Post-Acceptance Stress & Misc. Banter

[antecedent]

I'm potentially moving closer to home than I've lived for the past 8 years. Lol.

Haha yeah that's my other option! 4,000 miles away or...an hour from my childhood home

[spasticlitotes]

I would just like to say that today I found out that I went 1 for 6. Got a rejection from my undergraduate institution. If I hadn't already accepted an offer, I'm fairly confident I would be having a meltdown right about now. Man, this process is brutal...

Head up, chin high - I'm rolling on 12 rejections. I don't know that going 2/14 is really the salve on my wounded ego that it should be, so I feel you. Enjoy Yale, though!

I'm pretty happy that my top choice among acceptances is offering the most money ... but I'm still in the "leaving/trying to sell everything and buying all new furniture" boat. I'm pretty okay with getting rid of all my furniture--though I'm going to miss the queen-sized bed I got for free--but my main conundrum is what to do with my books. When I moved from my undergrad to my MA program, I loaded all the books I had (half as many as now) into my brothers car, and the car tilted all the way back on the back wheels. Now, how the hell am I going to transport my library four times as far away?

I think you've hit it on the head - I'm going to miss my gigantic bed and my biggest worry is actually trying to load all these damn books I have. I refuse to get rid of any of them. I'd wear the same pair of clothes for a year, but I refuse to let go of my books. If you have a friend who is kind, I recommend alphabetizing your books and taking trips back home frequently to visit said kind friend - take one letter up with you each time. That's the closest I've gotten, because after I saw your post, I took a few (not even close to all of my books) boxes and packed them into my car... and it totally slumped closer to the ground. *sigh*

[JeremiahParadise]

I wish I had less stuff, but that just isn't realistic for me. My husband and I have 10 years worth of stuff we've accumulated together, and there is no way I can get rid of all that, so I'm going to have to pay for the UHaul and the gas for said UHaul to take my stuff 2500 miles. FML

FYI, Penske does a AAA discount of 10-15%. Possibly worth looking into.

[coffeeplease]

Has anyone here been accepted but not told the details of their financial aid package? One of my programs wrote to me just after acceptance saying that it would take a few weeks to work out. That was over a month ago, and when I contacted them to ask when I could expect to hear, I was told that I should discuss that with DGS when I visit.

[Ryzhaya]

I'm in the same boat with one of my acceptances. Their initial email said that would get back to me with funding info, and when I wrote back several weeks later asking when they expected funding decisions to be made, they replied with a nebulous "later in the semester" and assured me they would let me know . . . I've received another offer with funding, and I'm tempted to write to them again, letting them know about my other offer and that I won't be attending their university unless they're able to provide me with a similar level of support, but I don't want to sound rude or pushy. And perhaps they're waiting on university-wide fellowship info or something like that? I'm not sure how long I should wait or what exactly I should say. Advice, anyone?

[Datatape]

I'm in the same boat with one of my acceptances. Their initial email said that would get back to me with funding info, and when I wrote back several weeks later asking when they expected funding decisions to be made, they replied with a nebulous "later in the semester" and assured me they would let me know . . . I've received another offer with funding, and I'm tempted to write to them again, letting them know about my other offer and that I won't be attending their university unless they're able to provide me with a similar level of support, but I don't want to sound rude or pushy. And perhaps they're waiting on university-wide fellowship info or something like that? I'm not sure how long I should wait or what exactly I should say. Advice, anyone?

I don't think it's rude at all. In fact, it seems more rude of them to continue to keep you waiting when you have another offer on the table. Maybe not word it in quite that way, but something to the effect of "I won't be able to commit until I know what the funding offer from University X is" would work?

[coffeeplease]

I'm in the same boat with one of my acceptances. Their initial email said that would get back to me with funding info, and when I wrote back several weeks later asking when they expected funding decisions to be made, they replied with a nebulous "later in the semester" and assured me they would let me know . . . I've received another offer with funding, and I'm tempted to write to them again, letting them know about my other offer and that I won't be attending their university unless they're able to provide me with a similar level of support, but I don't want to sound rude or pushy. And perhaps they're waiting on university-wide fellowship info or something like that? I'm not sure how long I should wait or what exactly I should say. Advice, anyone?

I went with the least "pushy" sounding thing I could, and ended up with the non-answer above, so maybe your approach will yield better results. I'm in the same boat, though -- I have another offer I'd be happy to accept if this school can't fund me. I mean, wouldn't it waste their time and resources for me to get there and then find out there that it's not financially feasible for me to attend?

Even if they are waiting on university-wide fellowships, I would much rather hear THAT than nothing.

[TripWillis]

I think I just read through the single worst paper I have ever had to comment on. My brain feels like it's twisted in a knot.

Well, looking forward to 5-30 more years of that!

[koolherc]

linguistically speaking, that's a fascinating phenomenon^. Where is the student from? What kind of English dialect might they speak?

[JeremiahParadise]

linguistically speaking, that's a fascinating phenomenon^. Where is the student from? What kind of English dialect might they speak?

southern. lol

So interesting! I have been wondering about this for a while now. I teach in the south (though I don't know if this phenomenon only persists here), and I get stuff like this all the time. I wonder if it has to do with the way students learn to speak in this dialect or what. I get it ALL the time.

