EALC 2018

[Naito]

3 hours ago, thesiswillbegreat said:

 

廿年書海苦奔忙，時勢洪流未可量。
漫道士人須諤諤，何如狗子且汪汪。
蜉蝣空寄千秋議，翰墨聊修一葦航。
徹夜聽風眠不得，應憐春早滿庭芳。

@thesiswillbegreat Waaa! This is perfect!!!  Wow sometimes I wish I were born (ancient) Chinese (not of the current era, of course, argh, but of the Han/Tang -- anything after Song is bleh...) so that I can write better poetry. I love the political implications in your poem. Wow, just wow. My hat off to you! Genius!

拜讀大作，風雅自然，涵義深淵，平仄通暢，妙絕琳琅，禀賦之高露苦功，才智超群顯詩中! Just wow!!! 拜讀先生之大作，天地人間之大樂！

I'm  trying to compose one last poem, this time a lyric poem 詞, under the pen name 無官居士嶽陽子 , but I am so afraid to make technical errors (argh, why did this genre become sooooo difficult starting with the Tang-Song!!! Ancient poetry from Zhou to Han wasn't this technically rigid. Argh! ). So I'm still revising it...

Edited March 1, 2018 by Naito

[Naito]

Sigh. I'm done with this cycle, and won't go back to school.

Lu You: "who would have thought, my heart and soul should be at Mount Tian, but I die of old age in the Province of Cang" (Lu You, 1125–1209). “此生誰料，心在天山，身老滄州。” 

“當年萬里覓封候

志在千里壯心憂

嘲詠風月 諷朱門沉沉酒肉臭

征人都白頭

心在天山老滄州

待得王師統九洲

墳前熱酒 祭奠此生悲愁

 

暮年有夢-記陸放翁

詞：麥田 後期：阿海

演唱：玖諾

 

十年風霜淡舊題

沈園裡 幽夢匆匆不堪憶

道是滄海水 巫山雲

橋下春波 還盼驚鴻照影

獨自行 山重水複阡陌隱

孤心賞 柳暗花明良辰景

素衣游天下 滿愁情

江山錦繡 怎可拱手讓金

 

誰念舊日紅酥手

淺斟一杯黃縢酒

春風太暖 不抵眼角眉梢風韻

轉瞬的回眸

也曾共剪西窗燭

也曾歆羨少年游

人終作土 唯鏡中朱顏瘦

當年萬里覓封候

志在千里壯心憂

嘲詠風月 諷朱門沉沉酒肉臭

征人都白頭

心在天山老滄州

他日王師統九洲

墳前熱酒 祭奠此生悲”

 

[bakedmanapua]

Sorry things didn’t work out for you @Naito! Hope you aren’t feeling too badly. The universe must have something else great in store for you  

[Naito]

6 minutes ago, spicyramen said:

Sorry things didn’t work out for you @Naito! Hope you aren’t feeling too badly. The universe must have something else great in store for you  

Thanks @spicyramen! I still have a few schools to wait for, though I'm already like "dead" like Wang Chong Yang 王重陽 and ready to live in 活死人墓. 

I will read all of your books when you publish, though, even if I don't go into academia!!  

 

[AnUglyBoringNerd]

4 hours ago, Naito said:

王重陽 and ready to live in 活死人墓

I would like to point out that this tomb is actually a very nice place to live and Wang should have lived there with Lin.  

And there are lots of people out there (including me) who only got in the second or third time they try. 

Edited March 3, 2018 by AnUglyBoringNerd

[kotatsumuri]

@NaitoI have to echo what others have already said! Don't give up hope just yet! It might not seem ideal now, but there's always next year if you still want to pursue it. In the mean time, something great might come your way instead.

[Naito]

1 hour ago, AnUglyBoringNerd said:

I would like to point out that this tomb is actually a very nice place to live and Wang should have lived there with Lin.  

 

@AnUglyBoringNerd So true, I agree! This again shows that sometimes we should grasp X instead of Y, and not stubbornly cling to Y when X is right in front of our eyes. Jin Yong 金庸 probably meant to have the love story of Wang Chongyang and Lin Chaoying 林朝英 as a lesson 前車之鑒 for Yang Guo 楊過 and Xiao Longnu 小龍女 to learn.  Had the founder of the School of Quan Zhen 全真派 chosen love rather than sacrificing his life for a lost cause -- much like Lu You 陸游 did -- for the Southern Song, he would have been happier. Some people often fall into this trap. Another example is Toyotomi Hideyoshi 豊臣秀吉 would have been happier had he focused less on power at the expense of his family; Toyotomi's last words were full of regrets: "Dew drops and disappears, like my life is about to end; my city of Naniwa (Osaka) -- a dream is but a dream."「露と落ち　露と消えにし我が身かな　浪速のことは　夢のまた夢」 . Of the three unifiers of Japan 天下人, Nobunaga was too rash and Toyotomi too greedy (invasion of Korea), and only Tokugawa Ieyasu 徳川家康 was the only one who knew the Way of the Middle 中庸之道 and balanced politics and family and, like Zhang Liang 張良 stepping back into retirement after achieving success 功成身退, knew when to stop (e.g. closing the country 鎖国 & abdicating the throne for his son).

