Life: Synopsis

• Wake up from a nightmare about graduate school.
• Get dressed in professional clothing for graduate school.
• Drink coffee and worry about graduate school.
• Hurry to make it to graduate school on time.
• Arrive at graduate school and walk for 15 minutes from $300 parking spot.
• Drink coffee and worry about graduate school.
• Enter graduate school classroom. Talk about books.
• Talk to graduate school cohorts about institutional issues.
• Print readings for graduate school.
• Read for graduate school.
• Lead peer tutoring sessions. Make $10/session to pay for graduate school.
• Drink coffee and worry about graduate school.
• Drive home, continue to worry about graduate school.
• Eat while thinking about graduate school.
• Read for graduate school.
• Read for graduate school.
• Drink coffee and worry about graduate school.
• Read for graduate school.
• Drink coffee and worry about graduate school.
• Drink wine and worry about graduate school.
• Read for graduate school.
• Drink wine and worry about graduate school.
• Pass out worrying about graduate school.
• Repeat.

My Future’s So Dim, I Come Equipped with a Flashlight

I’ve been too busy to post lately, and posting now means blowing off homework, but I don’t care. Writing for myself in some capacity is a necessary component of my mental well-being, so it’s truly an investment in my future to blog. That’s what I’m telling myself.

Graduate school is not quite as I had imagined it. Yes, we are reading some wonderful (and some infuriating) things but neither has fostered in me a passion for education as I had imagined. I am finding myself misplaced and Midwestern othered here where everyone dreams of staying in higher education forever, living in big cities, and being important. I want none of those things. My updated dream is vague and has no real name, but I know that I want to help people, specifically women or the disabled community. Great. I’m liberal and in my twenties. I’m really special.

I find myself avoiding reading assignments by searching for jobs nearer to home where I can put my skills and passions to work, but I don’t even know where to begin. If I’ve learned anything thus far, its about the futility of education. My MA in English is not a job ticket, it’s a ticket to compete (thanks James Berlin. This nugget really cheered me up.) Unfortunately, I don’t know where to start, in what arenas I should be competing or where I want to apply. I know that an adjunct teaching position without benefits is probably my best bet, but upon graduation I won’t even be a strong candidate for that sort of position.

The internet is full of whiny graduates waxing poetic over their awful lives after getting a MA in the Humanities. The Google search “What can you do with a MA in English” yields about 430,000,000 results, most of which are pathetic rambling blog posts like this one, the rest being overly positive college websites reciting the same old spiel about how diverse the fields are for English graduates, from copy editing, working in publications, to (you guessed it) teaching. Very diverse indeed.

I find myself speaking on behalf of practicality in class, a position I’ve never occupied before. Maybe I’m tired of the same old ideas never being put into practice or the starry-eyed enthusiasm students of the humanities have for change. I believe that change can occur, I just doubt it will originate in the Composition classroom. No matter how political you make your lesson plans or inappropriately you demonstrate ideology in the classroom, you’ve only sparked thought, not change. Few students will even change from their privileged and ignorant ways after taking ENGL 101 . . .  I mean, it’s a required course taken by liberals and conservatives alike. No one cares about it or expects a life-changing experience from it. I want to work where progress occurs, not where it maybe possibly has the potential to start.

This will probably result in me volunteering while maintaining an office job, but who knows. Anyone have any resources or suggestions?

 

 

 

We made it.

So everyone knows, we’re in Colfax and nearly settled.

The drive was beautiful and far less stressful than I had anticipated. Montana in particular was breathtaking and I would love to return or even live there. My dad enjoyed the drive because it reminded him of his days hopping freight trains along the same route and he told us many unsavory stories. Having my dad there really helped me feel confident about the whole thing and everything went pretty well on the whole.

Getting things unpacked and filling in the gaps has been a long and expensive journey. I’m in credit card debt for the first time in my life with no foreseeable way to pay it off, but I guess that’s what happens when you move halfway across the country. Clint has set up the living room to be a music room with both of our music posters, and records. We got a cute click-clack couch to optimize listening comfort and I can’t wait to entertain there. It looks fantastic.

Our bedroom is the most bare-bones set-up in the apartment, with my clothes, two dressers, both of my shoe racks, and jewelry taking up most of the space. I bought a $600 Enso memory foam mattress and LOVE IT sitting atop our simple Ikea Malm bed frame.

The kitchen is darling and Clint put my record player and speakers in there so we could listen to records while we cooked. I was apprehensive, but the set-up looks nice and makes cooking more enjoyable.

