rising_star

I recommend that you focus on resting up. Your posts radiate exhaustion.
 Follow @rising_star's guidance for at least the first six weeks of your summer. Don't do a damn thing related to graduate school. Not a damn thing. (No, not even that.) 
Then slowly build moment for a few weeks, and then plan for at least one long weekend during which you do again don't do a damn thing related to graduate school.
Don't get me wrong. At least once during your first year, you'll curse r_s and me. Those a-holes done me wrong, you'll drawl. And that's okay, because without resting up now, the inevitably miserable first year will be even more taxing.

Honestly, I would give yourself at least a month off and maybe even six weeks. You need time to recover and grad school will be intense regardless of whether you spend your summer prepping or not. FWIW, I didn't spend the summer before my MA or the one before I started my PhD doing much to "ease" into the program. I did my MA in an entirely different field than my undergrad and, on the advice of my MA advisor, all I did the summer before was read three books they recommended to me (one of which was a novel, btw). The rest of the time I focused on relaxing, my mental and physical health and well-being, and trying to transition from undergrad to grad school so I would be ready to go in August. It worked and I was incredibly successful as a MA student.*
 
*I went from the humanities for my BA to the social sciences for my MA, if that helps for context.

Re: desk chairs

If you go to an office supply store like Office Depot, you can often find ratings on the chairs saying how long they can/should be used for daily. I bought one that is for 6-8 hours of daily use and is certified by the American Chiropractic Association. It's a HUGE difference from the cheaper desk chair I'd gotten before. I was able to make it more affordable by using a coupon I got online for 25% off. It has been such a good investment that I don't know why I didn't buy it sooner.

You can and should directly ask the department about the placement of their recent graduates. For many departments, this information is available on their website. As far as the ranking in your discipline, you may want to ask on the Sociology forum or read older posts there to get a sense of the relevant ranking.

Honestly, I would give yourself at least a month off and maybe even six weeks. You need time to recover and grad school will be intense regardless of whether you spend your summer prepping or not. FWIW, I didn't spend the summer before my MA or the one before I started my PhD doing much to "ease" into the program. I did my MA in an entirely different field than my undergrad and, on the advice of my MA advisor, all I did the summer before was read three books they recommended to me (one of which was a novel, btw). The rest of the time I focused on relaxing, my mental and physical health and well-being, and trying to transition from undergrad to grad school so I would be ready to go in August. It worked and I was incredibly successful as a MA student.*
 
*I went from the humanities for my BA to the social sciences for my MA, if that helps for context.

Honestly, I would give yourself at least a month off and maybe even six weeks. You need time to recover and grad school will be intense regardless of whether you spend your summer prepping or not. FWIW, I didn't spend the summer before my MA or the one before I started my PhD doing much to "ease" into the program. I did my MA in an entirely different field than my undergrad and, on the advice of my MA advisor, all I did the summer before was read three books they recommended to me (one of which was a novel, btw). The rest of the time I focused on relaxing, my mental and physical health and well-being, and trying to transition from undergrad to grad school so I would be ready to go in August. It worked and I was incredibly successful as a MA student.*
 
*I went from the humanities for my BA to the social sciences for my MA, if that helps for context.

Whether or not deferral is possible is entirely program-specific. You'll have to contact the department which admitted you and ask them to get an answer about whether you can defer your offer to another year. You should also ask if the funding offer will be the same if you do defer to next year.
As far as ranking, for grad school, the university's overall ranking is far less important than the ranking in your particular field IF you're interested in an academic career in the US/Canada. People know the best programs in your field and they'll know that something like University of Wisconsin is strong in your field even if it isn't the strongest/highest ranked university as a whole. If you're planning to go back to Egypt or not pursue a faculty position, then the name of the university may matter. Some questions to ask yourself: How well known is the Australian institution in Egypt? In other countries? How highly ranked is the department/program to which you were admitted in the US (top 10? top 25? top 50?)? Where do graduates of the US program typically find employment? Do any of those employment options appeal to you? Where do graduates of the Australian program typically find employment? Do any of those employment options appeal to you? 
Hopefully that's a helpful starting point.

