2019 Applicants

[Bopie5]

26 minutes ago, sugilite said:

Does anybody else vacillate between thinking that they're definitely going to get into XYZ school and thinking that they're definitely going to get rejected from everywhere? 

I'll catch myself thinking, "I should brush up on Latin before graduate school," and other times I'm like, "Welp. Full-time office job, please don't suck too much or give me back pain from being so sedentary." 

YES! I'm literally either apartment hunting near Hyde Park or being like "Hmm, guess it maybe wouldn't be all bad to sit at a desk for 9 hours a day..." and trying to find the pros in not going.

My thesis advisor didn't help much when she put the comment "Cut this section of your thesis--it's an interesting field beyond the scope of this paper. Save it for next year in grad school!" Love to feel affirmed, love to imagine doing research forever, feel sick to my stomach when I think about telling everyone that I got rejected from everywhere...

[Bopie5]

9 minutes ago, dilby said:

If I get shut out this year, I'm almost excited about the possibility that another year of life will make me an even stronger applicant.

I also haven't been able to do any plays since college (where I did 1-2 per semester), so if I don't get in I think I will probably actually audition for some stuff around town this spring/summer rather than thinking I have to set aside all of my mental energy for applications. I know someone who is putting on Cymbeline in June and that one is a blast.  

Ugh this is an AMAZING outlook. Gonna keep this in mind for sure.

And, as a fellow theatre-lover, excited for you to maybe do Cymbeline (although I hope you get in and won't need to!). It truly is such a blast--all of the wildest things and tropes smashed together into one! I saw the Globe's Cymbeline remix, Imogen, in London in the fall of 2016, and they made it feel really fresh and modern.

[Musmatatus]

20 minutes ago, dilby said:

I think because of how quickly one year in my current job has gone by, it's not so stressful for me to think about the possibility that I'll have to do it again. Being away from academia has certainly given me some confidence that research/teaching is what I want to do, but having a year where I don't owe my free time to anyone but myself has, for the most part, been really lovely.

 When my mentors (professors) ask what I'm up to, they sort of envy being able to dive into anything I'm curious about (like, say, reading biographies or Shakespeare plays instead of books that are strictly or even tangentially connected to my research areas). And the time has just blazed by. If any of you find yourself in a similar situation, I think/hope you'll have a similar experience.

 

I graduated last year and have been working at your standard office job, so I definitely appreciate that my free time is actually free time. As a student, it was very easy to feel like there were only two ways to spend my time--procrastinating vs. working, with free time activities (like watching Netflix, leisure reading, etc) feeling like the former. I have found myself thinking along these lines too--it may be very nice to continue working an office job, and reading for pleasure ALL THE TIME.

I guess I'm less keen on this idea because I went through a hard breakup recently which was, in part, due to the fact that my ex didn't want me to apply/go to graduate school/do a long-distance relationship. ? But, otherwise, I do want to second that it is very nice to have free time where you actually feel free! 

Edit: @Bopie5 Yes! Sometimes I find myself thinking I should have secretly just applied to graduate school so that way I wouldn't have to update anyone other than my letter writers... I'd rather not face them with bad news of rejections, but at least that's a finite number! 

Edited January 13, 2019 by sugilite

[Bopie5]

2 minutes ago, sugilite said:

I guess I'm less keen on this idea because I went through a hard breakup recently which was, in part, due to the fact that my ex didn't want me to apply/go to graduate school/do a long-distance relationship. ?

Ugh, I'm so sorry that happened to you. I can imagine how that would make the year off seem less ideal. Just remember that those who really love you will support you and want what's best for you, and will want you to pursue your dreams! You deserve more than someone who tries to dissuade you from things you love that make you excited. But I feel you there--I just broke up with my boyfriend this week, in part because of thinking about next year. It's hard for sure.

Re: telling people, I made the silly, silly mistake of posting the fact that I'd finished my apps on my instagram story...every time I see ANYONE I tangentially know, they ask me if I've heard back yet. 

