melusine

Well, I'm 100% Russian (nationality, not necessarily ethnicity-wise but anyway) and our anthem is one of my least favorite for a combination of reasons- tho i'm not a big fan of anthems in general, or any other para-military nationalistic manifestation of patriotic sentimentalism.. lol But to add to the random fun fact discussion (sorry for the digression): Sergey Mikhalkov is also the father (or grandfather, i have a sudden doubt..) of actor/director Nikita Mikhalkov whom you may know from Burnt by the sun- a movie about the stalin purges which won the Academy Award forf best Intl film in the nineties..

Ha! I'd like to know too!

(hope my bf isn't reading this but..) you sound HOT! lol I say it in all my unbiased/anonymity-protected/spatially-distant earnestness!

lol @ tinuvielf! Thanks- now I won't be able to picture my "happy place" office without a throne! @ Sanssouci - do you have a specific Sorbonne in mind? I started my undergrad at Paris III and it was the most unpleasant, chaotic, disorganized environment I've ever had to study in. That's actually part of the reason I left France (where I grew up) to study in Canada. Not a lot of people outside France seem to be aware of the fact that behind its prestigious-sounding name, the Sorbonne is in fact a public university which accepts pretty much any loser who managed to pass their BAC (equivalent of the SATs). Big auditorium classes are a mess of people talking, throwing stuff at each other, fighting, disrescpecting each other and the profs, and it's often so noisy you can't even take notes. Sorry if I went a bit on a rant here, but years of having to justify my choices ("omg!! you left PARIS and the SORBONNE to study HERE??? why????") will do that to ya!

yay! thanks for answering, you guys! coyabean- that's funny, I also have an eerily clear vision of what my office should look like! I've actually known since my first day of undergrad when I walked (by mistake) into the Comp Lit graduate administrator's office at my first university. I saw the big wooden desk, the clean white walls, the friendly yet demure green plants, the even friendlier stacks of books with familiar titles, heard tchaikovski's Seasons playing faintly from a smooth silver laptop, and saw the big airy window with its thin gauzy drapes barely veiling the sky and pine trees beyond. *sigh* that's when I knew I'd come home! my second epiphany came this summer when I took a class for visiting-superstar-scholar in my field who proved to me that my longtime dream of working and living both in Europe (home) and the US (where the "money" is) is indeed possible: she teaches from september to april in the Sorbonne and may to august in NYU. and thus, the dream lives on!

really? yikes! mine dishes them out for free...

They totally are! I remember being so puzzled by Perceval when I read it the first time. I mean, what kind of would-be-knight/hero steals, cheats and violently rapes a young girl on his first day adventuring??? ..Ah, but that was before he had been initiated (quoth my prof, with a compassionate sigh) lol Another very popular sub-field in French medieval studies right now is women's writings, especially Marie de France and Christine de Pizan.

Just another little thread to pass the time.. Regardless how far down the line it might be, I'm sure we've all more or less considered and taken into account our professional futures when applying to our respective grad programs/schools. So my question would be: what do you picture yourself doing with your degree?

I did it for all of mine, regardless of whether they asked it or not. I mean, if you've got a couple extra As, it never hurts to try!

haha! Bonum est in quod tendit appetitus.

I agree.. I mean, I'm from Russia and have only been in North America for 3 years now (Canada- never been to the States).. And I did fine. In fact, my verbal score is 99% percentile. If there is any bias, I'd say it's more of an Anglo-Saxon/Victorian lit heritage. But that just means you've happened to read/like those kinds of books (which is my case). I have another friend who's from Benin (Africa), has never set foot in the states either and is anything but middle-class. She also happens to love Jane Austen and aced the GRE.

lol - that is pretty weird for an address box.. not so much for "birth place" boxes though. not many people know this but the country you were born in, is the one listed as your place of birth, regardless of its present existence. which is why i still have to list USSR as my birthplace, regardless of my being a "citizen of the Russian Federation".

aww- i sympathize with you guys! luckily, my parents are both very understanding and intimately familiar with the various horrors of application proceedings.. they both have fine arts and architecture diplomas from the Soviet Union which, while technically phds in russia, have been "recognized" as master's degrees in the western world. so yes, the worst i can expect from either of them at this point is a slap on the neck whenever i mention grad school, as a friendly reminder to "chill the h*ll out until february!"

