Don't Panic
"Alas," said the mouse, "the whole world is growing smaller every day. At the beginning it was so big that I was afraid, I kept running and running, and I was glad when I saw walls far away to the right and left, but these long walls have narrowed so quickly that I am in the last chamber already, and there in the corner stands the trap that I must run into." "You only need to change your direction," said the cat, and ate it up.
On a brighter note, I ended up having a really nice adviser meeting on Friday. Lisa is an amazingly helpful adviser, with the additional insight of having, like me, split passions between creative writing and criticism. We talked about everything from Tin House to the job market, but mostly we talked about my immediate plans.
According to her, my performance in my major has been strong enough for me to probably go to grad school. Not necessarily any grad school, because my overall GPA is pretty average, but definitely a grad school. I told her that I wanted to take a year off, and she replied that a lot of schools actually prefer that you do so. She also said that given the work I've done in both critical and creative writing, it doesn't really matter whether I do a creative or an analytical thesis. Which means there's no point in not applying for a creative thesis.
It also turns out that I've been doing much better with my Russian work than I would have thought That was a pleasant surprise, given how much I've willingly suffered for the language over the past two years. The Snarkosaurus suggested I apply for a Fulbright, because there weren't many applicants for the Russia program. He's right. Last year the Fulbright for Russia had 61 applicants. It accepted 20 of them. I like those odds.
Sometimes I look ahead and I experience something other than white walls of panic closing in on all sides. It's a decent feeling.
On a brighter note, I ended up having a really nice adviser meeting on Friday. Lisa is an amazingly helpful adviser, with the additional insight of having, like me, split passions between creative writing and criticism. We talked about everything from Tin House to the job market, but mostly we talked about my immediate plans.
According to her, my performance in my major has been strong enough for me to probably go to grad school. Not necessarily any grad school, because my overall GPA is pretty average, but definitely a grad school. I told her that I wanted to take a year off, and she replied that a lot of schools actually prefer that you do so. She also said that given the work I've done in both critical and creative writing, it doesn't really matter whether I do a creative or an analytical thesis. Which means there's no point in not applying for a creative thesis.
It also turns out that I've been doing much better with my Russian work than I would have thought That was a pleasant surprise, given how much I've willingly suffered for the language over the past two years. The Snarkosaurus suggested I apply for a Fulbright, because there weren't many applicants for the Russia program. He's right. Last year the Fulbright for Russia had 61 applicants. It accepted 20 of them. I like those odds.
Sometimes I look ahead and I experience something other than white walls of panic closing in on all sides. It's a decent feeling.