Crunch Time

Got to go out with a bang. Enjoy the friends, do the work. Boom.

The Grad School Dilemma

So, the last month has been a whirlwind of attempts at making decisions about grad school for me. First, I thought I wanted to go to U of Pittsburgh, but then I found out that I got wait listed. Then, I got accepted to Ohio State and wasn't really excited about it. I thought, "Oh, just another big state school that's going to require me to take lit classes." Then, around midnight on a Tuesday during spring break, I was sitting on my living room couch while Andy was in the kitchen scrounging for some food.

"What can I eat?" he yelled to me from the kitchen, probably with his head in the refrigerator. At that moment, I spotted a small envelope that said "Carnegie Mellon" in red letters in the top left corner. I had been back in Madison after my trip to San Francisco for three days by this time, but I had not seen it.

My first thought was, "Uh oh, a small envelope."

Without answering Andy's question, I started to tear the envelope.

Andy yelled something from the kitchen again as I began to read the letter. To my surprise, I was accepted. I couldn't believe it. I thought there was no way I would get in there. Andy walked into the living room and I started screaming and jumping on the couch, just like you would imagine it would happen.

So for the next few weeks, I was sure I would go to Carnegie Mellon. I got another acceptance from Arizona State, but by then there was no time left to go out there, and I was so excited about CMU that I didn't even care.

During the first week of April, Andy and I left for Columbus. We were going to Columbus so I could visit Ohio State just because I convinced myself I should see it anyway because they offered to give me money. We talked about Columbus, though, like it was just a pit stop on the way to our real destination--Pittsburgh, PA.

When we arrived in Columbus, though, Andy and I both thought, "Hey, this is kinda nice." When we went out for dinner and beers with Mary (the friend we were staying with), I got this strange feeling like I was at home. There were lots of quirky bars and restaurants that looked fun to explore, and there were people drinking and talking on the sidewalks on the main street through campus. It felt really livable.

The next day I woke up to go to my Ohio State campus visit. The weather was really nice--almost 70 and sunny. First, I met with the director of the first-year writing program. I wasn't expecting to meet with him, but it was a really good idea because I would be teaching first-year writing right away. He was really awesome. He read my writing sample and statement of purpose and asked me questions about them. He seemed really genuine, the perfect kind of person you'd want to help you start your first teaching job.

As the morning went on, I met professor after professor. Each one was just as nice as the first one I met. They all seemed really excited to meet me and about the program. I was feeling really intense positive energy all morning. I got the sense that these people really care about their grad students, their work, and the community of the program. Then, I had lunch with two awesome grad students who seemed to be interested in a lot of the same things I am. They gave me a really truthful, straightforward perspective on the program. After that, I was sold. I was having a blast.

To top it off, the last professor I met with told me he does research in Sweden and is an honorary professor at a Swedish university. Then he said he could get me involved in his work.

I ran out of the building with a huge smile on my face, about to burst. I called Andy to pick me up, and then I lost my phone.

When I got to CMU the next morning, I immediately knew it wasn't for me. I arrived at the breakfast and nobody said hello. No one introduced themselves. It felt like the complete opposite of OSU. The events during the rest of the day continued to support my decision against it.

So not only has this taught me how important it is to do campus visits, but it has also taught me a lot about what I want from graduate school.

I have really loved my experience at UW, and that's why I want to continue with graduate school. It makes sense, then, that I would want to continue somewhere similar to UW rather than totally different. I realized that I am only doing this academics thing because it's a lot of fun. I'm not doing this to be the best, biggest name graduate student ever. There is definitely a part of the academic world that is intensely competitive and prides itself on its prestige, but that element has not been part of the equation of my experience at UW. At UW, it has been an experience of creating strong, exhilarating friendships with others through a high level of thinking, learning, talking and writing. At various moments of thinking, talking, and working with other people in the English dept during my time at UW, I have never been happier in my life.

The English dept at OSU felt like the one at UW but on steroids. They have 100 tenure-track faculty, which means it's probably four times the size of UW's. I hope it will truly be bigger and better in every way.

Lessons from the Day

Everyone forgets to set their alarm once in a while, but we continue to act like being late is unacceptable.

My brother applied to Brown University. Emma Watson is going to Brown University. This must mean they will get together.

Never eat vegetable lasagna from Chadbourne cafe ever again.

Everyone agrees that MTV's "College Life" is boring as hell and is disgracing the university. Why the university thought a show on MTV would be a good way to promote the school, however, remains to be known.

Interviews are fun if you want the job.

I've got to get involved in this digital media research business.

Writing Thoughts

In my writing workshop last night, we had an engaging conversation about the differences between the American education system and eastern education systems. With a Korean student and a Vietnamese student in the class, we were able to talk about the differences between writing pedagogy in the U.S. and eastern education systems. The Korean and Vietnamese students were of the opinion that writing in their homelands meant repeating things they read or that other people have already said. They said that they were never required to create their own theses or arguments. Their input really put the American way of writing into perspective. We like to be original.