[Musmatatus]

2 minutes ago, Bopie5 said:

Ugh, I'm so sorry that happened to you. I can imagine how that would make the year off seem less ideal. Just remember that those who really love you will support you and want what's best for you, and will want you to pursue your dreams! You deserve more than someone who tries to dissuade you from things you love that make you excited. But I feel you there--I just broke up with my boyfriend this week, in part because of thinking about next year. It's hard for sure.

Re: telling people, I made the silly, silly mistake of posting the fact that I'd finished my apps on my instagram story...every time I see ANYONE I tangentially know, they ask me if I've heard back yet. 

Thank you so much for the comfort ❤️ Yes, I've definitely been coming to terms with the fact that we wouldn't work out long-term, and that it was better to have ended things sooner rather than later. I'm sorry to hear that you're going through something similar, but I'm so glad that you got a yoga studio membership and have been throwing yourself into that! 

Oooh... I don't use social media very much, and I am very thankful for that in this moment. 

[mandelbulb]

25 minutes ago, Bopie5 said:

Ugh, I'm so sorry that happened to you. I can imagine how that would make the year off seem less ideal. Just remember that those who really love you will support you and want what's best for you, and will want you to pursue your dreams! You deserve more than someone who tries to dissuade you from things you love that make you excited. But I feel you there--I just broke up with my boyfriend this week, in part because of thinking about next year. It's hard for sure.

Re: telling people, I made the silly, silly mistake of posting the fact that I'd finished my apps on my instagram story...every time I see ANYONE I tangentially know, they ask me if I've heard back yet. 

 

20 minutes ago, sugilite said:

Thank you so much for the comfort ❤️ Yes, I've definitely been coming to terms with the fact that we wouldn't work out long-term, and that it was better to have ended things sooner rather than later. I'm sorry to hear that you're going through something similar, but I'm so glad that you got a yoga studio membership and have been throwing yourself into that! 

Oooh... I don't use social media very much, and I am very thankful for that in this moment. 

you are both beautiful individuals and will surely find the right someone for you when the time is right for both of you ❤️ 

 

one way to get out of talking about apps is to announce that you won't talk about apps unless you hear positive news. this has been my strategy this year (and last year), and it's worked well enough for the most part. there's always someone who wants to talk about apps because they have good news. 

[dilby]

41 minutes ago, Bopie5 said:

And, as a fellow theatre-lover, excited for you to maybe do Cymbeline (although I hope you get in and won't need to!). It truly is such a blast--all of the wildest things and tropes smashed together into one!

You're exactly right  I feel lucky to have a very close relationship with Shakespeare because of a regionally famous English department program at UT (with its own cute little Wikipedia page!) where students perform plays in a barn-converted-into-an-Elizabethan-theater in the middle of rural Texas. The alumni community is huge because the program has been going for 49 years and the audiences are pretty huge and really enthusiastic. When they did Cymbeline a couple of springs ago, people literally screamed when Iachimo emerged from the chest in Imogen's room. And (lol) when the shepherd boy emerged from offstage holding Cloten's head. And (lol) when Zeus showed up.

Unrelated to Cymbeline, last spring Winedale did one of the best Midsummers I've ever seen, complete with Hippolyta suggestively delivering the line "I was with Hercules and Cadmus once" to a packed, inebriated audience who had NEVER heard it delivered that way before. It felt like the roof was going to come off of the barn.

43 minutes ago, Bopie5 said:

But I feel you there--I just broke up with my boyfriend this week, in part because of thinking about next year. It's hard for sure.

 

48 minutes ago, sugilite said:

I went through a hard breakup recently which was, in part, due to the fact that my ex didn't want me to apply/go to graduate school/do a long-distance relationship.

I hope you both are hanging in there. It's always hard to make a change to the structures of comfort/affection/affirmation that are built into your life--that's clearly one of the reasons this process is so difficult for so many people.

