three (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
threeplusfire) wrote2003-04-21 02:39 pm
threeplusfire) wrote2003-04-21 02:39 pm
time to start
Hold your breath and count to ten
Fall apart then start again
-Placebo
You can't always get what you want
But if you try sometimes
You just might find
You get what you need
-Rolling Stones
Right. Which is true. Because in the midst of this weekend's beautiful insanity I realized that I absolutely have to go back to school. It has less to do with love than one might think. It was more about the casual moments, talking with these professors that I respect and remembering that little visceral thrill that comes from being in that world. Which means I have to get up and do it, and stop being so afraid that I'm not brilliant and no self respecting grad school would want to have me.
So I'm looking at Slavic Departments all around the country. I'm emailing the people at Columbia right now to see if I can talk to them while I am in New York, and if I work up enough courage this week I'll call Princeton too. Though their website frightens me. I'm emailing my professors and I need to solicit the opinions of grad students I know. I must study myself into a coma for the GREs this summer. I must cajole my professors into letters of recommendation. I must do all these things that make me nervous and require me to be forward and presume that other people want to help me do this.
That's the secret you see. I have lived my entire life presuming that no one gives a damn about me or what I want to do, and as such would have no reason to help me. It is not that I assume anyone is malicious or cold. I just find it hard to see why they would care. Self esteem issues that are slowly being ironed out, I suppose. Hence support has always come as a shock, and adjusting to the knowledge that I have friends and teachers who do care has been a strange strange thing.
I will start working on a thousand word personal statement, in which I will try to refrain from waxing poetic about subways, Czech beer, or my desire to live in New York and be a ninja butler for a beautiful actress. Well, maybe I'll write two essays.
Fall apart then start again
-Placebo
You can't always get what you want
But if you try sometimes
You just might find
You get what you need
-Rolling Stones
Right. Which is true. Because in the midst of this weekend's beautiful insanity I realized that I absolutely have to go back to school. It has less to do with love than one might think. It was more about the casual moments, talking with these professors that I respect and remembering that little visceral thrill that comes from being in that world. Which means I have to get up and do it, and stop being so afraid that I'm not brilliant and no self respecting grad school would want to have me.
So I'm looking at Slavic Departments all around the country. I'm emailing the people at Columbia right now to see if I can talk to them while I am in New York, and if I work up enough courage this week I'll call Princeton too. Though their website frightens me. I'm emailing my professors and I need to solicit the opinions of grad students I know. I must study myself into a coma for the GREs this summer. I must cajole my professors into letters of recommendation. I must do all these things that make me nervous and require me to be forward and presume that other people want to help me do this.
That's the secret you see. I have lived my entire life presuming that no one gives a damn about me or what I want to do, and as such would have no reason to help me. It is not that I assume anyone is malicious or cold. I just find it hard to see why they would care. Self esteem issues that are slowly being ironed out, I suppose. Hence support has always come as a shock, and adjusting to the knowledge that I have friends and teachers who do care has been a strange strange thing.
I will start working on a thousand word personal statement, in which I will try to refrain from waxing poetic about subways, Czech beer, or my desire to live in New York and be a ninja butler for a beautiful actress. Well, maybe I'll write two essays.
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Best luck--be sure to keep me updated on the search both for my own curiosity and my own future. As I sort of have my heart set on Columbia (their translation program, of course), I'll be interested to know how you find it there.
Cheers!
Samantha
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The Columbia programs just look so very wonderful. Oh, I really do want to go there. Just think, perhaps we shall both end up there, and we can start a Stalinize Your Bathroom Crusade! ;)
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We need a Stalinize Your Subway program. I mean, the Moscow metro is just aesthetically superior to anything we have. (Not to mention efficiency. . .) We should Stalinize the subways. With that godless Stalin always watching, perhaps public transportation will shape up.
Best--
Samantha
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Under the ever watchful gaze of that godless Stalin, the subways shall be great!
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From Melynda
(Anonymous) 2003-04-21 04:04 pm (UTC)(link)Re: From Melynda
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And if any of your applications require recs from 18 year olds who don't know you, know nothing about your department, but went to the same college as you I've totally got your back!
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And thank you! You are too generous.
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