"If this is what real life is like, I'm not impressed."
Yesterday was the fateful day when I took my GREs; unfortunately, I walked away from them defeated rather than basking in triumph. I scored a generally respectable 1240 (610 Verbal, 630 Quanitative), but I know one of my two essays (which are not instantly graded) is pretty weak. I know that I can do better, so I'm giving them another go a little under one month from today. Until then, I'll be practicing and studying my ass off. 1240 would be about average to below-average for the U's graduate program in History -- my stated goal is 1400 since breaking 700 makes you eligible for a number of fellowships, thus meaning you won't need the U to be your sugar-daddy for six years, thus making you an incredibly attractive candidate all of the sudden.
I'm not sure what exactly went wrong. In general I've been feeling really dumb lately, and it would have been a pleasant boon to my moral to prove myself wrong. Instead now I'm all jittery about how my mind is turning to mush because I'm not in school anymore, or because I'm a lush, or because my chemical experimentation has come back to haunt me, or some unholy tripartite combination of the three. It's difficult to tell if I'm just paranoid and grasping at an explanation, or whether I've actually attained some moment of clarity about the direction of my life. Existence is funny like that.
In general I've just been feeling rather blah lately, and I wish I knew exactly what to blame. I think a lot of it involves work -- it's not necessarily a good or bad job, it just sort of is. While I viewed it as a godsend in October after weeks of abject failure in finding a job, now in mid-November I find myself looking on Craigslist and a few other job websites and sending off a résumé here or there. I think I need a job that's more intellectually demanding -- a tall order when it comes to working as an office jockey. It buoys my spirits that one of my fellow coworkers, Anya, shares my sentiments. We get together in the back room every afternoon and swap grad school, law school, and job information. The rest of the office seems clueless that the workers are growing discontent -- hell, they gave us raises -- and that college-educated people might not be thrilled to bits to stuff envelopes or scan files.
The whole grad school thing is wearing me down too. Throughout my life, the assumption was that I would just go to graduate school -- no heed was ever given to the fact that you need to actually apply and be accepted into it first. While I may be relatively intelligent and posessed of a fairly decent c.v., I've happened to land in a history graduate program that people from around the world apply to. Of the 3-5 annual slots for new medievalists, the department usually gets about 30-45 applications from very serious and qualified candidates. You do the math -- we're talking pretty suicidal admission rates. It seems a somewhat sad state of affairs when I find myself thinking of going to law school since it would be less competitive (plus the LSAT is cheaper than the GRE!). I could envision a happy life as a nutjob ACLU lawyer of some sort. There's still the whole librarianship thing over a St. Kate's, but I'm starting to feel like settling down for a life as a librarian might be selling myself a bit short.
I could use a good moment of clarity right now.
Oh, and one less depressing note. If anyone out there that I wrote up questions for wants to throw some questions at me, go ahead. Given that so many of you responded to my call, I figure a general message instead of a bunch of personal ones is the way to go.
I'm not sure what exactly went wrong. In general I've been feeling really dumb lately, and it would have been a pleasant boon to my moral to prove myself wrong. Instead now I'm all jittery about how my mind is turning to mush because I'm not in school anymore, or because I'm a lush, or because my chemical experimentation has come back to haunt me, or some unholy tripartite combination of the three. It's difficult to tell if I'm just paranoid and grasping at an explanation, or whether I've actually attained some moment of clarity about the direction of my life. Existence is funny like that.
In general I've just been feeling rather blah lately, and I wish I knew exactly what to blame. I think a lot of it involves work -- it's not necessarily a good or bad job, it just sort of is. While I viewed it as a godsend in October after weeks of abject failure in finding a job, now in mid-November I find myself looking on Craigslist and a few other job websites and sending off a résumé here or there. I think I need a job that's more intellectually demanding -- a tall order when it comes to working as an office jockey. It buoys my spirits that one of my fellow coworkers, Anya, shares my sentiments. We get together in the back room every afternoon and swap grad school, law school, and job information. The rest of the office seems clueless that the workers are growing discontent -- hell, they gave us raises -- and that college-educated people might not be thrilled to bits to stuff envelopes or scan files.
The whole grad school thing is wearing me down too. Throughout my life, the assumption was that I would just go to graduate school -- no heed was ever given to the fact that you need to actually apply and be accepted into it first. While I may be relatively intelligent and posessed of a fairly decent c.v., I've happened to land in a history graduate program that people from around the world apply to. Of the 3-5 annual slots for new medievalists, the department usually gets about 30-45 applications from very serious and qualified candidates. You do the math -- we're talking pretty suicidal admission rates. It seems a somewhat sad state of affairs when I find myself thinking of going to law school since it would be less competitive (plus the LSAT is cheaper than the GRE!). I could envision a happy life as a nutjob ACLU lawyer of some sort. There's still the whole librarianship thing over a St. Kate's, but I'm starting to feel like settling down for a life as a librarian might be selling myself a bit short.
I could use a good moment of clarity right now.
Oh, and one less depressing note. If anyone out there that I wrote up questions for wants to throw some questions at me, go ahead. Given that so many of you responded to my call, I figure a general message instead of a bunch of personal ones is the way to go.