toasterazzi

Oh hi! I'm there with you. This is part of one of my many problems with the canon. What makes some book from 200 years ago better than a popular book from today besides the fact that someone decided one day it should be that way? I will always say that Twilight is badly written, but that doesn't mean that there's no value in studying the text and/or its impact. And even when a new popular text is decently written, there's this resistance to allowing it to have academic merit. That's never made sense to me.

@MissH-I am somewhat interested in UCLA, though not strongly at this point. Eh I might still give it a try, but ugh...money...Good thing I already have a summer job lined up I suppose lol.

I feel you on this. I'm probably not going to take the subject test, mostly because the school's I've really been looking at don't require it AND I'm poor .Though if a school that I really fell in love with required it, I suppose I'd suck it up and take it. If it's anything like the Praxis Lit. test, then I would probably do ok on it overall. But I don't especially want the additional stress lol.

That's awesome! I'm probably going to be sending some stuff in for conferences here in the near future. Here's hoping that a. I do good enough work for someone accept be and b. I get accepted some place that's awesome to visit .

See, growing up in the Midwest, I'm accustomed to incredibly unpredictable weather. I'm tired of not knowing whether it's going to snow or rain or be sunny or do all of those things in one day lol. When I was in LA and San Diego last weekend, it was so much easier. And I got to wear my flip flops and shorts in March, which made me indescribably happy lol. I'm also one of those people who is really displeased by the gray of winter, so I definitely need to get somewhere sunnier.

I have looked at Pitt and they're kind of in limbo on my list right now. I'm not feeling a strong pull there based on what I've researched, but I haven't entirely cast them aside either. My interest in YA mostly lies in how it ties in with my other interests and I pretty much hate the Victorian Era...but I blame that on having to teach the Victorian Era while I was student teaching lol. My master's program didn't require the GRE, so I haven't taken it yet, but I'm planning on taking it in June. I don't have a lot of spare time to study until the semester is over, but I try to squeeze little bits in here and there. I've downloaded a bunch of GRE apps on my iphone. There's also a fair amount of GRE vocab websites out there. In May, I plan to hit the study guides pretty hard as well. Maybe one of the topics from here will strike your fancy: http://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/

I have a lot of mixed feelings about the canon in general. I understand the idea of having base texts to start with, but part of me wonders if certain books really are as great as I've been made to believe. It also seems to me that there are still often biases at work when people try to be more in inclusive in the canon. Like certain LGBT writers or minority writers are acceptable when others aren't. And it doesn't seem to be based on any solid reasoning that I can wrap my head around. I also hated being handcuffed to the canon when I was student teaching/substitute teaching in high school when I knew that there were other texts my students would probably benefit from and relate to more easily. I'm not saying the canon has to be completely thrown out, but I have a lot of general distrust in it.

^That reminds me of something I wanted to ask. What's everybody interested in studying, researching, writing about, etc.? Perhaps we can generate some suggestions about possible programs that might suit different people's interests or something .

Knowing the laws and such is definitely important. I've found this site to be a pretty handy resource: http://www.lgbtmap.org/equality-maps

As far as the southern schools go, the only one that gives me pause from the list in your sig is Mississippi. North Carolina isn't perfect, but it leans more left than a lot of other southern states and Nashville seems to be fairly chill as well. I have a good (gay) friend who lives there and loves it and he hasn't had any problems as far as I know. I don't know about Mississippi though. Maybe they'll be surprisingly awesome. I have another set of gay friends who went to the University of Georgia and said it was the most welcoming place they've ever been which they didn't expect given what one might stereotypically think about Georgia (minus Atlanta). My fiancee is pretty adament about us not going to a southern school though. He would fit in with rural life pretty well (he's a farming/hunting sort of dude), but he's not protected by any sort of laws in most southern states. And I don't want to make him move to a place that's going to be harder on him than Indiana already is. And ya know, I never used to think I'd really want to live in California. Like I knew it'd be a cool place, but I always kinda figured that I'd somehow end up either stuck in the midwest or on the east coast somewhere. After visiting California though, I gotta say that I really do want to be there, moreso than I've ever wanted to be in any other state.