For me, those moments of fear and/or loneliness and/or vulnerability are usually where Miyazaki's films come in to make me feel like, hey, at least this old dude in Japan thinks that the universe errs on the side of kindness to the afraid & downtrodden. I'm sure you have your own sources of comfort, and I hope they're working for you right now (and if you're looking for a new one, try this wonderful film).

......just stay the hell away from Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind for a little while. It'll be there for you later.  

[Bopie5]

43 minutes ago, mandelbulb said:

you are both beautiful individuals and will surely find the right someone for you when the time is right for both of you ❤️ 

 

1 hour ago, sugilite said:

Thank you so much for the comfort ❤️ Yes, I've definitely been coming to terms with the fact that we wouldn't work out long-term, and that it was better to have ended things sooner rather than later. I'm sorry to hear that you're going through something similar, but I'm so glad that you got a yoga studio membership and have been throwing yourself into that! 

20 minutes ago, dilby said:

I hope you both are hanging in there. It's always hard to make a change to the structures of comfort/affection/affirmation that are built into your life--that's clearly one of the reasons this process is so difficult for so many people.

Wow, thank you to all. ❤️You all are too kind. A change in structures of comfort is a good way to phrase it. The change was definitely needed, but hard to make the choice to change it, ya feel? For now, consoling myself with Netflix Queer Eye, drinks with friends, and blasting The 1975 (and scream-singing along) every time I drive anywhere.

24 minutes ago, dilby said:

You're exactly right  I feel lucky to have a very close relationship with Shakespeare because of a regionally famous English department program at UT (with its own cute little Wikipedia page!) where students perform plays in a barn-converted-into-an-Elizabethan-theater in the middle of rural Texas. The alumni community is huge because the program has been going for 49 years and the audiences are pretty huge and really enthusiastic. When they did Cymbeline a couple of springs ago, people literally screamed when Iachimo emerged from the chest in Imogen's room. And (lol) when the shepherd boy emerged from offstage holding Cloten's head. And (lol) when Zeus showed up.

Unrelated to Cymbeline, last spring Winedale did one of the best Midsummers I've ever seen, complete with Hippolyta suggestively delivering the line "I was with Hercules and Cadmus once" to a packed, inebriated audience who had NEVER heard it delivered that way before. It felt like the roof was going to come off of the barn.

All of that sounds like THE DREAM! I love when you can just feel the text just sweeping the audience away. There's really not much like theatre for simultaneously conducing feelings of connectedness and aliveness, in my opinion! In Imogen, one of her estranged brothers was played by a deaf actor, and the reunion at the end of the play involved Imogen and Cymbeline speaking sign language to each other. It was such a beautiful and powerful moment where a language not normally used in theatre conveyed a lot of meaning. The audience was buzzing with emotion!

[FiguresIII]

Yes to free reading and exercise. Plus good vibes in this thread are definitely helping me. If our cohorts are anything like how people are here we'll be more than fine!

[fortschritt22]

6 hours ago, sugilite said:

Does anybody else vacillate between thinking that they're definitely going to get into XYZ school and thinking that they're definitely going to get rejected from everywhere? 

I'll catch myself thinking, "I should brush up on Latin before graduate school," and other times I'm like, "Welp. Full-time office job, please don't suck too much or give me back pain from being so sedentary." 

This is precisely the oscillation of my emotions with every passing day. Some days I'm thinking about how I would choose between different options, and other days I'm certain that I'm not getting accepted to a single program. I've already turned in my resignation to end my time at my current job this coming August--for myriad other reasons--but primarily because of my intent to attend graduate school. If this plan does not work out I am terrified and at once intrigued about what a "gap" year would resemble. I feel a lot of indirect pressure from family and friends regarding this decision, not that they don't want me to be happy or to pursue my dreams, but because it has been difficult to articulate to them the idea that being qualified to study with these programs does not mean being offered admission--that the arbitrary unapologetically courses through this entire process with reckless abandon. So if I do not get accepted, they would think I'd made a terribly uninformed decision to pivot my life and quit my current job. But yeah, it's a terrifying leap. I have a decent amount of professional experience and I think I could find something, but my time outside of academia has been soul sucking and I really do not want to do it. So uhh, fingers crossed and all that.

