melusine

can't speak for current students but according to my LOR writers, they recently had a few positions opening in the dept.: one for an 18thc prof, one for medieval and one for 19thc/Modernism. The two first ones got about 40 and 60 applicants. The last got 118. And we're not the biggest university out there.

I guess all's fair in love and war.. I know I've made stuff up in essays in middle school and my first year of high school. But, and that may be just me, there's something that makes my really uncomfortable about lying on things at a university level. Even small things like these that probably don't matter and no one will probably be able to detect, Not sure if it's my academic honesty speaking or some weird compulsion to be honest with myself.. The way I see it is that I wouldn't want to lie to my husband on our wedding night, never mind how insignificant the lie.. yes, I tend to romanticise things a lot.

You know it's going to be a long week when... you can find a deep sense of masochistic frustration/fulfillment watching the calendar date change every morning seriously, it feels just like the last period before lunch break when you're trying to distract yourself by counting the wrinkles on Miss Homeroom's forehead while you're watching the minutes creep by on the clock that you're convinced is broken. except now it's not minutes but days. and stress has turned YOUR forehead into Miss Homeroom's.

Ha! If you google my name you get three or four short stories I published when I was like 18 (22 now).. And a ton of links to mail-order-bride type sites! ..Ah, the beauty of having a really common Russian name.

ugh- they sure are. From what I've read, pretty much ALL my comp lit programs accept from 4 to 6 people (at the very most) and because they're all big names, receive around 700 apps. so yeah.

thanx!

Dear School. I know you've told me not to write or call, that you needed time to think things over... What happened? School.. Where did we go wrong?? Even before I met you, you wooed me with your promises of happy futures together. Do you remember, school? Do you? I do. You used to make it sound so easy. You even set up an online system for me to apply, so you could receive my letters faster. Like you couldn't wait to read them! Was it all a lie? And then... Then, you started making demands. Asking me for more transcripts, more test scores. Money even!! I spent all I had on you. School. ... I LIVE IN A VAN DOWN BY THE RIVER!!! But did I ever blame you? Did I ever say anything hurt you? Yes. Yes, I might have written other schools. But at least I was honest. I told you! I told you as soon as you asked if there was someone else! I gave you a list, School. And now, this silence. Where are you now, School? What are you doing? Are you reading someone else's SOPs? Letting yourself be charmed by their heavily revised writing style, their overblown rec letters, their stellar scores? Can't you see that none of it matters?!?? Because I'm THE ONE. I'm the one, School. And you know it. And I know it too. That's why I sit here, night after night, waiting for you to call and tell me you want me, like I know you do. You have cost me my rent, my friends and my dignity, School. While you are out ogling other applicants, I could be doing the same with other schools, but I don't! I don't because I WANT YOU! And you may think I'm needy, and weird, and obsessed.. And you might even call me a creep if you knew that I spend most of my time on your website, looking at pictures of your exes, and trying to picture my head on their bodies, mentally photoshopping myself into pictures of us together... But that's just because I know we're meant to be, School. So please. Pick up the phone and call. I'll be waiting. Yours. m

Wow! Allow me to borrow that from you for my next explanation of Comp. Lit.: "We look for underlying, universal patterns of (literary and artistic) expression by surveying them cross-culturally" Thanks for that!

Agreed! I always kind of assumed I was the last person on earth to listen to JC Superstar and Hair. Comforting to know there's others out there too! Btw- random Broadway trivia of the day: Did you know that Diane Keaton played Sheila in the very first Broadway Hair production? (yes, I'm probably the last person on earth to have bought the actual CD-rom and booklet )

Hi there! I also applied to Columbia and NYU! *snide competitive squint* We're probably not in that much of a competition though, since my languages are Russian/French/English. My German's waaaaaay down there with Latin. I'm also trying not beat myself up too much for not applying through French for Columbia. I didn't realize you didn't necessarily have to go through the English dept. until after the deadline. Should've gone through French, but oh well. Do you have a specific period you're focusing on/people you're excited to work with??

giggidy! I admit, that's the first picture that crossed my mind too.

Well that really was the thread's original intent.. Consider Ben Lee's song my entry to the playlist. You don't expect me to do *all* the work, do ya?