But, as is often human nature, we chase after something we don't already have in front of us, like Li Mochou 李莫愁 who wants a love that has already been buried alive in a tomb many years ago. Yang Guo and Xiao Longnu made the right decision at the end of the novel, it seems! Yang's father's sworn brother, Guo Jing 郭靖, however, died during the war against Khublai Khan. If Lu You, too, could have his time of life and waged war against the Jin 金 and suffered the same fate as Guo Jing , perhaps we might not have the 11,000 poems that he wrote. 

(Though of course, Lin is just a fictional character, so the historical Wang had no one to live with at the living tomb, actually... )

We can only, therefore, listen to the Will of Heaven while doing our best. 盡人事而待天命....

By the way, I love novels that incorporate historical elements like Jin Yong's novels. Another series that I think nicely incorporated historical elements into it is Sun Hao Hui's The Great Qin Empire 孙皓晖《大秦帝国》. When asked why he, as a Xibei University professor, chose historical fiction instead of scholarly work, he replied that the novel better equips us to explore and understand the society and people of the Qin. (http://book.ifeng.com/yeneizixun/detail_2012_09/02/17286239_0.shtml)

 

Edited March 3, 2018 by Naito

[Naito]

7 minutes ago, kotatsumuri said:

@NaitoI have to echo what others have already said! Don't give up hope just yet! It might not seem ideal now, but there's always next year if you still want to pursue it. In the mean time, something great might come your way instead.

Thanks @kotatsumuri! To imagine having to go through this one more time haha...and this waiting game is like an abyss! 

[kotatsumuri]

1 hour ago, Naito said:

Thanks @kotatsumuri! To imagine having to go through this one more time haha...and this waiting game is like an abyss! 

Haha yeah...like I said, not ideal but if things don't work out, you'll have time to consider it at least! I've probably said it before but I really wish (more) schools would be upfront about when results come out. They do this evry year after all!

[kotatsumuri]

Well, I crossed Harvard off my list today...

[Naito]

14 hours ago, kotatsumuri said:

Well, I crossed Harvard off my list today...

I spoke with my boss and he said Harvard Grad School at the MA/PhD level may be harder to get in than Harvard Law, Business, or Education...In fact a World Bank friend just got into Harvard's Master in "Mind, Brain, and Education"  https://www.gse.harvard.edu/masters/mbe but probably thanks to her work experience. For humanities, it's all about fit, research interest, and agenda of the lord professors...

[Kaiwei]

Well, folks, this marks the end of my application cycle. I wanted to say thank you to everyone for the advice and commiseration during these stressful months. Gradcafe is such a valuable resource, and I hope to meet some of you in person in the future!

后会有期！

加油！

P.S To RSEA admits: I spoke with financial aid, and they will be mailing the official offers tomorrow. See you guys in Cambridge! 

[kotatsumuri]

Oh my god, this week is finally looking up!! Just had acceptances from both U Michigan (Japanese MA) and Columbia (EALAC MA)!! I applied for FLAS at Michigan and the results will be out by 3/15, so I'm hoping that application will be successful as well. *fingers and toes crossed* No word on any support from Columbia. I don't think they have much for MA students, but I'm going to look into in just to cover all my bases. I don't want to go into Columbia-level debt, lol, but it's exciting to finally have other accpetances after getting 4 rejections.

Now to wait on funding, and my final app: USC EAAS!

[Kaiwei]

@kotatsumuri Congrats! That's wonderful news all around. Hoping you get funding  

[Naito]

@kotatsumuri Good things happen to those who wait!  I'll have my fingers crossed for your funding as well!

I'm ready to decline UPenn (so that if someone really wants it so badly, they can have it), and I'm ready to decline ANY incoming offer from the remainder on my list, if accepted that is. I got a promotion and raise at work so I think I will stay, and do an MBA few years down the road sometime in the future when I reach 30.  

As a side note, it's amazing Paul Goldin got a PhD from Harvard at age 24...So sad I won't be studying with him. But I will apply Han Fei Zi, Wang An Shi, Shang Yang in the real world!!!