Location is a pretty big concern for me as well. I've lived in Indiana my entire life (minus 1 year in Illinois) and it's really not for me at all. My fiancee isn't a fan of the state either. For that matter, neither of us is particularly attached to the midwest. Ideally, we'll end up on or near one of the coasts, but I'm still planning to apply to some of the schools in between those areas and maybe one or two in the South. I have a love/hate relationship with the South though so we'll see how that goes. We recently visited California for spring break and pretty much fell in love with San Diego, and I think we'd both be happy (and poor lol) there . Incidentally, my Master's program didn't actually require the GRE so I'm planning to take it for the first time in June and most likely once more after that. I've acquired all these study materials, but I haven't quite figured out how to work it all into my schedule just yet. I know I'll have a lot more free time after the semester ends in May, but I definitely want to get started sooner. I'll probably just have to actually put it in my calendar with reminders and such. Although, if I recall correctly, I did better on my SAT when I didn't prepare for it than when I did O____O

Right. There are many schools in the very top of the rankings lists that I've already ruled out because I don't think we'd fit well together. As for whether or not they'd actually accept me if I applied...well I'm choosing to remain somewhat idealistic about that lol. At any rate, I really need to see my interests reflected in the course work, faculty, etc. If that's not there, then I see no reason for me to apply to the school, even if it is ranked number one. P.S. Literary roller derby sounds like a great time (^.^)

When I applied to grad school last year, I knew I wasn't quite ready for PhD programs. I'd been out of school for two years and I wasn't sure what I wanted to focus on or commit to yet. Now that my first year of my Master's program is almost complete, I can definitely say I made the right decision. My writing skills have grown tremendously and I've learned quite a bit about the professional world of English academia. I've been able to teach two courses each semester and I have a more defined idea of what I want to focus on as I look toward applying to PhD programs.

I've looked at rankings, but they haven't been especially helpful in assisting me with deciding which schools might work best for me. So I started looking at the courses that each school offers, and I've found that to be much for useful in terms of developing a preliminary list. It's especially beneficial when the sites have detailed course descriptions and/or syllabi available. From the preliminary list, I'm going through each site carefully and collecting pertinent info in a document (requirements, funding and such). I've also started to request info from some schools. Once I've gathered information about all the schools on my list, I will hopefully be able to narrow down the list to ten or so prospective schools.

I am! I'm currently in a Master's program, and I should be finishing next spring. I'd like to begin a PhD program next fall. So far, I've been researching and bookmarking programs I'm interested in. I've also collected some GRE sources, and I'm starting to work with those so I can take the test this summer. I also just started a document on my computer to keep track of important info about the schools I'm interested in.

Like everybody else, I think it probably depends on your perception of your department. It also depends on how much that matters to you. One of the first things I put up in my office was my Safe Zone placard which identifies me as someone who has been trained as an ally for the LGBTQ community. I also joined the campus LGBTQA group and I'll probably be one of their grad advisors in the next school year. The group hasn't had any large scale rallies or anything, but we have been visible out in the middle of campus during National Coming Out Day and we just had our yearly drag pageant last night in the student union. If there was some sort of march or protest or whatever, I'd most likely participate as long as the cause was something I supported. I know nobody in my cohort would care and based on the professors I've had so far as well as the general environment in my department (English), I don't think the faculty would care either. As far as I can tell, they really don't care about our outside of class activities as long as we're performing well as students and teachers.

Ooh I use graze! I've gotten three boxes so far and I'd say I've liked about 75% of what I've gotten.

Haha if gummy bears are in my general vicinity, I will inhale them. This is a fact.

My department likes the Mr./Ms. thing, so I go with that. I'd probably go by my first name if it were up to me though. I'm actually in a student org that one of my students is in and he calls me by my first name outside of class. He's never gotten mixed up in class which I find moderately surprising hehe

My office mate has an iPad and it's really improved her functionality for a lot of things we have to do in our program. I think I might end up getting one within a few months. She has a stylus and one of the attachable keyboards and she has no problems taking notes in our classes. Plus, it's a lot lighter. Granted, we both have mac laptops and they aren't especially heavy, but I'm all about lightening the load, especially when I have to tote around the giant literary theory book we're using this semester lol. I've played around with some other tablets, but I'm pretty much an Apple person across the board. I dig the OS and I already know there are some apps available that would be handy for the classes I'm teaching.

I don't have anything particular to add about snacks, but I'm just chiming in to say that my best friend has actually made alcohol infused gummy worms and they are superb

I definitely prefer central air, but window units are fine in a pinch, especially if you only have a smaller area to cool (like one room).

I'm taking Lit. Theory, Postmodern American Lit., and a class on Arthurian Legend. I'm teaching the second freshman comp class at my university which focuses on research.

Wishbone is my frame of reference for several stories. When I finally do get around to reading them, I still picture the Wishbone episodes in my head hehe.

Typically, I wear jeans (either blue or black) and a sweater or polo (depending on the weather). Sometimes I wear my school hoodie. Some people in my program dress fancier and some dress even more relaxed than me. None of our profs seem to care as long as we keep up with our teaching and school work.