punctilious

Waiting on Boston College here as well!!

I have to confess that after having this song stuck in my head since @FreakyFoucault suggested this title, I finally just HAD to listen to it. I also have to confess that my first real concert as a child was the Backstreet Boys. Pretty sure I haven’t listen to this song since that concert. I kinda enjoy it, actually...

Sick and anxious. I think we may hear from a few places his week, which is wonderful but also terrifying. What about you, @WildeThing?

Sorry I’m just being a bit anxious and delusional due to my sickness! What we know for sure is that they said he was “shortlisted” (edit: they said he was on the short list when they invited him to interview). What we understand from other sources is that MAYBE they interviewed candidates based on period/area, like 2-3 candidates per slot. But really we know pretty much nothing. Waiting on the official Chicago rejection. No clue what will happen with the rest. I am just PRAYING that he gets an acceptance anywhere.

Wait—do you mean that you know the interviewees are going to be waitlisted rather than accepted?

It might just be because I am sick and I know it's still only January but I'm so bored of waiting. I hate the silence!

This would be amazing. Imagine how productive we could all be if we just knew the exact date/time that decisions would be released! No more reason to obsessively check emails/portals/phones!

It won’t let me upvote but this is amazing and I’m so happy for you!

Husband got an email from the Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at Brandeis this morning—just a mass email to all applicants talking about the school. Why must they torment us?

Oh that is super cool! And I would think his creative writing does overlap with his PhD topic somewhat, since his interests are in post-45 fiction and the authors he studies are his main inspirations for his own work.

My husband also really enjoys Kafka! My high school English teacher once said that the writing of Crime and Punishment was a crime and that his reading it was a punishment. LOL. I would have disagree with that sentiment, but I do remember having a harder time getting through that one in my Russian lit class than I did reading Bulgakov, Gogol, Chekhov, Zamyatin, Kharms, etc. That reminds me, here is a poem I found by randomly flipping to a page from a Kharms collection. It's definitely one of my top favorites and I feel like you all need to experience it. The Red-Haired Man by Daniil Ivanovich Kharms There was a red-haired man who had no eyes or ears. Neither did he have any hair, so he was called red-haired theoretically. He couldn't speak, since he didn't have a mouth. Neither did he have a nose. He didn't even have any arms or legs. He had no stomach and he had no back and he had no spine and he had no innards whatsoever. He had nothing at all! Therefore there's no knowing whom we are even talking about. In fact it's better that we don't say any more about him.

My husband is a creative writer (his work has been described by a professor as speculative realism)! He's currently working on a novel and recently had a short story accepted for publication in Quarterly West! What kind of creative writing do you do?

I actually really loved Heart of a Dog! I may be forgetting the book (it's been some years), but I'm wondering why you ended up reading that in a history course? My other favorite Russian other is probably Gogol. His short stories are great.

You English majors are THE. WORST. Just kidding, I forgive you.

Correcting family members and close friends on 'if' vs. 'whether' and the verb 'to lay.' That's my husband, at least. Honey, if you're reading this, I just want you to be aware that I'm never going to stop saying 'I'm going to lay down' -- especially considering how you go all English major on me about it. To answer your question, 'what' I'm going to lay down is myself, in my bed. Lol.

My husband thinks Infinite Jest is 'magnificent', despite the rap it seems to have. His favorites are, in chronological order, Joyce's Ulysses, Nabokov's Lolita OR Pale Fire (he's conflicted), Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow (shout out to Mason & Dixon), Wallace's Infinite Jest, and Egan's A Visit from the Goon Squad.

No, I haven't! The description says feminist, supernatural, and strange--I'M SOLD.

I'm not literature smart but my favorite book is Bulgakov's Master and Margarita. It's just so magical!

Thank you so much!

Another day without news has made me a bit sad (plus I’m sick which doesn’t help) but a book review my husband wrote was just accepted by The Millions, so yay!

I would assume that date was for interviewees specifically. as it’s what the DGS said during my husband’s interview. I’m not totally sure whether all accepted/waitlisted applicants are interviewed for Maryland, however. I believe that is how it worked in past years, though I could be wrong!

Would be nice to hear from Delaware and Boston College, as they should be next on our notification list! Maryland would be wonderful but it’s still pretty early—they said we would hear by February 1.

I have really enjoyed the first four books, despite some minor annoyances (Like how do they not know how to pronounce police or what basketball is? Does the magic world just 100% entirely isolate itself from the muggle world? And also, I could use like way less quidditch, as I don't care much for sports in real life so I don't need to read hundreds of pages on their various games/cups. Haha. Oh, and some of the treatment of Hermione is frustrating to me.). Thank you so much for the recommendation! I'll have to check that out once I've finished HP!

My husband just read Omon Ra by Victor Pelevin, and is now onto Five-Carat Soul by James McBride. He loved Omon Ra and it was a quick read for anyone looking for some contemporary Russian fiction! I personally just read Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. I've never actually read the Harry Potter books, but I figured I probably should! My three classes just started, however, so I'm now reading a visual communications textbook... we'll see if I have time to fit in the Order of the Phoenix between work, school, and freelancing.

That is so amazing! CONGRATULATIONS!