wanderlust07

Oh god. I am not this brave. I still have saved papers from HIGH SCHOOL ENGLISH (these are sort of hilariously angsty. I remember one teacher telling me she'd fallen asleep reading it, so somewhere there's a hard copy covered in coffee--probably in my parents' closet. Now this "grading" process is all clear to me and I'm much less offended). As for professorial comments...although I my appreciation of the time and effort that goes into them has grown (particularly since I've started teaching), the pain even the obviously well-meant ones causes me has also grown. I still have a final paper only tangentially related to my sub-field STILL in its envelope from last quarter that I can't stand to open. I sometimes prefer the Schroedinger's Cat approach: as long as I don't open it, the comments are simultaneously both good and bad. The minute I look at the page, the possibilities will collapse (in my brain, they inevitably collapse into being laughed out of academia, which is ridic., since all my profs are super friendly). I come from a family of pack rats: Somewhere (also probably in a closet at my parents' house) is a little round book I "co-wrote" and "co-illustrated" in kindergarden or early elementary school with a friend about some woman who delivered pizza with her feet (wtf?). E, wherever you are, you are still amazing.

Failbook and its parent site, failblog. Because some days I need to remind myself that no matter how much I fear failure, there are many people out there failing harder. And in more hilarious ways.

village idiot

One of my Latin instructors (who had me pegged, let's face it...) once gave me an article that actually used various tree images in the Aeneid and Tolkien to make an argument that Tolkien had drawn heavily on Aeneas as a model (I think...it's been a really long time, and since I was in high school, this was the first piece of scholarly writing I think I ever read...). I have never been able to look at either work the same way since. Looking back, I suspect this was the teacher's attempt to lure me into higher education with the promise of bizarre funsies...I'm such a sucker.

Every time Aeneas reminds you of Frodo Baggins and you realize you've been forever spoiled by pop culture, take a drink.

42

open season

photo booth

walking wounded

Chatter on the results board is dowsing my last brave flicker of hope.

Cannot stop laughing. Gold star!

*Raises hand in the back row* I'm still waiting (not very hopefully)...

Time Lord.

Your taste is excellent. Sam Vimes and House are my alter egos (I'm pretty sure I haven't hit CM psychopath yet...), and one can never know too much about knitting, food, or beer.

secret agent

acceptances spanned several days last year, so I'm betting we've got a bit before they're done.

Welcome incuvent! A few thoughts: I generally choose not to inquire about the status of my applications, if only because bad news will get here soon enough and--were it my job--I would soon get tired of applicants hitting me up for status updates. Plenty of people do inquire, with widely varying results. BUT: 1. Any request for a status check (should you choose to make one) is better done through the dept. secretary or administrator than the director--both because the secretary is more likely to have easy access to the answer and because it's more his/her job to deal with applicants (check the program page--sometimes the directory will list an aide who deals specifically with graduate admissions). 2. My impression (I'm in English lit, so I could easily be wrong) is that most rhet/comp programs haven't started issuing decisions yet, so it might be worth waiting (keep in mind that there's often spam on the boards, and some early acceptances are fellowship recipients; early rejects could be the earliest round of cuts. No news is no news, not necessarily bad. 3. It is fallacious to suppose that sending an email and "getting the bad news" as some ppl post on the results board, prompted the bad news--the adcom is not going to throw you in the reject pile just for asking about the status. In all likelihood, these applicants have inquired about decisions already made and just not yet released. This is all by way of saying, waiting sucks. There's nothing wrong with politely calling or emailing for an update (although some schools specifically ask you not to email...I imagine you would already know if this were the case here). Just be polite rather than pushy and join us all here on the waiting it out forum instead of the results board!!! We are all going similarly stir-crazy. Good luck!

Swedish Chef

Major General.

criminal mastermind