[kotatsumuri]

Thank you @costevens and @Naito!! I really hope so too. And I'm hoping for more good news for everyone still waiting on decisions this season.

I have also appreciated the camaraderie and support of our thread throughout all of this.

[bakedmanapua]

19 hours ago, kotatsumuri said:

Oh my god, this week is finally looking up!! Just had acceptances from both U Michigan (Japanese MA) and Columbia (EALAC MA)!! I applied for FLAS at Michigan and the results will be out by 3/15, so I'm hoping that application will be successful as well. *fingers and toes crossed* No word on any support from Columbia. I don't think they have much for MA students, but I'm going to look into in just to cover all my bases. I don't want to go into Columbia-level debt, lol, but it's exciting to finally have other accpetances after getting 4 rejections.

Now to wait on funding, and my final app: USC EAAS!

Woohoo! Congratulations! 

@costevens congrats on making your decision! Good luck in Cambridge  

[kotatsumuri]

Thank you @spicyramen! Any updates on your apps? Are you still waiting on anyone?

[Naito]

Accepted to Stanford. Meh. If anyone wants to go to Stanford, PM me and I will decline.  (Staying at job for promotion & raise + my soul is not for academia anymore).

[kotatsumuri]

Congrats Naito! Even if you don't end up attending, you can say you turned down Stanford

[Naito]

I finished my last poem, and this concludes my grad school application voyage. 20 days later, Tokyo, Japan here I come! 

As previously mentioned, this is the ci 詞 to conclude my part in the Poetic Party in this thread . Chinese is not even my fifth language, so please don't criticize me too harsh if there are any technical errors haha...It was great to find wonderful "poet pals" here: 

@AnUglyBoringNerd @Ouyang @costevens @thesiswillbegreat @Kongyiji @mxiongturquoise @spicyramen @tsuyuri etc.

 

V.《蝶戀花・學海泱泱風作浪》

學海泱泱風作浪。

霪雨霏霏，萬頃雲飄蕩。

若坐書船乘水上，綿綿滄間何方往。

 

斷判當舟危萬狀。

悵惋簫聲，棄念兹情忘。

騎馬轉歸封將相，紅塵世路前程旺。

 

無官居士   嶽陽子、白駒子   敬筆   2018年3月10日    美東

 

中仄中平平仄仄。

中仄平平，中仄平平仄。

中仄中平平仄仄，中平中仄平平仄。

 

中仄中平平仄仄。

中仄平平，中仄平平仄。

中仄中平平仄仄，中平中仄平平仄。

 

Quick, rough translation:

"The Vast Sea of Learning With Its Waves and Wind"

 

The vast sea of learning has its share of turbulent waves and strong wind.

Excessive rainfalls pour down heavily, thick and fast,

With an immense space of clouds fluttering with the tide.

Suppose one sits on a boat of books to ride on the waters, 

In an unbroken, continuous, never-ending deep blue which way will one go?

 

It is judged that the said ship is a perilous venture in the extreme.

A sad sigh of regret is played as a tune through the vertical bamboo flute,

There's no choice but to abandon this idea and forget this emotion.

Riding on horseback and turning back on course to be appointed a general or official,

The society of mundane mortals and the way of the world may have prosperity in store for me.

 

Edited March 11, 2018 by Naito

[bakedmanapua]

On 3/9/2018 at 12:42 PM, kotatsumuri said:

Thank you @spicyramen! Any updates on your apps? Are you still waiting on anyone?

I am DONE! All my apps are back, and i just have to commit somewhere. I will be sure to update you all once I officially commit! 

[kotatsumuri]

1 hour ago, spicyramen said:

I am DONE! All my apps are back, and i just have to commit somewhere. I will be sure to update you all once I officially commit! 

Glad to hear it! Best of luck with your decision

I heard from my final program today...so nice to have the worst part over with!! (Now to wait for funding info and, finally, decide!)

[Kaiwei]

@kotatsumuri @spicyramen Congrats, folks! Looking forward to hearing about your decisions! Also, on the topic of funding: if your offers have been made available, maybe via the web portals, and you still don't have your financial-aid info, I would call the financial-aid office at the school; they should be able to confirm what your package is. I had an official funding letter scanned and sent to me via email to confirm the amount of aid I would receive, without having to wait for the snail-mail packet. 

加油！

[hairbrush]

Hi, I haven't been part of this discussion before, but I applied to several MA EALC programs, and I have been accepted to the UChicago MAPH, because they only offer a degree on the topic through that program. Has anyone else been accepted to it, too? Does anyone else have more information on the reputation on the program—besides it being called 'a cash cow'?

Please, let me know anything you know about the program.