Sometimes I think, though, that American writing style is too direct. I appreciate the freedom to argue whatever you want as long as you support it, but I often think that there is not enough room for showing the humanity of the writer. A lot of the time the writer portrays the persona of an expert, like they arrive at their conclusion without any struggle at all. To me, some of the most interesting arguments are ones that divulge information about all the steps (for better or worse) that the writer had to take to arrive at their conclusion. This also makes the writer seem more human and as a result, the material seems more important.

I understand why high school teachers often tell their students not to use "I" in their essays, but like how Joseph Williams calls countless grammar rules "folklore," this piece of advice turns into a rule that student writers think they cannot break. I've been in a number of classes in which students raise their hands and ask, "Do you want us to use 'I'?" when talking about a paper assignment. The teacher usually has a good answer, explaining that you can use it, but you should not use your personal opinions to make your argument. When I meet with students (some of them college seniors), they still don't understand when they should and shouldn't use "I" in academic writing. It's not easy to know when it's appropriate and when it's not, but more experience writing pieces that require both personal and academic voices might help students learn how to negotiate their voices.

Problems in public school systems bring me to tears

I heard yet another astounding story on This American Life. This time it's about how the NYC public school system holds hundreds of teachers in a reassignment center as a form of punishment for misconduct. It's actually pretty comical. Imagine hundreds of teachers hanging out in a room with nothing to do for years. Sad, too.

The Rubber Room
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPMtYjhnRqc&NR=1

NY Times story
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/10/education/10education.html

I saw this in San Francisco.

Whose Mom Is Here?

Most college-age women choose to give Halloween some sex appeal with costumes that are ordinarily seen on toddlers. I’m never sure if they actually purchase toddlers’ costumes and stretch the tiny garments around their busts, waists, and nothing else, or if they paint their brassieres black and yellow and tape black paper polka dots to their red panties. In an attempt to stay true to my efforts to live in opposition of the norms of college life at a Big Ten university, however, I avoided the whole dilemma. I never chose to be sexy for Halloween, nor did I choose to be scary. I chose to be ugly.

I got the inspiration for my first costume from the character Jerri Blank (Amy Sedaris) on the short-lived TV series Strangers With Candy. Jerri Blank is a forty-four year old drug and alcohol addicted ex-convict who returns to high school to find that things are not any easier than the first time around. Everyone makes fun of her and the boys are just as hard to woo. In a fat-suit designed to mimic the pear-shaped body of a chubby middle-aged woman, Sedaris dresses in earth-tone turtlenecks and high-waist pants. She wears her short, streaked brown hair swooped to one side and contorts her face to express disappointment, shame, and sexual intrigue and arousal. Having practiced mimicking Sedaris’ facial expression, I saw dressing up as Jerri Blank for Halloween as an opportunity to showcase my amateur acting abilities. Also, having idolized Sedaris for her odd yet hilarious gigs in entertainment, I saw this costume as a testimony to her work.

The response to my costume, however, was less reverential and more confusing. Shortly before Halloween, while visiting my parents’ house I asked my mom if I could borrow a few things from her for a costume. “Oh sure!” she said, too excited to even ask what kind of a costume I needed them for. Overjoyed as always by the act of giving things away, she pulled out the perfect pair of jeans and a turtleneck from her closet, handing them to me with a smile. I ordered a wig called the “You’re Fired!” wig off the Internet, which I assume was intended for the Donald Trump or "big mean boss" costume. On the night of Halloween I stuffed the back of my over-sized jeans with two small, square pillows and the front of the jeans with a bunch of rolled up socks. I put on the turtleneck, the wig, some blue eyeshadow, and some tennis shoes.

With low expectations I hauled my new self off to my friends’ party. On my walk, I received a number of hollers from college guys in passing cars. I didn’t quite know how to react yet. I hadn’t gotten in character. When I walked into the house everyone started giggling, but when I turned around to sit down in a chair, they started laughing hysterically. It was a hit.

When my boyfriend and his friend arrived, though, I experienced a new perspective on my costume. At first they laughed like everyone else, but when my boyfriend and his friend saw my backside, their expressions turned to horror.
“It looks really…realistic,” his friend said, staring.
“Yeah, yeah it does,” said my boyfriend, laughing uncomfortably.
Throughout the night I caught my boyfriend’s friend staring at me with the same look of horror on his face. Finally I approached him.
“Do I scare you?” I said, joking.
“Yeah,” he said, snapping out of it. “Yeah, you do.”
I laughed.
“Why? Don’t you know Jerri Blank?” I said, making the face.
“Yeah, it’s just—“
“What?” I said.
“Don’t ever get fat, Annika. Or old. Please.”
I stared at him. I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know if it was an insult or not, so I started laughing. I hadn’t realized my costume looked so realistic.

The next year I didn’t have as grand of a plan, but I knew I wanted to continue to counteract the sexy Halloween costume trend. The night of Halloween, I pulled out a black fur hat that I found in my grandmother’s apartment in Sweden a few years before. It was the strangest looking hat. My mom always seemed nostalgic about the hat, repeating over and over again that she wore it to school when she was maybe ten, smiling every time, but I never understood it. There was no doubt that the hat would be warm—it covered every inch of the head including the ears, jawbone, and underneath the chin with thick, black animal fur—but I couldn’t take the way it looked seriously. It looked like a gorilla head.

