Stately Plump

Just for clarification, I haven't received an "official" waitlist email. I, too, am anxious to hear something official. I think they actually mean that the graduate school itself will not give out any of that information, especially--as someone said--because they don't want to get bombarded with emails/phone calls. I'm pretty sure the department itself is free to do whatever it damn well pleases And when I emailed Dr. Ray, it took her a few days to get back to me, too.

I don't know, but I'm interested in the same information. It seems like there have been a few acceptances and a few wait-listers. I feel like there should be more, but perhaps the other aren't on here. I haven't counted them out yet, though my sense is that with each passing day, our chances diminish greatly

Who was the email from? I emailed Sangeeta Ray, the DGS, a few weeks ago, and her response was strangely worded, lol. Kinda weird to get a poorly worded email from the DGS at a Ph.D. program. Congrats, though! I'll be keeping my eyes peeled, now, for an email

Rest assured, coko, you are normal. I've been ready to throw up since Thursday because some of my top choices normally (based on studies of the results board in years past, which I've studied) send out notifications around this time. If you need help coping, there's a crew of us over in Lit/Rhet/Comp who are panicking. (<-- sunglasses to hide fear of rejection)

Trip: remains faithful to thread through distractions, sets up self to succeed in graduate school

I love Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next series. Right now I am reading Ann Patchett's State of Wonder. It's spectacular.

I've spent most of my time mastering the "refresh" button on the results page. Oh, you said non-forum related things to keep busy? Hahahahaha.

I got a phone call from UMass to schedule an interview to work in the writing program for funding, and then three days later received an email notifying me of my acceptance. But then someone else got called for an interview and was wait-listed a few days later... My guess would be that, at the very least, you haven't been rejected. I can't imagine them asking you to fill out FAFSA forms and then rejecting you. That seems like an enormous waste of your time and their time. Plus it seems horrendously cruel. Good luck!

The only good pizza in Italy is in the south! Napoli, specifically. Rome, Florence, Venice, Milan all have terrible, terrible pizza. Although in Florence, there is a pizza shop called Gusta Pizza and it's owned by some dudes from Napoli. It was the best pizza I've ever had in my entire life. No joke.

Keep the faith Trip! You never know what might happen! *starts crying in soup*

Is this a grad conference? Because I was recently accepted to attend an undergrad conference for which I will have to pay quite a bit to get to, and I'm thinking I won't go. I definitely agree with the networking argument and I, too, have felt rejuvenated about my discipline after presenting and talking to others who are passionate about similar things, but undergrad conferences won't matter much in 4-5 years, when we are applying for jobs. They'll want to see graduate/"professional" conferences. If it's a major conference, on the other hand, it might be worth going. Just my 2¢

And what I actually meant was, I didn't send any emails to anyone with a harvard.edu email address

What I meant was, I sent Rebecca Cook an email, because she's Steve's personal assistant. http://english.fas.harvard.edu/people/administration

I just sent Stephen Greenblatt an email, I'll let you guys know what he says

Yea, it's def discouraging seeing wait-listers on the results board but having no wait-list email in my inbox We don't know for sure till we know for sure, though!

I'm always a little skeptical about one post. Unless someone claims it, I'm calling it a bluff.

Always, always, always, assume no news is good news Or at least, assume no news isn't bad news

I've been sick since about January 7th.

I took Trip to mean "every restaurant in Waltham is Mexican," but I could be wrong?

There is so much I want to read that, whenever I go to Barnes and Noble, I end up feeling depressed/guilty because it reminds me that I should be home reading, not looking at books that I might read. Notable misses: Great Expectations Russian lit (War and Peace, Anna Karenina, Crime and Punishment, etc.) Hemingway The Aeneid (which is especially noticeable, given my interest in early modern lit) Thomas Hardy There are scores and scores more; these are top on my list of "must-read to-read" list. (I have a separate list for "not-must-read to-read".)

They're coming! They're out in the U.K.! And you can find them online, if you search hard enough

Not "literature" and not a movie, but the Game of Thrones HBO series is far, far superior to the book. The book is pretty much garbage beach reading, and it is so poorly written (the story is decent, hence the superb adaptation, but the writing, my goodness) that there have been times when I literally (I mean, literally) lol'd at the words on the page. I would also argue that both the Swedish and the American versions of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo are better than the book (well, they are better than the American translation of the book; I haven't read the book in Swedish [i don't know Swedish]). The translations--which many people seem to love--are terrible! True story: I opened the book to five separate pages, and on each page, I found a sentence that was poorly translated. Example: second page, "The fact of its being so rare a flower..." Was there really no better way of saying that? The fact of its being? Really?

soooooo funny hahahahaha

I know Emory and Stanford do interviews for English. I think there are a few more. I'm not sure why some do and some some don't. Those that do can obviously get a better feel for the student they are accepting, above and beyond the paper-person they got to know in the application. But it is very, very time consuming, and can be expensive for the interviewee (especially if he/she isn't accepted... I would hate flying to Stanford for an interview just to find out I got rejected).