Another Rejection
I hope everyone is well. I’m updating because I received my second rejection today-from Rutgers. Oh, well. It’s a bit of a letdown, but since finding out that Camden is a horrific city to live in (they were ranked one of the worst cities to live in, if not the worst city to live in, in the US by AOL fairly recently), I had decided I wasn’t going to go there. Still, my ego could have used the boost. Oh, and Penn State is a presumed rejection at this point, because they’ve begun sending out acceptances and I haven’t gotten one. I’m not too upset about that one, not because I didn’t want to go there, but because apparently the odds were just so against it. They accepted three-yes, three-people out of 260, which is, of course, insane. That might have been across all genres, too, meaning they might have only accepted one person in creative nonfiction. Crazy stuff!
I think having an acceptance under my belt is definitely helping me weather these rejections. If I don’t get in anywhere else I do have somewhere to go, and it looks like it’s not somewhere that would be a total impossibility financially (more on that later). It’s also a program that I like and am interested in. I’m still waiting to hear from American, Sarah Lawrence, and UNH; I really, really hope I get into UNH and get full funding so I can afford it. Then I could move into my own apartment but only be about an hour from home. It really does seem like the best of both worlds in a way.
I have run into a bit of a problem with Vermont, though. I received my acceptance package in the mail, and they want me to send in my deposit by March 11th to secure my spot. Well, the problem is that I may not have heard from my other schools by then yet, as historically they don’t notify until mid-March. I don’t want to send in a deposit before I hear from my other schools; what if, say, I get into UNH and get full funding and can go there for free? It would be foolish to miss out on that. I don’t want to lose my spot at Vermont either, though, only to not get accepted to any of the other schools or to be able to afford them. What do I do? I think the thing to do is to call Vermont and explain the situation and ask for more time, but what if they won’t give it to me? How do I make it clear that I’m very interested in the program but that I also very much want to wait until I hear from other schools? Do I call the other schools and explain the problem and ask if they’ll give me a decision early? Somehow I don’t think they’ll do that. There’s this agreement that creative writing MFA programs are supposed to sign saying that they won’t force anyone to commit until April 15th, after all of the acceptances and rejections have gone out, but not every school signs it, and sometimes even those that do don’t follow it. (There’s been a big controversy this year because a school that signed the agreement has been pressuring accepted students to make a decision in early March.) My guess is that Vermont, being a low-residency school, never signed the agreement. I wish they wouldn’t do this. I really don’t know what to do.
Aside from that problem, the stuff I received in the mail from Vermont made me really excited about the program. There’s a sheet detailing this summer’s residency (late June through early July), and it just looks so fun. I want to go, like, right now. Unfortunately, I don’t think I’ll be able to start in June like I’m supposed to. How will I pay for the upcoming semester? I’m a full-time college student with no job and no money saved up. They said I could defer for a semester and start with next winter’s residency (late December through early January, I believe) at no cost, so it looks like I’ll have to do that. I think I’ll be able to afford the school if I get a decent job working about twenty-five hours a week, but I’ll need to have worked for a semester to afford the first semester because I have no money at the moment; after that I should be able to afford every semester by working during it, so I don’t see myself having to do that again (unless, of course, my ED gets really out of control or something and I have to go on medical leave). As much as I don’t want to wait until December (I want to start in the summer!), maybe it will be good to have a semester to decompress after undergrad’s over. I could also get a head start on my writing and reading that way.
I got my grades back in Contemporary Women’s Short Fiction on Wednesday. I got an A on my presentation and a B on my paper. Who would have thought that there would come a day when I would do better on a presentation than on a paper? I went and talked to the professor during office hours about my topic for the upcoming midterm paper and about how to improve my critical papers. She basically just pointed out some stylistic things, but said that it was a pretty good paper overall (she said she would give it a B+…why did she write a “B” on it, then?) and that it was a huge improvement over the first paper, which she said she would have given a C if she had been grading it. (EeK! Thank goodness it wasn’t graded!) She basically told me that she wasn’t worried about me because my second paper had improved so much over the first one and that if she had to give me a grade today (taking into account class participation and creative papers, too), she would give me an A-, and that would only be because the first paper was so poor (it wasn’t given a letter grade but it still counts towards our final grade), so she said not to worry too much. Hopefully I can get an A in that class.
I also my topic for the midterm critical paper (which I had just thought of that morning) by her, and she thought it was a good idea. I’m actually not terribly excited about my topic, but I wanted to think of something early so I wouldn’t be waiting until the last minute, and that’s what I came up with. I have such a hard time coming up with topics for those “make up your topic” papers; I guess I just need a little guidance. Anyway, she suggested an essay for me to read that might help, so hopefully that will propel me along…here’s hoping! Unfortunately it has been taken out of the school library and won’t be back until after my paper is due, so I had to buy it. Also, she’s changed the length of the paper from six to ten pages to five to eight because people have been struggling so much with the critical papers, and it’s now going to be due the Wednesday after break (which starts the 12th for me) instead of the Wednesday before it. I’ll still have to get it done before break, though, because I’m getting my wisdom teeth out over the break and may not be able to get any work done then.
