Decided to power through and get my Master’s next spring, no matter what.

Since I work full-time (40+ hours a week), I’ve only been taking 6 units a term.

Next fall, I am going to take 9 units—THREE graduate seminars.

History of the English Language; American Lit Before 1900; Enlightenment/18th Century

That will mean that in the spring, I will only need one more seminar, two elective units, and my comps.

Yes, comps. That bigass test that encompasses your entire graduate career. Here is the description of the comps, from the English Department’s website:
Examinations will consist of two parts; for each part, candidates will have two and a half hours to complete an essay (so, for example, students will have from 9-11:30 to complete part one, then return and complete part two from 1-3:30).

Part one, stressing breadth of knowledge, will contain the same historically comprehensive question for all exam takers. The goal of this question is to determine that candidates are able to think holistically about British and American literatures as cultural practices that evolve through time subject to differing local contexts. Part two, stressing depth of knowledge, will contain a question written by a faculty member who has agreed to serve as the student’s major professor. The major professor is one with whom the student shares an interest in a given subject area and whom the student has asked to serve as a mentor and guide through the comprehensive examination process. With guidance from the major professor, the student will compile a list of ten works and use this list to address the question in part two of the exam.

For the purposes of the comprehensive examination, students are responsible for forty-five works. Thirty of these are primary literary texts drawn from the canons of American and British literatures, fifteen from each. Students are also responsible for a list of five critical works intended to provide context and theory. The faculty of the English Department compile these lists and are responsible for reviewing and updating them periodically. These lists are made available to students immediately upon their entrance into the MA program. Each student is also responsible for a list of ten works selected in consultation with his or her major professor. This list will represent the student’s focused area of interest—medieval literature, American modernism, African American Literature, British Romanticism, etc. When students have compiled their lists they will fill out a Comprehensive Examination in Literature Form, have it signed by their major professor, and put it on file in the English Department. This should be done by the first week of the semester during which the student plans on taking the exam.

I HAVE SO GOT THIS. YOU HEAR ME, YOU GUYS? I’VE GOT THIS!

This is the kind of awesome student I am:

I just sent an email (and an addendum) to my two professors for this term, after seeing an article about 10 cocktails of famous literary figures:

———————————————————————————-
From: Laura
Sent: Wednesday, May 09, 2012 3:43 PM
To: Molly C____; John W_____
Subject: Literary Drinks: 10 Famous Fiction Writers and Their Cocktails

I think you guys will appreciate this fun article. Maybe we could design an Independent Study course where the three of us just get together once a week, make the cocktail for the author of the week, and discuss the socio-economic, political, and cultural implications of the narratives and themes in the author’s work. We would approach the authors chronologically and the final project would be me drafting a conference paper about the trajectory we discover in the themes of the core works. “Drinking In The Greats: A Socio-Political/Cultural Examination of Literature’s Great Imbibers.”

http://www.thekitchn.com/great-american-writers-and-their-cocktails-170969

———————————————————————————————
From: Laura
Sent: Wednesday, May 09, 2012 4:12 PM
To: Molly C____; John W_____
Subject: Literary Drinks: 10 Famous Fiction Writers and Their Cocktails

(But really, that Independent Study course would mostly be about drinking cocktails and going on awesome tangential rants.)

Seriously though, this whole waiting thing is making me a little insane.

I taught Stage Movement II today!

…and it went well! The department chair is out this week, and he teaches the Stage Movement II class, so he asked me to fill in today. The plan is that the students would do their warm-up/breathing progression, and then I would do OSHO with them—a form of dynamic meditation. But as we were doing the breathing, I changed my mind.

So instead, we did an exercise that I created when I was working with my high school students—it’s an exercise in spatial relationship, shape, and status. After working with the class in pairs, I expanded the exercise to work them in three and four (there were 7 students in class today). It was a GREAT class and they did some good work. It’s always empowering to work in what Dave (and I) refers to as “silent statements in space” and watching relationships and stories form, seemingly out of thin air.

I love the work we do.

THIS IS WHY I NEED TO BE ACCEPTED TO AN MFA PROGRAM. I want to do this work all the time. And I want to be able to teach it, all the time.

I keep searching for DePaul or Wayne State posts…

…to see if anyone else in the world has received their grad school acceptance/wait listing/rejection…

BECAUSE I JUST WANT TO KNOW WHAT IS GOING ON.

That is all.

Fire up the karmic jets

Tomorrow, DePaul is scheduled to send out their decision letters. That means if I’ve been accepted, wait-listed, or rejected, I should know by no later than Tuesday (allowing for slooooow mail).

PUT OUT THE LAURA GETS INTO DEPAUL ENERGY, TUMBLR LOVES!!!

By this time next week, I should like to greet you all by saying “See you in Chicago in the Fall!”

58 hours until I leave for Audition Week in NYC.

Audition One: Sun, Jan 29th, NYU

Audition Two: Mon, Jan 30th, U/RTA members

(Possible callbacks for U/RTAs: Tues, Jan 31)

Audition Three: Sat, Feb 4th, DePaul

acceptme? #positivethoughts #breaklegs #fingerscrossed #ohpleaseohpleaseohplease #Ireallywantthis

I got an A- in my “Critical Theory & Research” course!

See, I got a B on the midterm, which was 25% of the grade.

Then, our Blackboard/Wiki/Particpation points were 20% of the grade. I was consistent with Blackboard responses, and was one of the 5 people in class who contributed to discussion every time, without needing to be prodded, but I pretty much did NOT do the Wikis…I started a few, but….

Our oral reports and research essays were 30% of the grade. I haven’t gotten these papers back yet, so I’m interested to see how I did, grade wise, and performance-wise, overall. There were 3 papers, one of which had a presentation component. I felt OK about the presentation, and really good about parts of my papers, but leery about them as a whole. But since that was 30% of the course grade…

The final was 25% of the grade…and I’ll be glad if I got a B+ on it. My organization is so labored when I have time at home to write a research paper, God knows how my work was even remotely understandable on a 2.5 hour, closed-book final exam.

At any rate, despite all the self-doubt, I am SUPER excited to have gotten an A-.

Longinus = VAGINA.

Readings on the Sublime for this week in Critical Theory came from the following authors: Hume, Burke, Kant, and Longinus.

EVERY TIME I SEE THE NAME LONGINUS, I JUST SEE/HEAR “VAGINA.” The “gin” sound is the same in both words. So in my written response, I just keep wanting to write “vagina.”

Which would read like this: It is clear that Vagina would identify “Darkness” as a sublime poem. Byron’s use of amplification is in keeping with Vagina’s prescription of it:

Just paid for DePaul audition.

U/RTA audition (1st day): Mon, Jan 30th @ 11:22am.

DePaul audition: Sat, Feb 4th, 1pm-5pm.

Both are in NYC. Dave might be able to join me for part of the trip. I still need to come up with $$ for a plane ticket. And finalize my monologue choices.

GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!