So that’s what I dressed up as. I put on a pair of black pants and long-sleeve black shirt to which I taped part of a paper bag that I had cut out so that it looked like a monkey’s chest. I drew nipples on the chest and put on the big, black fur hat. Nobody knew what I was. Actually not many people even asked. I seemed to disappear in the crowd. I obviously wasn’t sexy, but I wasn’t ugly either. I looked like a black blob.

So the next year I decided to put more effort into making a statement about Halloween costumes. For the past two years, I had been thinking about the year I dressed as Jerri Blank as one of the best times of my life, so I decided I would do something similar. Since the big ass was the best part of the costume, I looked for a costume that would allow me to stuff my pants again. Browsing at a second hand store, I noticed that most of the clothing looked like something a grandma would wear, so I decided to go for it. I dressed as a grandma. It made things easy since I could pick up almost anything from the racks and it would work. I selected a pair of bright peach Capri pants and a white t-shirt with small red palm trees on it. To top it off, I picked up a bright purple visor with a palm tree pattern on the brim.

At home I got to work immediately, pulling out the old “You’re Fired!” wig, rolling a bunch of socks into balls, and releasing the square pillows from their handmade pillow cases. I borrowed a pair of white tube socks from my roommate and put on my running shoes. Within five minutes, I was ready. I knew what to do, and it looked great. My ass looked huge and just as realistic as two years ago, and the wig fit nicely under the palm tree visor. “Florida Grandma,” I named myself.

At the party I got a similar reaction to when I first arrived as Jerri Blank. Everyone started laughing.
“That is the best costume I’ve ever seen,” someone said. This time my boyfriend was less horrified. I think he knew what to expect when I told him I was going to dress as a grandma, so he acted more proud than anything else that his girlfriend had such a hilarious costume. With this attitude I felt like I was going to be able to live my role as a grandma to the fullest that night.

As more guests started to arrive, though, my costume slowly started to lose its thrill. Good friends of mine reacted positively, laughing and complimenting me. As the party progressed normally as most parties do, however, (into groups of people standing around drinking and talking), I kept finding that I had no one to talk to. It wasn’t that I didn’t know anyone at the party. I knew who plenty of the people at the party were—I wasn’t necessarily friends with them—but when I tried to get their attention, they either failed to notice me or diverted their attention. I felt like everyone was acting like they didn’t know who I was. A few times I tried to join the conversation groups in which my boyfriend was participating, but no one acknowledged my presence. When I tried to get a word in, the conversation kept going as though I never said anything. So I gave up.

Standing against the wall with no one to talk to, I heard an unfamiliar male voice say, “Whose mom is here?”
I saw a few masked faces turn in my direction, and then I heard a cohort of chuckles. I retreated to the kitchen and indulged myself in the snacks.
What is going on? I started to wonder. People didn’t normally treat me like this. And why wasn’t my boyfriend helping me out? He wasn’t even including me in the conversation. Maybe it’s because I’m ugly tonight, I thought. My anger started stewing.

I dashed down to the basement. I stopped and observed the groups of costumed people. I couldn’t catch anyone’s glance. Not even my boyfriend’s roommates’ or his sister’s. Not even his. I stormed up to my boyfriend and pulled him out of his circle. I pulled his head down and yelled into his ear over the music.
“You’re not including me in conversation because I'm ugly, right?” I said.
He pulled his head back and stared at me.
“What are you talking about?” he said.
I was too upset to make a better argument.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Forget it.”
I walked back upstairs to the snack table.

The night started to improve. I finally got the attention of some of my friends and had good conversations. It felt so normal and natural that I forgot I was dressed like a fat grandma for most of the rest of the night.

Near the end of the party, I was standing in the kitchen by myself finishing off the last of the snacks. I was really enjoying eating whatever was there—some veggies and dip probably—when I looked to my right and saw myself in the full-length mirror that hung on the wall. I almost jumped. I was standing with my mouth agape and a dip-frosted carrot about to enter a bulb shaped body. The peach, and the purple, and the red colors glared back at me, hurting my eyes. My feet were like little white pins compared to my middle. Dark strings of messy hair protruded from underneath the bright purple visor. I didn’t even recognize myself. I wanted my blond hair back.

I ripped my wig off and ran outside, gripping the tangled brown and purple mess in my hand, carrying it high in the air like a torch.
“I don’t want to be ugly anymore!” I yelled as I ran to where my boyfriend was saying goodbye to a few friends.
He turned, and then his friends did the same.
“I don’t want to be ugly anymore,” I said once more as I stopped in front of them.
They smiled and turned back around, saying their final goodbyes. I caught my breath and lowered my palm tree patterned torch. That’s it? I thought. They completely ignored my epiphany. It seemed like they already knew what I had just realized. I yanked the pillows out of my pants and threw them on the ground.

My boyfriend walked away from his friends and bent to pick up the pillows.
“Why are you throwing these on the ground?” he said.
“Look!” I said, throwing my arms up in the air to show my figure. “I’m not ugly anymore!”