Driving through Nebraska and Iowa is like driving through a cornfield, with the occasional soybean field to break up the monotony. That said, Lincoln and Omaha are both cool Nebraska cities. Des Moines and the Quad Cities are fun in Iowa. Denver is great but expensive. If you can still find reasonably priced lodging, I'd probably do SLC and Yellowstone.

I'll support that it's not a bad idea to look at places with a strong WGS department.  Not necessarily for coursework but for campus speakers whom you might be able to interact with and meet students from other disciplines whom you might be able to get together and talk and discuss disciplinary methodologies (and perhaps exchange dissertation chapters).  Remember, the coursework part is just a small part of the PhD education.
I'd think a bit more carefully about which generation you are looking at (the immigrant generation? Second generation? Third?) and the role of acculturation into the American society shaped the outlook of American women of Italian origins.  I especially would think about the differences in the American and Italian political systems and the role of religion (Catholicism for Italy, Protestantism for the US).
As for careers, keep to one sentence: "With the PhD, I plan to be a professor."  That's all you need to put in unless the PhD program has a strong, strong public history component. What is important is to showcase your interest in what the department has to offer and how those offerings will enrich your scholarship.  I suspect this would definitely be the case in the top programs, which really tend to produce researchers, not teachers.  Researchers as in becoming part of research faculty at R1s and elite SLACs with a courseload of 3-5 courses per year.  Teaching institutions attract teachers with a course load of 6-10 courses per year.
 

Can't you just turn down Middling U offer now and reapply to Prestige U this fall? 

Yes, it would be bad. Why would you prefer the Australian program?

I highly recommend maps.me for offline maps. I only learned about it recently but, it seems to have all the features of Google Maps and make it easily available to you offline. As @Psygeek has said, getting lost can be fun! Last year I found an amazing Italian restaurant by getting lost on the way to the restaurant I intended to go to. If you know other folks that have been to Paris before, @Adelaide9216, you may want to ask them for tips/advice about where to stay, things to do, and places not to miss. In fact, if I were you, I'd try to add on a day or two before or after the conference to explore since you never know when you'll have help paying your way to Paris again.

No.

I almost wrote a reply to this, then decided to just link to past discussions so that I'm not repeating myself. I hope these links are helpful!
 
 

Driving through Nebraska and Iowa is like driving through a cornfield, with the occasional soybean field to break up the monotony. That said, Lincoln and Omaha are both cool Nebraska cities. Des Moines and the Quad Cities are fun in Iowa. Denver is great but expensive. If you can still find reasonably priced lodging, I'd probably do SLC and Yellowstone.

I'll be honest: I disagree with this. Why? Because it's a question people should not be asking. No one asks white men who study anything other than white men why they chose to study X group (whether that's women, Latinx populations, etc.). So sure, maybe @Adelaide9216should have such an intellectually reason for herself. But to the people asking? My response, if I were Adelaide9216, would be to ask them why they don't study the same population they're part of (making sure, in advance, that they don't). When they respond with surprise that you'd ask the question, then you can point out that it's simply the same question they asked you.

Identifying appropriate venues for publication (and developing a rough sense of journal rankings) is an important aspect of socialization into the profession. If you don't know yet, then that's probably a sign that you're not quite ready (although that's not to say that you shouldn't be taking steps to get properly socialized!).
The first step is to identify the journals that are publishing the articles you read, and those you want to read. The next step is to sort the journals according to what kind of stuff they're publishing: some will focus primarily on a particular subfield, whereas others will be more generalist in orientation. You need to figure out which are the main outlets for work in your subfield, which are secondary outlets, which tertiary, etc. And you need to do the same thing for the generalist journals, and it's useful to get a sense of what the main outlets are for other subfields, too.That means spending a fair bit of time reading things, skimming recent issues for interesting titles or abstracts, checking the CVs of people in the profession whose career trajectory you want to emulate (to see where they're publishing), etc.
When you're ready to send something out there, my advice is not to start low. Aim high, and go down the ladder as it's rejected. You don't want to short-change your work, and having some well-ranked pubs will open more doors--even at teaching schools--than a slew of very low-ranked ones will. For the teaching schools, a mix (one or two T1/T2, several T3/4) will probably give you the best shot. To do that, the usual advice is to be an R-selector: always have 5-10 papers out there under review at a mix of journals. That's hard to do while you're working on the dissertation, so most grad students end up K-selecting; but if that's what you're doing, then you're better served by aiming high since if you aim too low and it's accepted, you've now got just one not-very-impressive pub, and still need to come up with a few more to impress the teaching school crowd.

