worth 3 points. I may be quantitatively smarter than most people. I am not, in any conceivable way, better to anyone else. I am better at being me, but that's about it. Sure, I can get all snooty about my IQ, but my IQ is not my fault so it's kind of like acting as if I'm somehow a fabulous person because I was born with eyes.

I've decided that my major has the smartest students simply because I've decided that my self-confidence is a sniveling little worm this weekend. Next weekend, someone else's major can have the smartest students. I'll be good then. Are we all cool with that?

There's some good news: you have better odds of getting into an Ivy than you do of getting a job at the new Washington DC Walmart stores.

You got a 4.0 in your master's program, so I'd thinking your undergrad work isn't something you have to spend time explaining. You've obviously corrected whatever problems you've had. I have ADD and epilepsy. I mentioned neither of these things in my materials for two reasons: 1) irrelevant (my GPA was worse than yours), and 2) this can put an unfair burden on the adcomm because they aren't allowed to consider disabilities as a means of deciding who gets in or out, but once the disabilities are brought up, they can't be un-brought up. To be perfectly clear: I do not think it's wrong to bring these up in the SOP, or unethical, either. I just think that it was wrong for me, personally. I would suggest that you speak with one of your professors from the MA program for their opinion. They've sat on adcomms and they can tell you how important it is to talk about your pretty good but less than stellar undergrad GPA.