My office is the last thing to get settled and still has both of our odds and ends in it. Currently I have two bookshelves, a craft shelf, and a new red Ikea desk as well as Regina’s litterbox and food, because we couldn’t find a better place. I look forward to this room being more livable since I assume I’ll be spending lots of time in it when school starts.

Speaking of which, I start classes a week from tomorrow. I’m pretty nervous. I have three orientation days this week, so hopefully I’ll feel more prepared after that. In addition to orientations I have to complete my residency requirements this week. This sounds simple, but has been a horrible pain so far. I spent all of Friday in and out of the Department of Licensing office where they never did get my license. That costs $45 and I don’t even want to think about how much my vehicle licensing will cost. The consequences for not completing these tasks is paying out-of-state tuition for the next year, something I positively cannot afford.

I miss everyone, but have been busy and having difficulty adjusting to the time difference so I always want to call people when it’s 3AM CST. I’m sure most of you are still awake then, but I’d hate to wake someone up just to say “Missin’ you, girrrrrrrrrrrrrl!” So please, call me. If I don’t answer I’m probably doing something stupid and I’ll definitely call you back.

I’m sorry I don’t have pictures yet. When everything is in its place I promise I’ll get some posted.

Washington Post

UPDATE!

Clint and I flew out to Washington recently to find a place to live. We were there Wed-Sat. which seemed like plenty of time to see apartments and sign a lease. I set up an itinerary, scheduled meetings with the few landlords with pet-friendly apartments/houses, and expected us to find lots of great places and quickly make a decision. This was naturally not the case.

The first place we saw in Pullman was extremely small, sketchy, and $475/month. The next day we saw a dreamy place with wood floors, a lovely yard and lots of room, but it was $1000/month, hardly feasible for my stipend budget. Next we went on a cruise with a crazy agent who convinced us we would love a shit hole in Albion (10 minutes from Pullman), then showed us a similar shit hole in town with an impossibly steep driveway. She said things like “That woman needs to know that the world does not evolve around her” in reference to her boss and “The coast runs from here down to California, and then Mexico, and even to the tip of South America” because kids from the midwest clearly do not understand the geographical phenomenon of water meeting land (bitch, we got cricks like you wouldn’t believe! That’s the same thing!)

These were the only places available and pet-friendly in our price range. We tried to get the $1000/month place for $850 but got the runaround from the owner. Finally, Clint convinced me to give a gorgeous place in Colfax a look. I was extremely hesitant as Colfax is 20 minutes from Pullman and I didn’t want to commute, but this place is well worth the drive.

Our new home!

This apartment is the upper floor of a house with a private entrance and shared washer/dryer with the lower units. It has hardwood floors, a breakfast nook, vaulted ceilings that don’t minimize space (unlike mine), and lovely new paint.

YELLOW FRIDGE.

There are more visible plug-ins in this image than are in my entire kitchen.

In addition, it has a lovely kitchen with spacious granite counter tops with plenty of plug-ins for appliances like my new stand mixer! The best part of this well-lit kitchen is the included breakfast nook.

So quaint!

There are two decently large bedrooms each with their own closet and a living room with a coat closet. The bathroom has a huge storage area also, and the hallway has coat hooks on every wall. Also, one of the bedrooms is red!

Sexy!

Did I mention there's a window seat!?

Oh, and behind the house and up some stone stairs we have our very own deck and some land to call our own! Ette will love romping around back there and we can sit there and drink (white) wine and watch the sunset every night (not).

The town itself is quite lovely as well. It only has a population of 2,844, but it has everything we need. We’re even walking distance from a grocery store, a Taco Time, a bar, and a coffee place as well as a pretty nifty-looking public library. When we move in I’ll post more pictures, but until then I’ll be daydreaming about this place.

The lease signing process took over a week, 7 failed faxes, and lots of phone tag, but it’s finally ours. We move in August. Come visit us sometime!

It’s Real Now.

Estranged blog friends, at long last I know what I’m doing next year.

After many rejections and unfunded acceptances (4 rejects and 4 acceptances to be exact) I decided to go to Washington State University for their Master’s in English Literature program. I was offered a 2 year TAship, a $12,850 stipend, tuition waiver (except for $940/semester in fees) and a one time $500 book stipend. I couldn’t be more pleased. Since this and Truman’s GTRA offer were my only funded choices and WSU’s offer far exceeded Truman’s I took it immediately.