Honestly, one of the things students should be learning is how to come up with their own research topics. It shouldn't be on you to provide all of these to them...

Well, the people on the search committee and tenure & promotion committees will question your publications if they are in predatory journals. That might result in you not being considered for the position, not being promoted, etc. Basically, it casts doubts on your ability to be a scholar because they'll wonder why your work wasn't in truly peer-reviewed journals, what you have to hide, whether you even did your own research, etc. I've been on search committees and I definitely do pay attention to where applicants have published.

@FishNerd, right on! I am also not really a morning person. However, last summer, I finally (after umpteen years in grad school and a few years as faculty) figured out that walking my dog in the morning followed by a workout that starts at 9 or 9:30 increases my productivity for the entire day. Sometimes I manage to do some work beforehand, like answering emails, reading for class, or grading papers, but not always. (This morning, for example, all I did was check email. I didn't even reply to any.) But, post-workout? I feel ready to go and hit the ground running. It's a great feeling, tbh.
In grad school, I typically worked out in the evening, mostly because that's when martial arts classes for adults are offered. That's also when most classes at the university gym were, though I sometimes did the lunch classes which are often filled with staff. Figuring out how to fit it in and actually scheduling it in is one way to make sure workouts happen. I've also found that when I'm paying for something, rather than using the free membership I get as a student/faculty, I'm much more likely to go. So I paid for extra to take martial arts classes which were actually held on campus where I did my PhD. Now I pay for a gym membership rather than using the one at work for free. 
Also, for healthy food, I highly recommend figuring out simple, filling recipes which are inexpensive. My go-to lunch in grad school was a pasta salad made with whole grain pasta, homemade (or light/fat-free) balsamic/Italian dressing, some kind of bean (kidney, black, cannellini, garbanzo), and frozen vegetables (often just the bagged mixed vegetables but sometimes I'd combine veggies from different bags). 

Wow, y'all managed to not read any of the women or Black writers...
That it's self might be an interesting way of spinning a topic though? "Find an Early American text from this period that I have failed to include and convince me why it should be included in future courses"
Why did you select these specific works (or did you select them)? It seems like you have some clear divisions here (i.e. creation myths, European contact, early settler colonies, founders, American Renaissance/Dark-Romantics) that you can have them analyze or compare/contrast. At the end of the day though, I imagine who ever charged you with teaching this class is the ultimate resource here.
That aside, if you teach this course in the future you should really consider fitting in the likes of Cabeza de Vaca, Rowlandson, Wheatley, Bradstreet, etc

Definitely ask where it should be sent to. Don't just put it in an envelope and hand it to the person it's about. 
Specific examples of what you gained from their classes are helpful. If possible, comment on the types of assignments, the feedback you were given, and how these contributed to your overall learning. If you went to their office hours, talk about their persona there and what you gained from doing so. The more specific, the better. Oh, and don't go over two pages single-spaced (and really, even that's too long).

I wouldn't continue to overload by taking 5-6 courses in a quarter unless it's something that's necessary to graduate on time. Instead, I would focus on doing what you need to do to take the courses to finish your degree. Beyond that, research experience, ideally in an area you want to be doing research in, is the most valuable thing you can do.
Also, you don't say what field you want to go into. Is it computer science, math, genomics, or something else? 

Some potentially relevant past discussions:
There are more if you search. It all comes down to a matter of personal preference though.

Some potentially relevant past discussions:
There are more if you search. It all comes down to a matter of personal preference though.