rumors of my disappearance have been greatly exaggerated
I've fallen off the wagon regarding my quest to post more regularly. You know how it is -- you fall behind, then it's daunting to catch up. So I'm going to throw out some brief stuff about last week, ask for apologies for being AWOL in your lives, and move on. This seems healthiest, yes?
I'd been dragging my ass about finishing my application to Library School. For those of you keeping score at home, it will be my second master's degree, and I'll be cobbling it together while I work on a PhD dissertation in English. Becoming an academic librarian is my career goal, and I've had to come to terms with it taking a while longer.
Anyway, I was right up against the deadline for getting my application materials in when I discovered -- despite all previous indications to the contrary -- that I've been in grad school so damn long that my old GRE scores were too old to be acceptable now. After a weekend waiting to see if the Library School would waive the requirement, I found out -- a day before the deadline, mind you -- that they wouldn't.
Luckily, it turned out more of a hassle than a worry. They basically said the deadline was quite flexible for students already in the graduate school, coming from another department. I was advised to take one of the required exams ASAP, so I signed up for the MAT on Tuesday and took it on Friday. Ahaha. Good thing I'm fantastic at standardized tests and don't get nervous about them. I think I did okay. I would heartily recommend that if you have to take the GRE or MAT for grad school, pick the MAT. It takes literally an hour, and while I wouldn't say it's easy by any means, it's certainly no harder than the GRE in a quarter of the time. (JSYK, I've also been told it's the best choice for an artsy type, while science-brained folk do better at the GRE.)
The best part of the story, though, is how I got a second email from the administrative assistant of the Library School saying, essentially: we have to be fair about the test score thing, but don't despair, we think the materials we do have for you are awesome, and you should go ahead and register for MLIS classes, because barring anything awful coming through to us from the grad school, you're golden. :D (That's apparently what it gets you to be a PhD student and former teacher who has two alumni for references and academic ambitions, lol.)
Needless to say, I was feeling stressed and avoidy last week as well as busy. It didn't help that I worked a different station at my scanning job, and instead of having lots of downtime to surf the 'net, I none. Hence the lack of posting and commenting, because by the time I got home, I had no desire to look at a computer. However, I did watch a lot of Sherlock Holmes on Netflix instant watch, which was fun.
Other, more fun things I did over the last week to ten days:
-- listened to an audio book of Jane Austen's Persuasion. I'm so glad I finally learned how to read victorian novels and appreciate them, because once upon a time I couldn't get through this one. Now, I find it totally charming. Highly recommend it, if you have a tolerance for that kind of manner-focused story. It's short compared to other Austen novels, and it's really absorbing, IMO.
-- did some gardening, putting herbs that had been in pots in the ground and filling in the space that used to be taken up with azalea branches before the goddamned butchers my landlady hired pruned the life out of them. Also bought some flowers on clearance to fill up those empty pots. :)
-- finished knitting my first pair of socks. They're much too big (I sure learned my lesson about gauge!), and I had to use scrap yarn for the toes (which makes them teal with pink toes, lol), but they're comfy and I'm proud of them. Working on a pair for my sister now.
-- learned lots about WWI. I've got a tentative chapter in my dissertation about WWI novels and short story cycles, so I've been reading literary history and honest-to-god history, and it's pretty interesting. You know, except for the minute detail about troop movement and whatnot. Luckily, I'm reading a book that stays a little bit more big picture than that. Not easy reading, but interesting.
-- helped my boyfriend make his famous jerk sauce, so we could cook out with my best friend and her husband. Jerk chicken + black beans + jasmine rice with mango = YUM.
On top of all that, I suddenly got the idea for a shortish Lost fic, something melancholy with Sawyer post-island, involving his past relationships, focus on the platonic maybe more than romantic, to Kate and Juliet, as well as the way the post-island group all fits together (or doesn't) and tries (and perhaps somewhat fails) to adjust. Anybody wanna let me bounce plot off them?
I'd been dragging my ass about finishing my application to Library School. For those of you keeping score at home, it will be my second master's degree, and I'll be cobbling it together while I work on a PhD dissertation in English. Becoming an academic librarian is my career goal, and I've had to come to terms with it taking a while longer.
Anyway, I was right up against the deadline for getting my application materials in when I discovered -- despite all previous indications to the contrary -- that I've been in grad school so damn long that my old GRE scores were too old to be acceptable now. After a weekend waiting to see if the Library School would waive the requirement, I found out -- a day before the deadline, mind you -- that they wouldn't.
Luckily, it turned out more of a hassle than a worry. They basically said the deadline was quite flexible for students already in the graduate school, coming from another department. I was advised to take one of the required exams ASAP, so I signed up for the MAT on Tuesday and took it on Friday. Ahaha. Good thing I'm fantastic at standardized tests and don't get nervous about them. I think I did okay. I would heartily recommend that if you have to take the GRE or MAT for grad school, pick the MAT. It takes literally an hour, and while I wouldn't say it's easy by any means, it's certainly no harder than the GRE in a quarter of the time. (JSYK, I've also been told it's the best choice for an artsy type, while science-brained folk do better at the GRE.)
The best part of the story, though, is how I got a second email from the administrative assistant of the Library School saying, essentially: we have to be fair about the test score thing, but don't despair, we think the materials we do have for you are awesome, and you should go ahead and register for MLIS classes, because barring anything awful coming through to us from the grad school, you're golden. :D (That's apparently what it gets you to be a PhD student and former teacher who has two alumni for references and academic ambitions, lol.)
Needless to say, I was feeling stressed and avoidy last week as well as busy. It didn't help that I worked a different station at my scanning job, and instead of having lots of downtime to surf the 'net, I none. Hence the lack of posting and commenting, because by the time I got home, I had no desire to look at a computer. However, I did watch a lot of Sherlock Holmes on Netflix instant watch, which was fun.
Other, more fun things I did over the last week to ten days:
-- listened to an audio book of Jane Austen's Persuasion. I'm so glad I finally learned how to read victorian novels and appreciate them, because once upon a time I couldn't get through this one. Now, I find it totally charming. Highly recommend it, if you have a tolerance for that kind of manner-focused story. It's short compared to other Austen novels, and it's really absorbing, IMO.
-- did some gardening, putting herbs that had been in pots in the ground and filling in the space that used to be taken up with azalea branches before the goddamned butchers my landlady hired pruned the life out of them. Also bought some flowers on clearance to fill up those empty pots. :)
-- finished knitting my first pair of socks. They're much too big (I sure learned my lesson about gauge!), and I had to use scrap yarn for the toes (which makes them teal with pink toes, lol), but they're comfy and I'm proud of them. Working on a pair for my sister now.
-- learned lots about WWI. I've got a tentative chapter in my dissertation about WWI novels and short story cycles, so I've been reading literary history and honest-to-god history, and it's pretty interesting. You know, except for the minute detail about troop movement and whatnot. Luckily, I'm reading a book that stays a little bit more big picture than that. Not easy reading, but interesting.
-- helped my boyfriend make his famous jerk sauce, so we could cook out with my best friend and her husband. Jerk chicken + black beans + jasmine rice with mango = YUM.
On top of all that, I suddenly got the idea for a shortish Lost fic, something melancholy with Sawyer post-island, involving his past relationships, focus on the platonic maybe more than romantic, to Kate and Juliet, as well as the way the post-island group all fits together (or doesn't) and tries (and perhaps somewhat fails) to adjust. Anybody wanna let me bounce plot off them?