TripWillis

I bet you a bunch of people who wrote SoPs for Berkeley missed that memo and now look like fools. I know I would've. Fortunately, I didn't apply there, because I didn't know about this until now.

One of my letter writers had Henry Louis Gates Jr. as her advisor. She said he was great, except, "He has no time for students." However, he did provide a blurb for her book. So, I guess that's worth something. But yeah, I wouldn't bet on the rock stars....

THANK you.

I want to also nominate Henry Louis Gates Jr. I like Signifying Monkey, but there's something about the way it's written that just bothers me.

When I told my thesis advisor that (upon reading Judith Butler) I didn't find the theory of gender performativity to be the most revolutionary thing, or a particular surprise to me, his reasoning was that (and he is gay and we have a rapport) possibly because I am bisexual, I am already constituted with the ideas of gender fluidity by sheer practice. In other words, I've been participating in subversive bodily acts for most of my adult life.

I s'pose I'm a good old fashioned minimalist. I think Butler beats her central concepts to death with words. I understand that the idea behind her style of writing is partially based on subverting a patriarchal aesthetic standard of writing, which I'm down with, but so many times (particularly in Gender Trouble) I notice her going for the "more is more" approach to accomplish this. And, really, does anyone need 7 coordinating clauses in a sentence? Ever? Small bites! Edit: Let me be clear -- I'm talking about the middle section of Gender Trouble -- the bookends are pretty accessible) Also, I like Butler. I'm quibbling. With D&G I like the concept of the rhizome, but I could take or leave the BWO.

See, I like Derrida. Deleuze & Guattari is tough for me, but not because I don't understand what they're saying -- it's that what they're saying does not need such verbosity to be communicated. Same goes for Butler.

I am not in this thread today. Today I am in "I am a genius who will get accepted" thread. Now where is that thread?

You have to go on the e-credential site (using your RUID number) and upload it, along with your other docs.

http://www.floridatoday.com/article/20111205/NEWS01/312050012/Postal-Service-cuts-slow-first-class-next-day-mail-delivery

Literature is dominating.

One of my letter writers is 4 days late on a December 1st deadline. I registered her in early September and she's known about this since August. I am livid. I mean, if she ends up being a total flake, what do I do? Do I make her pay me the application fee, or what? What about applications after that?

We could call it a "university."

Proto-anything is really the ticket. Proto, post, pre, meta, beta, inter, intra, ogical. JOUISSANCE. Now copy and paste that line over and over again for 15 pages and you're bound to get in somewhere.

"rebuke the necessity of" ???

I think when you're dealing with multiple works by one author, you don't actually need to list the last name if it's already clarified within the paragraph. So, some of your citations could just have a blurb phrase or signal term like ("Age of Discretion" 45) to signal which Bouvoir you'd be citing from. I am working with 4 or 5 essays from an author in addition to his novel, and for some of the essays, I cite them by signal phrases that show which text I'm citing.

For schools that have cutoffs, fuck those schools. Why don't they just put it on their admissions page instead of the vague, "Oh, we don't have a cutoff, but generally successful applicants have at least a blah blah blah." Stop it. Just put the minimum up and save me the application fee, jerks. Jesus.

I found out after I applied, basically. I sent it in the next day.

I got 53rd in 2009, which would've been slightly better, but I don't think the low quant percentile is a make it or break it thing. My piece of shit application overall, on the other hand....

26th percentile.

I know for a fact that a person who may be on one of my ad-comms hates the paper I submitted. Too late. I hope he's not involved in admissions. Plus, I have absolutely no backup plan if this doesn't work out, and I'm becoming extremely pessimistic about the entire thing. I actually wish I could withdraw all my apps and get a refund at this point. I need to start figuring out what shitty jobs my M.A. in English can nab me and I need to start a job search now, so that when I graduate in May I can repay my enormous goddamn student loan debt doing something other than waiting tables or begging for change on a street corner. If only I had a time machine so I could go back and scream at my 18 year old self and tell him, "YOU ARE MAKING AND ARE GOING TO MAKE SO MANY GIGANTIC MISTAKES. STOP IMMEDIATELY. DO NOT GO TO COLLEGE YET." But, here I am. It's desperation hour. I need some booze. It's only December 1st.

Boy am I in this thread today. Gee whiz. I think I'm going to start the job hunt when the fall semester is over. I'm not counting on this PhD thing at all.

Tomorrow is December 1st. (The above is proof that I'm not a snob)

Not me. I hope none of you people get in -- all yr stipends r belong to me! (Kidding, of course)

No one has said anything to me one way or the other; one of my letter recommenders recommended that I "aim high" on schools... so if I don't get into these boutique programs I'm applying to, I blame it entirely on him.