My communication with the head of the department there has been wonderful. He was quick to answer questions, incredibly helpful, and personally let me know about my offer before my letter arrived to make sure I would consider it. I was pretty shocked considering it’s a Literature program and I’m a theoryhead who only ever utilizes queer and feminist critiques. My guess is that they wanted a token feminist? I’ll gladly be someone’s token for that kind of money and opportunity.

Ain't no thang.

WSU is located in Pullman, WA, a town of about 25,000 on the Idaho border. Moscow, ID, home of University of Idaho, is 7 minutes away and connected by a bike trail. The two towns share an airport, shopping, and act as sister cities. Pullman is 73 miles from Spokane and about 6 hours from Seattle, nestled in the heart of Washington farm country, the Palouse region, and gorgeous lentils.

Did I mention Pullman hosts the National Lentil Festival?!

I know, right?!

I understand that this festival hosts the world’s largest bowl of lentil chili served to you by a person dressed as a lentil, a beer garden, and Little Lentil King and Queen (check out the video. That little girl knows her lentils.) I’ll obviously be attending this fantastic event.

Some random person made this “comprehensive” guide to Pullman. It’s pretty outdated, but they have a great housing guide that I’ve made use of in my hunt for lodging next year. There are a handful of coffee shops (I’m sure I’ll work at one of them), two Thai places, and a European eatery of some sort. They have a Shop-Ko for their one-stop shopping needs. There are a number of bars, some of which are on campus (!) and look pretty standard. They also have an upscale restaurant with valet parking in the university.

Look at this map. Makes Truman look like a babby school (only in size!)

It's the size of a small town!

I’m looking at reasonably priced housing for Clint and I and have a list of realtors that we’ll be visiting the week after graduation when we fly out to find a place. I’m not willing to rent a house without seeing it first so it’s worth the money to scope it out. Plus, I’ll spend the whole summer dreaming about this place and seeing it will make the whole thing (even more) real.

I got a letter yesterday detailing my responsibilities as a TA and telling me about the course offerings for the following semester. I register on May 1st and get to choose from courses such as: Modernism in Film, Writing for Publication, and Sequential Art (a class all about graphic novels.)

I’m outrageously excited, but I know I’ll miss Kirksville. It’s a 28 hour drive so I won’t feasibly be able to drive down, and that’s a scary thought, but I suppose growth rarely comes comfortably.

Graduate School Updates

After an exhausting December spent wrapping up grad applications, I have patiently waited for responses. Rejections have trickled in slowly with only a few acceptances in the mix: Arizona State’s PhD program, Colorado State’s MA, and Truman’s MA. I have yet to hear from Washington State and have not received any funding offers and am starting to think that Truman is the best fit for me. Is this foolish? Perhaps. Let me detail my reasons.

After my recent rejection from UNL, my top choice and the second highest ranked school in the running, I realized something incredible. I do not need the prestige and honor that comes along with getting a doctorate from a top 10 or top (X) school. I am not entering academia with any intention of fame or large-scale publication. I want to teach. I want to be happy where I am, with those I love, and with myself. My greatest aspiration is not to be featured among my idols in an anthology (although that sounds lovely), but to simply teach what I love. If I can make a punk-ass cynical kid who resents my class realize the potential she has a critical thinker I will be eternally pleased. I do not care if I have to take an adjunct position or teach at a community college. Just let me teach. I grew up poor and with subpar healthcare and I’m fine with dying in that same condition.

My mother always told me that people went to college so they could get paid for practicing their passions instead of their physical capabilities. My father has worked in factories his whole life and made meagre earnings which he then spent on lottery tickets and cigarettes. We lived off of a combined income of less than $40,000/year when I was growing up. My mother found out she was pregnant with me in a clinic where they asked her when she wanted to schedule a termination in the same breath as “You’re pregnant”. I’m not seeking affluence or social mobility, just a life worth living. I don’t aim to climb any ladders or revolutionize the system. I want to teach and write about what moves me. That’s it. At any cost.

Yes, I was accepted to a PhD program at Arizona State, but taking that offer would mean taking out loans I could never feasibly pay off. I have no guarantee of a teaching position after my studies and even if I do attend this highly esteemed program (compared to other offers), I cannot predict changes in the job market or if the current attack on higher education will be over in seven years when I have my PhD. For all I know, if I take a funded offer I might be riding out the last glorious wave of prized academia in this country and will thereafter have to work in an office. That’s fine. Just give me a few golden years of getting paid for work in this field so I can forever look back at them fondly.

Brown Cow Maple Yogurt

Now I understand all of those commercials where women cream themselves over yogurt.

This shit is good.