I will echo @dilby with the Parts Unknown. Tony is my antidote for all anxiety. I've watched some episodes three or four times, ha!

[savay]

7 hours ago, Bopie5 said:

 

Wow, thank you to all. ❤️You all are too kind. A change in structures of comfort is a good way to phrase it. The change was definitely needed, but hard to make the choice to change it, ya feel? For now, consoling myself with Netflix Queer Eye, drinks with friends, and blasting The 1975 (and scream-singing along) every time I drive anywhere.

 

I was really hesitant to watch the reboot, because queer and mainstream are strange bedfellows, but I ended up really appreciating it! Laurie Penny's take is amaze (and has some Halberstam thrown in, which I think you'd appreciate)  https://thebaffler.com/latest/the-queer-art-of-failing-better-penny

I almost didn't go through with my apps this year, thinking I'd just stick where I was and avoid the stress but really I think I was afraid to actually want something - because then not getting it would be tragic. And having completed apps I now really hope I get in to Berkeley and of course that comes along with a feeling of certainty that I'll be rejected. So, I've been procrastinating on my thesis and instead reading every piece of queer Icelandic literature in existence, playing Civilization VI, and helping my friends remodel their house.

@rxing963I haven't jumped into Three Body Problem yet, but I really want to - are you liking it? Have you read Leckie's Ancillary Justice?? I devoured it last spring.

 

Edited January 13, 2019 by savay

[mwils15]

@dilby I’m forever using Ghibli movies as pick-me-ups as well lol (especially Whisper of the Heart, From Up on Poppy Hill, and My Neighbor Totoro)

[sad_diamond]

49 minutes ago, mwils15 said:

@dilby I’m forever using Ghibli movies as pick-me-ups as well lol (especially Whisper of the Heart, From Up on Poppy Hill, and My Neighbor Totoro)

Anyone here seen Pom Poko? It's a really fun and strange Studio Ghibli movie about shapeshifting Raccoon Dogs with giant testicles

[pdh12]

i am Living for everyone’s literary/media/testicular references. Thank youuu

[Mumasatus]

When I went to UT in the 80s, all of my roommates participated in Shakespeare at Winedale under Doc Ayers. It is such an amazing program. A couple of weeks ago, my sister ran into one of our friends from that era who was still in Austin, directing local plays. 

[Bopie5]

2 hours ago, savay said:

I was really hesitant to watch the reboot, because queer and mainstream are strange bedfellows, but I ended up really appreciating it! Laurie Penny's take is amaze (and has some Halberstam thrown in, which I think you'd appreciate)  https://thebaffler.com/latest/the-queer-art-of-failing-better-penny

Penny’s take IS amaze, what a good analysis!!! Love it when some Halberstam is thrown in  I share a lot of her critiques of the series (esp about the MAGA episode (who thought it was ever an emotionally safe and good choice to make Karamo have to engage with the MAGA guy?!) and the veiled presentation of money as solving all problems, and also the reliance on the “if only we all just talked and met each other in the middle” variety of reconciliation, which ignores systems and power almost entirely) but I also appreciate the joys of it, and the Jonathan of it haha! A flawed work still worth appreciating for sure. 

Also it was ENDLESSLY relatable when Penny said that she enjoys doing power critiques of normal media. As a theory person, my friends are always saying things to me like “You don’t need to analyze it, just enjoy it!” and I’m over here like “Uhhhh analyzing it is part of how I enjoy it.”

