Zen and the Art of Academic Endeavors.
Today was a roller-coaster of Great and Epic Brainings.
To begin, I have taken the GRE. And royally bit at it. Er, I think, anyway. Not knowing how my scores compare to others, I may actually have done well, but I felt it was pretty average, and had hoped for Above Average or even Goddess of English, so it was a bit of a blow to see my Verbal score was a mere 640 out of 800. Well, nuts.
Oh, what about Quantitative, you ask? Well, understand that my brain and the Maths have always been bitter rivals. Also understand that I've not had a Geometry class in nearly a decade, and took oh, I think one Algebra course my first year at Western, and after that promptly proceeded to forget everything from it as I never had to use it again. Thus, I figured any score above "fuck, I didn't know numbers came that low" was going to have to suffice for me in that section. Sure enough, I got a 390. HEY, even with my abysmal math skills, I know that's less than 50 percent! Ha ha. Whooooooo sucks at Maths? ME. OBVIOUSLY.
So that was sort of a disappointment, I guess. Though I don't know how my scores stack up to others. And, if they ARE sub-par in comparison, I could potentially retake this thing later and get a better score, and hopefully OSU would use the new scores in consideration of giving me scholarship monies. Actually, hopefully, they'll just say "we love you sooo much and we're giving you a fellowship, please come to OSU right now, get in your car, it's okay if it is late, we will keep the library open for you!" But I'm studying Folklore, not LIVING it, so that's probably not going to happen.
Anyway. When I got home, I putzed around a bit, thinking "I MUST MUST MUST send a draft of my statement of purpose to my prof so he can write my final ref. But I have not written the damn thing yet! I have two pages of gobbledygook notes and no real essay. Gotta do that now." And I sat in front of the computer, blinked a few times, and picked up the shiny new copy of Oddest of All by Bruce Coville (a hero of mine), that I recently picked up. And I read a wonderful story about fallen angels, curses, and forgiveness. And it was so relevant to my planned thesis that I felt like Bruce Coville himself had laid a hand on my shoulder and said, "that help?" (yes yes Bruce, oh yes, is it any wonder I love you so?!). I was galvanized. I raced to the computer. I typed like a mad fiend. I was insane. Suddenly I had two pages (and an extra paragraph) and was emailing them to my professor.
Well, THERE'S an achievement. And with the wonderful implications of the connections between folklore, religion, fear, and peace swirling around in my brain it was nearly enough to erase the vague disappointment in my own seemingly weak endeavors of earlier in the day.
If I can't go to grad school and write a thesis, I'm just going to study this shit on my own and write a book. So OSU may as well throw me an academic bone, here. It'll be quicker and easier with access to other scholarly minds.
I'm so eloquent and cohesive at 1 am after one of my nearly-supernatural, half-in-a-trance writing gluts. Seriously. Reading this over tomorrow will be several kinds of entertaining for me.
SO NOW THE BED.
BRAININGS.
EPIC.
P.S. JET got my app. I'll know in January or February.
To begin, I have taken the GRE. And royally bit at it. Er, I think, anyway. Not knowing how my scores compare to others, I may actually have done well, but I felt it was pretty average, and had hoped for Above Average or even Goddess of English, so it was a bit of a blow to see my Verbal score was a mere 640 out of 800. Well, nuts.
Oh, what about Quantitative, you ask? Well, understand that my brain and the Maths have always been bitter rivals. Also understand that I've not had a Geometry class in nearly a decade, and took oh, I think one Algebra course my first year at Western, and after that promptly proceeded to forget everything from it as I never had to use it again. Thus, I figured any score above "fuck, I didn't know numbers came that low" was going to have to suffice for me in that section. Sure enough, I got a 390. HEY, even with my abysmal math skills, I know that's less than 50 percent! Ha ha. Whooooooo sucks at Maths? ME. OBVIOUSLY.
So that was sort of a disappointment, I guess. Though I don't know how my scores stack up to others. And, if they ARE sub-par in comparison, I could potentially retake this thing later and get a better score, and hopefully OSU would use the new scores in consideration of giving me scholarship monies. Actually, hopefully, they'll just say "we love you sooo much and we're giving you a fellowship, please come to OSU right now, get in your car, it's okay if it is late, we will keep the library open for you!" But I'm studying Folklore, not LIVING it, so that's probably not going to happen.
Anyway. When I got home, I putzed around a bit, thinking "I MUST MUST MUST send a draft of my statement of purpose to my prof so he can write my final ref. But I have not written the damn thing yet! I have two pages of gobbledygook notes and no real essay. Gotta do that now." And I sat in front of the computer, blinked a few times, and picked up the shiny new copy of Oddest of All by Bruce Coville (a hero of mine), that I recently picked up. And I read a wonderful story about fallen angels, curses, and forgiveness. And it was so relevant to my planned thesis that I felt like Bruce Coville himself had laid a hand on my shoulder and said, "that help?" (yes yes Bruce, oh yes, is it any wonder I love you so?!). I was galvanized. I raced to the computer. I typed like a mad fiend. I was insane. Suddenly I had two pages (and an extra paragraph) and was emailing them to my professor.
Well, THERE'S an achievement. And with the wonderful implications of the connections between folklore, religion, fear, and peace swirling around in my brain it was nearly enough to erase the vague disappointment in my own seemingly weak endeavors of earlier in the day.
If I can't go to grad school and write a thesis, I'm just going to study this shit on my own and write a book. So OSU may as well throw me an academic bone, here. It'll be quicker and easier with access to other scholarly minds.
I'm so eloquent and cohesive at 1 am after one of my nearly-supernatural, half-in-a-trance writing gluts. Seriously. Reading this over tomorrow will be several kinds of entertaining for me.
SO NOW THE BED.
BRAININGS.
EPIC.
P.S. JET got my app. I'll know in January or February.