I was hit by a bus when I was sixteen. Coma, memory loss, fractured every bone in my face and skull, had to say bye to my silly girlish modelling dreams. (perhaps a good thing, in retrospect lol) But anyway. You know all those funny movie moments, like the Mean Girls ending, or expressions like "get yourself hit by a bus" or whatever.. Yeah. I hate those. I mean, I actually *was* hit by a bus. And I'm still scared of the damn things whenever I have to walk too close to the road.

I don't want to depress myself too much so I won't think of *all* the weaknesses my app might have, in general.. But the first thing that comes to mind right now is my Harvard app. Not only did I not realize they needed actual transcripts (not uploads) until the day of the deadline (dec 31)... needless to say they received an incomplete file... But when it came to submitting, I also realized last minute that they ask you to transcribe pretty much all of your transcript into their neat little box-format (*pls list all coursework relevant to your discipline+grades+average+semesters taken). At that point, it being new years' eve and all, I pretty much said "screw it" and submitted as is, leaving that annoying page blank, So yeah. That was a hundred dollars well spent.

I'm a disability assistant/audibook reader. Whenever I'm not reading for school, I'm reading for work. I pretty much read around the clock!

My family emigrated when I was 7(ish) never really settling anywhere since we kept moving ever 5 yrs or so. my mom still doesn't speak any language other than Russian (she works at home) and my dad's english is an endless source of amusement (sorry dad! lol). so yes, i'd say i've kept a pretty close attachment to things back home. and if by chance, i were to forget about it, my flashy red double-eagled passport with its endless visa problems (srsly- any country except cuba and nrth korea i need a visa for!!) is sure to remind me.

great book! for an even more focused, personal account, try Massie's Nicholas and Alexandra. It's great but i couldn't finish it.. It's just too sad when you know how it's going to end. Then again I'm Russian and these things may affect me more than the average person.

lol that's a word? --- angels

take this from someone who's spent the past term basically polling every prof that would give me the time of day about what my chances were, *really*.. the answer, especially from my recommenders, was pretty unanimous: writing rec letters to undergrads is an annoying/tedious process. it also amounts to a professional in your field laying their name down for your sake. (if you turn out to be a fiasco in your future school, they're partially to blame and their reputation would suffer).. to sum up> THEY WOULD NOT DO IT IF THEY DIDN'T BELIEVE YOU HAD (at least) A DECENT SHOT AT ACCEPTANCE. hope that's as reassuring to you as it was to me. (a mild reassurance, i'll give you that, but desperate times... )

This reminds me.. Last year, a friend of mine, while checking his email during a stats class (one he was desperately trying not to fail, and where everyone thought he was complete idiot), saw that he had gotten into a PHD in physics at his dream school. In the middle of the class, he stood up, gave his astonished peers a beaming smile while crumpling up the graph he'd been working on, then stuck his tongue out to the teacher and walked out. now that's what i call a victory dance.

oooh fellow vancouverite(s)!! as far as expenses go, btw, as the saying goes "u ain't seen nothing yet"..! i am currently looking for a bunker to hide in for when the olympics strike. what's even worse: i live on campus, within two blocks of our ice rink!!

oooh one of mine was a nightmare. can't remember which tho.. it wouldn't let me submit because I'd picked a province (BC) among their states/provinces list and Canada as a country. message went: "you cannot select a state if you have selected a country of residence that is not the U.S." umm. ok. then why put Canadian provinces in your states list??? had to apply without a province. retards.

that was my point. i know i've already made myself recognizeable and probably will even more when i post results. so far i have not said anything that i see as something i might regret, but posting my current research focus and the very biased opinions attached to it just might be. hence my decision from refraining to share it!

good question indeed! my bf is applying to a Masters' in History in roughly the same area (east coast) as me. we're actually both applying to NYU/Columbia.. but it certainly promises to be an interesting year. neither of us has any idea where we'll end up, what our priorities will be or how we'll work things out. we've only been together two years but he's a few years older than me (already has one master's degree in another field) and ready to get his act together, whereas i'm only 22 and feel like i'm about to start elementary.