[Enzian]

I love when someone speaks a word or phrase and their pronunciation betrays whether they heard it first without reading it or vice-versa.

I first remember reading the word "determined," for example, on a text box in Duck Tales 2 on NES and pronounced it "DEE-ter-mind" for at least a year or two. No one knew what the hell I was talking about.

[rainy_day]

When I was in high school (south of Boston) our english teacher taught us in lecture the word "vernacular." That week on a quiz every one of us spelled it "vernaculah" because of her *wicked* strong Boston accent.

[anxious_aspirant]

When I was in high school (south of Boston) our english teacher taught us in lecture the word "vernacular." That week on a quiz every one of us spelled it "vernaculah" because of her *wicked* strong Boston accent.

My mom CANNOT spell because her Mass. accent is so thick. She once wrote, "Dana Faba Cancer Society." And I think she only got "cancer" right because she's a nurse and probably sees it written down fairly often.

[antecedent]

I hear you. I had to explain to a student today that the saying is "sudden death" not "sun or death." It was a hard sell because I've never played soccer before, so how do I know? (said the student) LOL

I used to do stuff like that all the time, in both directions, when I was a kid. Like, I would read things and not know how to say them or hear them and totally misinterpret the sounds. I've gotten a lot better over the years but it still drives me nuts in song lyrics or very strong, unfamiliar accents.

For years I thought Tolstoy wrote a book called Anna Kareninar because my mom is English.

[user_name]

What's the deal with British people saying an R when there is one then not saying it when there is?

[effess]

What's the deal with British people saying an R when there is one then not saying it when there is?

We only add Rs when there are two vowels, to differentiate between them! So I would say "Anna Karenina", but I would also say "Anna Kareniner and War and Peace". That's the deal.

[coffeeplease]

We only add Rs when there are two vowels, to differentiate between them! So I would say "Anna Karenina", but I would also say "Anna Kareniner and War and Peace". That's the deal.

That's the idear.

[antecedent]

We only add Rs when there are two vowels, to differentiate between them! So I would say "Anna Karenina", but I would also say "Anna Kareniner and War and Peace". That's the deal.

It has to do with rhotic and non-rhotic accents, but I'm not sure about the specifics.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhotic_and_non-rhotic_accents

[woolferine]

Speaking of mispronouncing words you encounter first when reading, I havr alternate pronunciations in my head for all the theorists. I just started The Marriage Plot (as per the recommendations on this board in an earlier thread, so thank you!), and there's a point where the character is in class and someone is talking about Barthes and she goes, "Bart. So that was how you pronounced it. Madeleine made a note, grateful to be spared of humiliation."

Story of my life. But at least I wasn't the student in my methods class who started talking eloquently about Mike Fuckilt...

[TripWillis]

Speaking of mispronouncing words you encounter first when reading, I havr alternate pronunciations in my head for all the theorists. I just started The Marriage Plot (as per the recommendations on this board in an earlier thread, so thank you!), and there's a point where the character is in class and someone is talking about Barthes and she goes, "Bart. So that was how you pronounced it. Madeleine made a note, grateful to be spared of humiliation."

Story of my life. But at least I wasn't the student in my methods class who started talking eloquently about Mike Fuckilt...

I have been lucky enough to know it's "Bart" since undergrad, but many people still say "Barth" or "Barthe-s" around me and it always makes me second guess myself.

I remember the time I was in a class sophomore year and pronounced "Flaubert" as "Flaw-Burt". I used to also always mix up "infer" and "imply." Oh the shame!!

On the subject of dropping and adding r's, I once had a misogynist boss when I worked retail in Boston. He was from Brockton, MA and he said sentences like this:

"That chick gettin' out of the cah ain't got no brar on!"

Edited March 8, 2012 by TripWillis

[WendyMoira]

Speaking of mispronouncing words you encounter first when reading, I havr alternate pronunciations in my head for all the theorists. I just started The Marriage Plot (as per the recommendations on this board in an earlier thread, so thank you!), and there's a point where the character is in class and someone is talking about Barthes and she goes, "Bart. So that was how you pronounced it. Madeleine made a note, grateful to be spared of humiliation."

Story of my life. But at least I wasn't the student in my methods class who started talking eloquently about Mike Fuckilt...

This.

I often look up theorists on Wikipedia, hoping they'll have the little pronunciation helper for me.

[Enzian]

This.

I often look up theorists on Wikipedia, hoping they'll have the little pronunciation helper for me.

Also (sometimes) helpful: http://inogolo.com/

[kikalique87]

A colleague pronounces thesaurus "theo-saurus." I like to imagine a dinosaur (Theosaurus rex) roaming the halls of the building giving suggestions for alternative words before chowing down.

Edited March 8, 2012 by kikalique87

[koolherc]

Walter Benjamin is another one that trips a lot of people up. A basic knowledge of French helps with most of those other guys though.

[anxious_aspirant]

I just graded a prompt about Frankenstein, in which a student said Victor's mother died of "ammonia." And aside from the malapropism, she really died from scarlet fever.