I’ve had some womanly problems which led me to buy loads of yogurt this week. I read that some commercial brands do not contain all the wonderful cultures my body needs, so I looked at the organic aisle in HyVee to find this: Brown Cow All Natural Maple Cream Top Yogurt. It made me make all those weird faces and gender essentialist statements these women make. Not really, but damn, it was good.

Long absence

I’ve been hiding for long enough.

Last semester was increasingly crazy and I’m sure this semester won’t be much different. The best way to give a comprehensive update is through a list:

• I applied to eight graduate schools:

• • University of Arizona
  • Arizona State
  • University of Nebraska-Lincoln
  • Rice
  • UC-Davis
  • Colorado State
  • Washington State
  • Truman

• I got into NCUR!
• I knitted five scarves for Christmas.
• I got four A’s and a B last semester.
• JavaCo closed, so I lost my job.
• A few days later, I got a better job at Mocha Hut.

We’re about up to speed now. I’ll talk about school later. Right now I’m high on knitting.

I’m a super lazy knitter who is capable of stockinette but sticks to garter stitch so she can talk/drink/rave while knitting. I’ve wanted to make lazy knitter adaptations of projects and apply my quick and dirty sewing logic to the needles and I have my first successful attempt at just that.

I’ve been obsessed with infinity scarves since they first popped up in couture settings in which I couldn’t fathom buying (or making) anything so decadent. I finally decided to try my hand at it by making them trashy as hell.

I made these out of old t-shirts and they’re cute, but hardly warm enough for Kirksville’s current tundra.

Not cozy!

Inspired by beautiful patterns like this one that I couldn’t conquer without hours of concentrating, ripping out stitches, and cursing, I decided to whip one up the easiest way possible and see how it turned out.

Circle/Infinity/Lazy Scarf!

I think it looks great! This scarf requires nothing but knowledge of the knit stitch. I knitted a long scarf and sewed it together at the end. Period. It’s that simple.

Also, my new haircut allows for (drumroll please)…

SWOOP OR BLUNT BANGS!

How YOU doin', sweet thang?

Later, loves!

Dream

It’s dream blog post time (Ashley, I’m stealin’ yr bit for a minute).

So, I was napping the other day and I had the following bizzarely satisfying dream:

I walk into Patty’s Bookstore to get a book for my Philosophy class only to find that the book is only sold as a stack of CD shaped papers on a spindle. You apparently read a page and then throw it away, put it on another spindle, I don’t know. Anyway, I took it up to the counter and this shitty CD textbook thing was $300. I told the woman I could buy it, but wanted to buy some clothes first. So I walked over to the corner of the store and it extended into a JC Penney’s and then into a mall. The JC Penney’s only sold things that I wanted for myself or for Clint and several things in the store I had designed myself, like the suspenders made out of rope (so tacky). These rope suspenders came with a CD necklace, I might add. Also, on the counter of the store were six or seven tiny dolls wearing clothing that I wanted to purchase for Clint, so I kept trying to find an employee to direct me to the human-sized Clint clothes, but they would not help me. Suddenly I saw the lights dim in Patty’s and I sprinted back to the counter, but luckily they had hired a night crew of college age seamstresses so I could make my purchase anyway. As I was paying a strange looking girl said the following in a Napoleon Dynamite voice:

Girl: Listen guys, I lost my family farch. Where can I find it?

Group: Every doorstep in town! It’s not hard to find!

This was the single funniest utterance anyone in the room had ever heard. I recall in the dream thinking “Damn, that really is funny.” but no indication was given as to what a “farch” might be or what constitutes a farch shared by an entire family. My assumption is that it was when someone farted during incestuous felching, but that would imply that this girl was going around town on people’s porches doing strange things with her relatives. And perhaps this girl in my dream was indeed a serial porch farcher. I’ll never know.

-FIN-

P.S. Look at this thing my hair did:

XXXtreme hair flippage

GRE Study Break 1: How we choose our friends

I’m taking a break from a GRE study session to talk a bit about the nebulous idea of authenticity, and how unauthentic our methods can be when chooising our comrades.

We’ve all chosen (or inadvertently fallen into) our friends, our cliques, our collegiate social circles based on factors we hold in high regard. We paint it up in various disguises and describe in culturally acceptable ways, but we select and tolerate people based on very simple and increasingly despicable traits.

This list is incomplete and written at times from a women’s perspective, because from what other perspective can I more confidently write?

