graduate purgatory
as you may know, i am hoping to go to grad school for creative writing in the fall. the research i did for choosing schools to apply to was extensive and i ended up applying to all but one of the schools i had wanted to (by the time i got to feb. 1st, the prospect of one more application hit me like the proverbial straw - sorry alaska). i applied to 11 schools. that's right, let me spell it out so you get the full weight of it - e l e v e n. did i mention that i'm also insane? in my research, i went to the library with a list of all the poetry teachers in all of the programs that i was remotely interested in. i alphabetized the list. now you may think that's a pretty anal thing to do, but the poetry section at UT spans quite an area and i promise the other way would have been more difficult. anyway, there were about 90 poets on the list. i went through and got one book from every poet that had been published (which was about 75) and i read at least three poems from each one. then i found the poet on my list and if not one of their poems sparked something in me, i crossed them off my list. if they did, i put a little star by their name and moved on to the next one. when i had finished (and had done internet research and scoured some anthologies to find the remaining poets) i crossed the schools off the list whose poets hadn't impressed me. i tried to only keep those schools who had at least two poets that i liked. this eliminated certain schools which i had planned all along on applying to: i.e., columbia, brown, the new school, and iowa. i figured that if i considered our styles so different, they would probably feel the same way about mine, and i wouldn't have too much to learn there. i don't want to write postmodern poetry. it did put some schools on the list that i hadn't fully considered though, like ASU and NYU.
well, the letters are starting to arrive. and as they do, i'm starting to think that maybe the universe knows more than i do about my desires. why is that? you may be wondering. well, because the schools which have rejected me were schools that i couldn't really see myself at - utah, houston, montana. they were schools that i applied to because i felt i should. even though they have great writers, there was part of me that really balked at having to live in houston (houston was my one concession - the one school in texas i applied to because it's sooo good, despite the fact that i want to get the hell out of dodge, which is to say, out of texas). and i applied to utah also because it was a good school even though i never felt i could be comfortable there. as far as montana, i've been to montana, i had my important experience there and it was with photography not poetry. it felt done. now, i'm not saying that i'm not going to get rejected from places that i truly would have liked to go to, but the fact that i got waitlisted at michigan makes me think that things will turn out as they should. jill said that i wouldn't get accepted somewhere that i wasn't supposed to go. it makes a lot of sense, too: the schools that think my writing is worth something and think they have something to teach me are the ones i'm supposed to be at. all my rejection letters are up on my fridge. 4 down, 7 to go. and if nowhere accepts me, then i'll know i shouldn't be in grad school right now and i'll find a photo job somewhere.
and in case you're keeping tabs, here are the schools i'm waiting to hear from:
virginia, george mason, nyu, syracuse, indiana, illinois and asu.
Labels: poetry
medicinal purpose
i have been having headaches almost daily for the last six years. in my pursuit to identify the cause of these headaches, i have been to a GP, a chiropractor, a network chiropractor (like acupressure), an acupuncturist, a neurologist, a psychologist, a counselor, an orthopedist, and an occupational therapist. unfortunately, the symptoms all overlap: listlessness, headaches, hypersensitivity, poor sleep, trouble focusing, memory problems, fatigue, etc. i have been diagnosed with and treated for a pinched nerve, fibromyalgia, candida, GAD, depression, "common migraines," anemia, insomnia and i've also been accused of having too straight a spine. my symptoms also fit with ADD, chronic fatigue syndrome, thyroid disease, etc., though i've never been to a doctor about those. the problem has always been that, depending on who i see, each specialist thinks it's related to what they specialize in: the chiropractor was convinced that the pinched nerve in my neck (which i probably got sliding down a mountain backwards during a ski trip) accounted for my problems - they began a few months after the slide. the psychologist thought it was caused by the stress and depression i felt when my grandfather got sick and died - it started about the same time as that. in addition to the ridiculous amounts of drugs i've tried for relief, i was usually told the same thing that all doctors tell you no matter what the ailment: reduce your stress, exercise regularly, eat better, and make sure you get enough sleep. well today i made an appointment to see an optometrist who specializes in vision therapy. turns out my problems also fit with eye strain, and while i was searching for an eye doctor today online (i need some new glasses), i came across
this site and decided i may as well see if there's any chance that they're related. when i was younger, i used to be able to read for hours a time. i devoured books. but for years, i haven't been able to read for more than half an hour or so without getting tired or getting a headache so bad that i have to stop. so my appointment is next week and i'm looking forward to it as i would any other experience in my life: as an open, hopeful skeptic.
Labels: body
After reading Joanna's
Friday memos and visiting Nate at
Ruta Maya this morning, I've been thinking a bit about change. Sometimes when I'm feeling nostalgic, I look back on things and wonder at how different everything is. At the people who have come and gone and all that kind of trite whatnot. But the truth is that I haven't been in a routine that lasted more than a couple of months in years. Everything cycles, including the people in my life, and while there are very occasionally entities that seem to thread themselves into my life for years at a time (family, choir, a select few relationships), for the most part, things are continually in flux. Does anyone out there actually have a true routine, a set group of people that you hang out with almost exclusively, the boundaries unchanging, for years at a time? Would you want to? The times I get truly nostalgic for are usually periods that lasted only a few weeks or so. The 3 weeks I spent in
Montana in 2001. The couple of months the same year where Craig hosted
ranch parties just about every other weekend. The crowd I worked and hung out with at
Mozart's. Everyone I know seems to be leaving and staying; i.e., even those who have no plans to go anywhere and have been where they are for years have been thinking about leaving and preparing to do so in some way or another. I have three friends who are teaching right now and all of them are looking beyond it. Elizabeth is thinking of grad school and Aleena is looking for something else. Allison just got a job at an ad agency in Dallas and moved there last weekend, but she views this job as temporary, something to do until she gets a job somewhere else. Is anyone where they want to be? Does this say something about us -- that no one is content, that even when what we're doing is good and we enjoy it, we're still looking to what's next? There's a quote from Socrates that I don't know if I've used in here but it's one that I've always found interesting: "There are but two tragedies in life: one is not to get your heart's desire -- the other is to get it." What will it take to be truly content? And could you handle it if you were?
Labels: future