[The Wordsworthian]

Anyone else obsessively checking every single application portal even though it'll be weeks until we hear something?  Because that's pretty much where I'm at right now.  UGH, the waiting game is the WORST.  I've literally taken up marathon training to give myself some regiment and an outlet for all this heart-stopping anxiety!

[kvlt.nihilist]

@savay i just finished the book last night!  i'll admit that it's not my cup of tea, but i can understand why it might be someone else's: it's that HARDCORE science fiction.  like, FULL of hardcore science.  like, stacks on stacks on stacks of that hardcore theoretical physics stuff.  it was hard for me to get through even as a former math major/previously-considering-a-physics-major student (before i ultimately chose english of course lol).  the book was also kinda hard for me to get through because i didn't like the three-body virtual world much, and that's kinda the basis of the story.  in any case, it definitely deserved the hugo award because the author's incorporation of science and chinese culture is just ridiculously good.

ancillary justice is actually on my huge list of books to read!  i also want to read sci fi greats like dune.  and im trying to read some neil gaiman, neverwhere is probably next on my list.

[dilby]

2 hours ago, sad_diamond said:

Anyone here seen Pom Poko? It's a really fun and strange Studio Ghibli movie about shapeshifting Raccoon Dogs with giant testicles

Yeah, Pom Poko is a bizarre and fun film, and fairly radical in its environmental message. Isao Takahata was a really wonderful animator—losing him last year still hurts.  

[placeinspace]

1 hour ago, The Wordsworthian said:

Anyone else obsessively checking every single application portal even though it'll be weeks until we hear something?  Because that's pretty much where I'm at right now.  UGH, the waiting game is the WORST.  I've literally taken up marathon training to give myself some regiment and an outlet for all this heart-stopping anxiety!

Ahhh which race are you training for? I'm running the Toronto Marathon in May! I was just thinking this morning what a great outlet training is for my anxiety.

Edited January 13, 2019 by placeinspace

[dangermouse]

@rxing963 i'm actually reading dune at the moment! well, listening to it on audiobook. i'm not the biggest fan of sci fi as a genre and so i'm pretty new to it, but i am enjoying dune SO much and have found it very readable and accessible whilst still being a very clever work. me and my dad are going to see a screening of the film in mid february so i'm trying to finish the book in time for that.

[kvlt.nihilist]

1 hour ago, The Wordsworthian said:

Anyone else obsessively checking every single application portal even though it'll be weeks until we hear something?  Because that's pretty much where I'm at right now.  UGH, the waiting game is the WORST.  I've literally taken up marathon training to give myself some regiment and an outlet for all this heart-stopping anxiety!

LOL i just read the marathon part and i think i died of laughter sorry if this is incredibly traumatic to you... im a runner as well!  it's such a great outlet, the high is unbeatable, although idk i've never tried any drugs before

[kvlt.nihilist]

@dangermouse ooo audiobook i have no patience for that hahah.... im considering moving dune up on my list bc another friend of mine is just pressing me to read it haha.  what genres do you usually read?

[dilby]

4 hours ago, Mumasatus said:

When I went to UT in the 80s, all of my roommates participated in Shakespeare at Winedale under Doc Ayers. It is such an amazing program. A couple of weeks ago, my sister ran into one of our friends from that era who was still in Austin, directing local plays. 

Yes! It's hard to escape the Winedale alumni community if you're at all involved in theatre in Austin. I was walking out of the grocery store a few weeks ago and someone came up to me and said "Hey, didn't you play Edgar last summer?"

I've done the same to a few people around town.  

[The Wordsworthian]

2 hours ago, placeinspace said:

Ahhh which race are you training for? I'm running the Toronto Marathon in May! I was just thinking this morning what a great outlet training is for my anxiety.

I'm training for Vermont City!  I ran Hartford this past October and was like "Okay I'm gonna take a year off from long distance and go back next Fall" but alas, I couldn't stay away.  Nothing relieves admissions-related anxiety quite like running for hours on end ha ha.