How We Choose Our Friends:

From least to most contemptible

1. Ability to create balance in our lives
2. Comfort
3. Similarities in interest
4. Similarities in appearance
5. How well they align with how we view ourselves
6. Similarities in class/socioeconomic standing
7. Convenience
8. How attractive/thin/well-dressed they are
9. How many friends we can get through them
10. What they can offer us

1. Ability to create balance in our lives

We all seek people to complete us. Loud people don’t want their cohorts to talk over them (though healthy competitive conversation is fine) and quiet people would like someone to fill the silence (I assume, but cannot relate).

2. Comfort

We run into people throughout our lives who feel like home and we hold onto them. Some people are especially good at cheering us up and we rarely ditch them. This is nothing to be ashamed of, but is often not a respectable reason to maintain friendship with another person.

3. Similarities in interest

Of course, we will be attracted to those people whose interests line up nicely with our own. Truly, this is essential and integral to anyone seeking company and sometimes we even make up similarities to justify using other techniques to forage for friends.

4. Similarities in appearance

We are all egoists at heart, no matter how self-deprecating our exterior may seem. Someone who looks like us will be attractive and intriguing to our confident parts and reassuring to those of us with unconventional features. I can’t say I would pass up a coffee date with a lady with my hair. (Who would?)

5. How well they align with how we view ourselves

We often have drastically different ideas of who we are, how we are perceived by others, and how we are actually perceived by others (something we will never know and on which we will always speculate), but when seeking friendship, we pay attention to the first one and try to find people who are as intelligent, interesting, awesome, and exciting as we perceive ourselves. Often, this realm is where we play around with artificial labels like “hipster” and “intellectual” which have no real attachment to reality or any quantitative measure. They’re simply perceptions and stigmas we attach to ourselves and others, but they sure come in handy when pointing out people in a crowd! i.e. “Look at that hipster with the side-swept bangs and the dyke spike by the jukebox. She looks like a total Women’s Studies type.”

6. Similarities in class/socioeconomic standing

Here’s where we get a little skeptical. Any good middle-class person would deny that they actively befriend exclusively people of their own class, but this is rarely a conscious effort. We will see people of other classes and label them as precisely that: the other. We feel comfortable with the people who shop where we shop, eat what we eat, and wear what we wear. Anyone outside of this zone either represents a lower class we pity, or an upper class we resent.

The people I looked for in college were relatable and comfortable for me. Therefore, they shopped at Aldi’s as kids, wore thrift store clothing because they couldn’t afford anything else, and had fathers who worked in factories. This one is a little strange for me due to my mixed-class household, but I sought the working-class actively because I fully comprehended their utter disgust with the middle-upper and upper classes. I did not necessarily agree with it, but I also didn’t admire their polos, khakis, and suburban brick homes like my mother did.

7. Convenience

No need for a big explanation here. You weren’t friends with the people in your wing of your residence hall because they were so similar to you. You were friends with them because it would have been inconvenient to be enemies. You dined with them, ran into them on your way to class, and slept a few feet away from them. If geography  is a good enough reason for you to befriend someone, never admit it. That’s pathetic.

8. How attractive/thin/well-dressed they are

This one goes both ways. Some women will not befriend people who are more attractive, thin, or well-dressed than them. My own mother has admitted that when feeling chubby, she sometimes takes solace in her sincerely fat friends. No one wants to travel with a posse that will outshine them. You’ll never get laid that way. On the other hand, sometimes you see a dazzling lady from afar and make it your mission to get her on your team. Keep her close so she’s less likely to steal your boyfriend? That’s just good strategy.

9. How many friends we can get through them

We all see social butterflies fluttering around and envy their magnetism. They seem to have it all. And if we befriend them, maybe they can give a little slice of it all to us! This rarely works and you’ll just become a stop on their circuit around the bar, but we try anyway. Sometimes you get to be that friend of a friend and you’ll be introduced to new and interesting people — with whom you will employ a reason from this list to try and ensnare them in your friendship.

10. What they can offer us

Don’t lie to  yourself. You’ve befriended people because they gave out free booze, had a reliable dealer, lived in a cool apartment, or had another valuable connection of some sort. We all have. I’ve known people to prey on freshmen with meal plans for free Sodexo dining (and who can blame them?) or people with handicapped license plates for better parking spots at Wal-Mart (I wish I was joking). Usually we aren’t as outright with our reasons, and will casually joke about how nice it is to have, for example, a boyfriend who constantly has Starbursts in his back pocket (JK, I don’t even like Starbursts) in order to cover our predatory ways. But when entering a friendship, we all want to know what we’ll get back. Sometimes the revelation that a relationship will be fruitful for us comes later, but all the better when it slaps us in the face in the form of a free shot every time we see them at the bar.