How do you know when you're obsessing (way) too much about admissions results? When your subconsciousness starts interiorising perfectly innocent pieces of music as a privately significant soundtrack to your own particular little angst-ridden psyche... As an example- today, I had the transcendental experience of said psyche talking to me through the medium of Ben Lee's song "Begin": "Walking through Central Park I'm in a foriegn country and I'm waiting for a sign That it's ok for you to care Cause I'm not going anywhere And while you wonder if you should let me in I only want it to begin" yep. I am officially going insane.

Ha! I've already said it somewhere before, but the conversation's usually along the lines of either: Random Person: So.. What would you do in a Comparative Literature program? ... Compare books? Me: ... Yeah. Pretty much. RP: Oh. ........ And you need a degree for that? Random Angry Person: So.. What would you do in a Comparative Literature grad program? Just read books? Me: I.. RAP: I can't believe they offer a phd in that! What's next? A degree in Ipod listening? Tv-browsing?? Me: Well.. RAP: *disgusted shudder* I can't believe that's where *my* tax money's going.

I'm actually feeling anxious for the exact opposite reason! I'm 22, currently live with my boyfriend but my parents happen to live a literal ten minute walk away.. Although my family has moved around quite a bit (or maybe precisely because of that), I'm still very attached to my parents and have never actually lived by myself. I pretty much subtly migrated from their apartment to my (ex-) bf's, then back to theirs, then on to my (now) bf's. Although I really feel like it's time for me to stand on my own two feet, and that I'd do anything to get a place at any of my top choice institutions, the fact that I'll be simultaneously moving to another country that's completely foreign to me (I've been to the US once for a couple weeks when I was about 12), separating for the first time from my parents that are the only family I have and have had for the last 19 years or so, leaving the few friends I've had time to make here, jeopardizing my relationship with my bf who most likely won't end up anywhere near me if he does get accepted to the schools he applied to, all this is enough to make me feel Factor in the money (lack thereof) and immigration issues - I'm looking at a complete and definite move away from the only support structure I've ever known, and no chance of visiting each other or anything like that for at least a year or more... Ugh. ...alright, that's enough, time to put the big girl panties back on.

Something a lot of people don't realize though, is the difference between assigning your own (filthy/sexual/whatever) interpretation to a text and reading it from a diachronic perspective that takes into account its origins/time of production/original intent and designated readership. Fact is a lot of today's "Disney" fairy-tales were written by 18th century noblewomen to explain their futures as married women to their unmarried (and thus virgin) daughters. Beauty and the Beast is one of those, written by Madame Leprince de Beaumont (not Perrault, as many people seem to assume) to instruct the younger ladies of the court that an older grumpy husband can actually be quite tender. While the rose-as-vagina may seem to us somewhat far-fetched, it was in fact an already existing and relatively self-evident trope in courtly literature at the time... Consider it the delicate 18th century equivalent to today's euphemistic promise rings or whatnot. Folk tales (as opposed to literary tales penned by one author) like the ones recorded by the Grimms are sometimes even more explicitly sexual. Rapunzel, for instance, is teeming with allegoric representations of intercourse and is basically a giant metaphor of losing your virginity. Sorry to get all lecture-y on you. I just wrote a cool couple papers on this.

I just had a dream about having to go back to high school while my boyfriend got accepted to his program in NY. It was not any random high school either, but *my* high school. I was being chased down the hall by the guys that used to bully me.. They had poured ketchup over my jacket and their girlfriends tried to lock me in the bathroom. I woke up just as one of the biggest guys was about to beat me up and I was desperately dialling for my boyfriend to somehow come and save me over the phone...

lol me too! just asked my bf and he didn't know either. says it's "frat boy slang" and i should be grateful he doesn't. then again he's south american so it would be t&c for him. lol

yep...

oh good! lol yeah i have a hard time picking up on sarcasm in this context, after years of having to justify my choice of orientation to a variety of people (high school peers/rez neighbors/etc..) whose general reaction would be: "literature?? wait, so you, like, get a diploma for reading books?? wow. what's next, do i get a phd for listening to my ipod??? why don't you come with me to lab and see what a real education looks like!"

ouch.

it's an academic panopticon!! (wouldn't Foucault be proud?)

Michael Phelps (..i know, i know. first thing that came to mind tho!)

Toril Moi is awesome. The only reason I ended up not applying to Duke comp lit is that they had no one for Russian..

omg! I always thought nambla was another South Park invention.. I just googled it. It's real. Scary Stuff!