At my most beautiful
I sit here, gnoshing on a delectable lobster bisque while my ass vibrates to some thrumming eurotrash house.
GREs are done. They were actually done on Saturday at around 8 am, Spokane Savings Time. Moving Shannon to her new place, which began concurrently upon finishing the GRE, is almost done as well. Yesternight we hoisted the last boxspring the final 30-odd feet onto Shannon's private balcony. Private balcony. Hoisted because the stairwells are 20 inches wide and double back on themselves twice. Like so much of Boston, this house is austerely beautiful and a pain in the ass to navigate.
To enumerate, that's one old, serpentine house, three roommates--three separate lives enfleshed and made meaningful by lots and lots of heavy possessions-- and one human male boyfriend.
And now, Bisque, Macchiatto. Tranquility drum and bass, the fashion eagle has landed. Diesel Cafe. This place is a little too neo-Italian for my taste. That is: self-consciously, conspicuously and cheaply European. All too familiar, like there should be greasy men in Roberto Cavalli snake-skin pants masturbating in the bushes outside.
Still, I'm sipping pureed lobster from a cappuccino cup. Classy.
Classy and solitary.
Participating in solitude. After four days the trip is beginning to feel like a vacation.
Remind me to remember this when I start panicking. Should be any minute now. Tell me to find my place, my power animal. Remember, hipster cafe and lobster, respectively.
You see. I have no personal statement, I have no writing sample. I never took a class in literary theory and criticism, I haven't yet taken the GRE Subject Test. And now it looks like I might be having a job handed to me. A newspaper job. A beautiful wonderful challenging thing I have no time for.
A month, a week and counting until human beings with advanced degrees begin judging me. Until I'm found wanting.
Because your grasp of new-historicism is half-baked, and neither intelligent nor insightful, I will spew you out of my mouth. -- Bible, Revelation 3:16; American Standard Version, Graduate Academic Edition.
***
Because I wrung my hands and kveched for a month, I should report the following: The GRE was good--the score itself was good. It would have been great if I hadn't lost track of time on the math. The writing sections were good. I used words like nascent. I kept my arguments short and pointed. I made jokes. I became, briefly, a wordsmith. The verbal ended up 200 points better than my practice tests led me to expect. Thank God. One less thing to worry about. One less way I fail to stack up.
posted by Luke @ 10:11 AM
8 comments
8 Comments:
Congratulations on your GRE performance. I was so terrified by the way the CAT works that I was certain that it would unmask my shortcomings that test-taking strategies of old had so effectively hidden. Apparently, my previous strategies were not as effective as I perceived them to be, since I scored much higher than expected as well. The test did make me feel stupid halfway through each section, and I almost canceled my scores. I did cancel my scores, actually, but the software insists that you verify your response, and I caved to curiosity at the last moment. Thank goodness, as I wouldn't have wanted to take the damn thing again. Ever.
A newspaper job in Boston? Dude.. just roll with it... you can always just check it out for a while and then ditch it if it doesn't work out. I mean, you kinda have a place to live for a while, right? Just be careful, sometimes "A beautiful wonderful challenging thing I have no time for" translates to "A pain in the ass 80 hour a week life sucking dead end job in the mail room." But that's up to you to find out and decide upon.
Congrats on the GRE also. I took mine way back in '96, so I haven't got a clue what my scores were since I've killed a number of perfectly useful brain cells since then, but I seem to remember the verbal and the written were good, while the math sucked hard core. Oh, and it's always good to randomly throw in words like nascent, if only for effect.
So, enjoy your bisque, enjoy Boston, don't freak out and stop wondering about your "power animal." That pop psych stuff is loony anyway. Oh, and don't shake hands with the Italians outside either, as you leave the cafe.
Not a job in Boston, in Cheney.
Good advice all. Thanks.
A Newspaper job in Cheney? Ah.. well then.. that speaks volumes. My advice, which really isn't worth much at all, would be to hang out in Boston, and persue grad school further, before doing the Cheney paper thing. You're much to talented for Cheney. Besides, you're young. Explore as many options as possible!
I sense that in asking the question I answer it:
Where is Cheney?
It's right next to Spokane. A little to the west, I think. It's the home of Eastern Washington University.
--Mike Sheffler
... turning to the 3-D map, we see an unmistakable cone of ignorance
In the words of certain used car salesmen, I can't afford NOT to take this job--really, because I have no money.
I also have no portfolio.
This would ultimately help my work toward grad school (in theory).
Anyway, the guy (new editor, not the one I worked with) is holding off until I get my resume in.
This is hardly a done deal. We'll see.
Luke, good luck with that. I hope you get the job. I think it will open more doors than you might imagine. Grad school could come next year, or the next, it's up to you. Hell, I took 5 years off of my UNDERGRAD work! But that's another story. At least it allowed me to AFFORD to finish. I feel your pain.
You need to understand that whatever safety mechanism you've got wired into your skull, that voice that says nothing you do is ever quite good enough, while safe as a blankie, is wrong. I've been impressed with a handfull of writers, ever. You're one of them. Enough said.
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