Aztecson23

I don't know what is more nerve-wracking: waiting on voting results or waiting to hear back from fulbright.

I understood what you were saying, and I think your post is helpful. I also appreciate its honesty and humility. In general, I have noticed that people who are reticent to speak up are often treated with less consideration than those who express themselves vociferously. I'm not talking about grad students who continually rattle on in class with their abstruse comments--the profs know that even a quiet person can ask a question that gets to the heart of the matter or can make an insightful comment in simple language and quieter voice. I'm speaking about professional and social situations that occur in academia. Those that speak up about, say, establishing deadlines, or who check up on whether or not an adviser has gotten a link to upload a reference letter, are able to get what they want. Those that are prone to be hesitant are obviously never totally ignored, but more hiccups do seem to happen in their progress toward graduation. In social settings, professors seems to like those who speak up, as well. Part of this is due to the fact that deep down inside they don't want to be shown the over-respect that they continually receive. They're human. They want to connect in normal ways, and so when in a social situation a student is able to carry on a conversation with a little verve, that student will stick out in their minds. Sometimes, at the MLA, I'll see a prof I don't normally talk to while on campus--simply because they're specialists in an area different from my own--but in a crowded room filled with strangers, they'll walk over to me, or I'll bump into them, and we behave as if we're buddies. They look relieved at seeing a familiar face, and our institutional connection seems to be reason enough for us to behave more familiarly with one another, than when we're on campus. The point is that I start behaving less like a student and more like a colleague with the aim of treating them like someone I would normally talk in such a setting. They appreciate it. Back on campus, we nod or talk to one another more frequently and with more familiarity. But it's difficult to develop that assertiveness combined with respect because it can come off as arrogance. I'm working on fellowship essays, and the feedback I keep getting from readers is that I need to adopt a tone of mastery, or more precisely, a confident tone with language that suggests that my project will make a major contribution. I don't think so highly of myself in my every day life. (I mean, I do like myself but I just care about doing good work now, not envisioning how badass the future book manuscript will be, because you never know with these things.) But I finally understood that given the numerous essays the fellowship committee will read, a good project expressed with a loud, confident voice will stick out much much more than an understated good project. We have such small windows of opportunities to pitch ourselves and our projects, that a higher volume (though still calibrated to be pleasant) is needed to make things happen for us. And it's important for going on the market, too. Obviously, a good project and articles (and all the rest) are important, but our professional persona is equally as important. Presenting oneself confidently and clearly, as if one is just as capable as the older generation of scholars who will be evaluating us, is crucial. I'm glad that things worked out for you, despite the screw-up that was clearly not your fault. Congratulations on become ABD. I just became ABD too! And please excuse any typos. It's 5:20AM over here.

Hey all. Just to put it out there: please note that I posed the opening question for this forum in 2012 (I did eventually find out that I got into UCSB but ended up going elsehere.) I don't know when acceptances/rejections went out this year and how the timing compares to my year.

Hey everyone. It is common for departments to accept some people early. When I was waiting to hear back from schools, I got four acceptances via phone early on - the professors I'd discussed in my SOP were the ones who called. When I posted my results on the results page, some people questioned their veracity because of their "ideal" timing. This was a quite natural response, I think. I was surprised myself. But, yeah, some schools call certain individuals about acceptances a lot sooner than expected. I know this probably doesn't quell the anxiety at all, but maybe it eases suspicions about the character of those early acceptance posters. They're probably telling the truth. Good luck all. Boulder was one of the schools that called early on. Please don't make me go back to check the date...

"...probably met..."

Just accepted: anyone else in my cohort? We probably meet during the interview/campus visit. Peace.

I just declined Boulder's offer of acceptance to their PhD in English. I was coming in as a British Romanticist. Really hard decision. I hope my declining of the offer helps someone. Peace.

I just declined Fordham's offer. I hope this helps someone on the waitlist.

I received a call from Paul Youngquist at 4:20PM on Tues. Feb. 28th, west coast time.

Best believe, I will do so. I'll PM you after work tonight, which is 10PM tonight.

Me. And in case this helps, the POI said that I was the only 19th centurist admittee which I would imagine to mean the British 19 c. since I work on the Romantics. And I'm very excited.

Calm before the storm or the eye of the storm. All I know is that there is a storm in there somewhere--sheesh, grad cafe + waiting makes you into a catastrophic thinker.

Girlmostlikely: "Though I tried to integrate my discussion of subjectivity with some historical materialism!" This my holy grail, always, an attempt to successfully combine Marx and Freud (and the inheritors of their traditions). Your paper sounds very interesting.

I haven't heard a peep from UCSB's English department. Does anyone have news? Penny for your thoughts.

"Well, I certainly wouldn't have blanketed the sex in such heavy coding. That said, it's a remarkable novel." What do you mean? You would've made it more graphic? I read this book when I was fifteen. As I recall, it was a good book. I also read one...I think it's called "Another Country". That was good too. "The question is not making Giovanni's Room gayer, but giving more narrative subjectivity to Giovanni. I once tried to write a paper about Giovanni's personhood, failed, and wrote a paper about how different marginalized figures--Giovanni, all those scare queens hanging around Guillaume's bar--destabilize David's personhood." I think you're right. Giovanni does kind of serve as a ...well, like he's there to help David figure out (or not) his sexuality, a support, an object, not a subject, as it were. "Speaking of pretension (or lack thereof), that book may have been the anchor of the Queer Studies class I took as an undergrad, and queer theory might be the example people use to make of the esoteric excesses of the humanities academy (grrr), but that doesn't change the fact that "man, when I first read this book, I HATED David" was my point of departure for intellectual discussion. " Donald Hall was the keynote speaker at a conference at my school. He discussed G's Room through these queer hermeneutic lens informed by Gadamer. It was like this ethical imperative thing. I remember he kept discussing a "frozen ontology" with respect to David, for his lack of openess to himself as other and to others as others (my characterization of Donald's argument sounds pretentious.) It was good.

You're welcome. I'm here to serve.

Ah, but could you have made "Giovanni's Room" gayer?

Yup, nothing. Since my two acceptances (thus far) came from POIs, and since a Fordham POI called the lone admit, I assume I am not in. It's a syllogism, you see, akin to "All men are mortal," "Socrates was a man"--->"Socrates is mortal": "POIs have called me thus far," "Fordham POI did not call me"--->"I did not get in to Fordham." As you can see, I'm.slowly.losing.my.mind.

I'm assuming my winning streak is over--have two acceptances with funding and an interview at a prestigious school. But Fordham...not so sure.

Admissions committees would be complete idiots if they didn't accept either of you--I was first laughing, then utterly amazed at your wit and powers of (re)invention. Thanks for the intellectual laughs. Cheers.

Beautifully said.

Wow, Cquin--that's amazing! I know you're on cloud 9. Happy for you. Best of luck.

I agree. I know for sure that the clarity of my writing and the quality of my scholarship improved dramatically as a result of working on an M.A. degree. I'm all for it. I'm not sure I could have gotten into a PhD program had I applied straight out of undergrad.

Wow, ok. I'm kind of sick of being obssessed over this stuff, you know? I'm going on a week-long binge of pure, unadulterated debauchery, just so that I won't have to think anymore about this. Or about relationships that are on their last wheels--the swan song seems to keep goin' and goin'. It's hurting my ears.