I also ended up doing a write-in for class on Wednesday, which is basically when we take one of the stories we’ve read and write a short creative piece loosely based off of it. I think it went pretty well. It was kind of fun, actually; I wrote about an older woman who is pregnant and waiting for an appointment at the doctor’s office-definitely not like anything I’ve ever written before. I thought about writing about someone who’s depressed (one of the characters in one of the stories has depression) because I know all about that, but I figured that I’ve written about that stuff so much in my memoir and that I wanted to write about something different for a change. The main reason I took the class was so I could go outside my comfort zone and try a new type of writing that I haven’t worked with much before, so I didn’t want to write about the same old thing. I kind of liked writing about something different. The class seemed to like it enough, although there were suggestions, of course. One of my classmates actually approached me after class and told me that it impressed her that I was able to get the voice of an older woman right, and the professor said in out meeting that I seemed to have a pretty good grasp of voice, so that made me feel pretty good.
I’m going to attach my short piece at the end of this entry. I’m thinking of turning it into the longer (six to ten page) story that’s due along with my mid-semester critical paper, so if you have any suggestions about how to do that, please share them. Keep in mind that this is only a short sketch, not a full story. It isn’t exactly anything impressive, either.
I had an interesting meeting with my nutritionist on Thursday. I was talking about how upset I was about how much I weigh and about all of the weight I’ve gained and she said, “I don’t know why you’re so upset about your weight, because a weight of 120 is perfectly fine and normal for someone your height.” (I’m 5’5”, by the way.) Ignoring the fact that she completely missed the point I was making, I was shocked to hear her say that. The last time I saw my weight (over three months ago, probably) I weighed 130. Either she messed up (which I think she might have, because it seems too good to be true, although she had just looked at my chart before telling me that) or I’ve lost ten pounds. I know I had lost a little weight before break and a little weight after getting back from break, but have I really lost ten pounds? I don’t think I look terribly different, except for maybe my arms are a little thinner, although my jeans feel a little looser. I did go shopping yesterday and tried on a bunch of size two skirts, and they all fit fine; if anything, they were a little loose. Normally I wear a size four. Could I really have lost ten pounds? Maybe it was the Abilify. I don’t want to get my hopes up too much, though, because it’s just been so long since I’ve been able to lose weight. The nutritionist may have just made a mistake.
If I am 120 that means I’m almost at my set point, which is about 115 to 118. Do I stop there or do I keep going? Will I be able to stop there even if I want to? I’ll get kicked out of school if I go below 102, and it would suck to have that happen in my last semester, but I’m still pretty far from that and don’t see it happening. I won’t let it.
I have lots of work to do this weekend, as usual. I have to read the Book of the Duchess by Chaucer (yawn) and write a short response for Literature of the Later Middle Ages on Monday and do some work on my thesis. I was finally able to finish my final creative essay for it, and now my advisor has them all put together and is going to go through and do a huge edit of everything and have it to me by Tuesday. What I have to do is write a short critical essay on anorexia with some of the facts and the figures to give it some context, which should be easy enough. After that I’ll be done writing (thank goodness!) and will be able to devote some time to editing…not bad, considering I have over two months left to work on it. I’m in really good shape. I’m pretty amazed by how much I’ve written in such a short time, actually. I’ve written over 105 pages, and still have the short critical paper. It’s going to be really long!
Well, I guess I should get to work on my school stuff.
(By the way, I have no idea why the font is so messed up for this entry and don't know how to fix it.)
The woman next to me shifts uncomfortably in her seat, unconsciously placing a slender hand over her bulging belly. She looks like she’s about to pop any minute now. I cannot help but wonder, Is that what I will look like two months from now?
No, of course I won’t look like that. She’s a skinny little thing, a veritable beanpole with long, lean limbs and perky breasts. The perky breasts are key. I look down at my own chest, which, I’ve noticed, is beginning to sag. (How could I not notice that? How could I not?)
Ah, there’s the rub! The fact of the matter is that I’m old. She’s not. End of story.
Or is it? Though I’m fast approaching forty, have I not experienced the same hormonal shifts, the same terrible morning sickness, the same bizarre, almost otherworldly cravings for beef jerky and sugary candy? (Oh, the candy! How I’ve come to love Skittles and Sweet Tarts and other forms of rot-your-teeth goodness!) Do I not feel the same emotional highs and lows? If you prick me do I not bleed?
Sentimentality aside, I do, in fact, realize that, though being an older mother is a bit en vogue these days, it is often frowned upon by others because of the inherent risks in giving birth as an older woman.
“You will be OK, though, right?” my own mother said to me when I announced the news. “I mean, what, with medicine today I’m sure women can have babies well into their fifties,” she added with an uneasy laugh.
My friends were no different, joking about how their children could babysit mine, about how they couldn’t lend me their old maternity clothes because they were no longer in style. “Just be careful and do what the doctors say,” they advised.
Do they honestly think I don’t know the risks and the dangers? Do they honestly think that visions of genetic disorders and still birth don’t constantly dance in my head?
Hence the need for amniocentesis, I suppose. Amniocentesis…it almost sounds like something out of one of those science fiction novels my nephew so loves to read. (Yes, that’s right; I’m old enough to have a nephew who reads science fiction novels.) I picture the doctor inserting that long needle into my protruding belly, retrieving that gelatinous substance they like to call amniotic fluid so he can look at it under the microscope. Yes, it really does smack of alien abductions, and I can’t help but smile slightly. Then I remember the facts-one in one hundred mothers experiences a miscarriage as a result of amniocentesis.
“Do you want me to come in with you?” David asks from beside me, finally looking up from Sports Illustrated. The woman on the cover, I cannot help but notice, does not have saggy breasts.
Are you the one about to have a huge needle inserted into your belly for a full five minutes? I want to ask. I simply nod instead.
A nurse enters the waiting room and calls my name. As I rise I catch the eye of the younger woman beside me. She smiles.
Here’s hoping I will look like her in two months…well, minus the perky breasts, of course.