Gone in 300 Seconds

Bad news sportsfans—with just exactly a smidgeon over a month before my first applications are due, I have sadly just exactly under a smidgeon of time to give to this blog.  Lucky for you, “smidgeon” is a variable and indefinable term of measurement—who knew?

But seriously, not a lot of time here.  I’m setting my timer and writing whatever I can in five minutes—go!

Me, pretty much all of the time now, minus the red pen.  That's a nice red pen...

The problem with applying to 11 schools, aside from having to deal with 11 heartbreaks in the future, is that each school’s application is just different enough from the others' aid to make you have to do 11 separate complete applications.  One school might want a 1-3 page statement of purpose where the next might want fewer than 750 words.  Newsflash to all the wordsmiths out there; those are two entirely different statements.  Aggravation.

4:08

Then some schools will take unofficial transcripts where other require official transcripts, or better yet, multiple copies of official transcripts which must be procured from your undergraduate college.  And you don’t want to talk to them, because then they might ask you about those, um, aid-unpay-eh oans-leh.  GRE scores are annoying too, especially when the schools that you sent them to last year, want another copy.  Hey, dummy grad schools; I haven’t re-taken the GREs or re-attended college since last year, so your copies of both from last year should be just fine.  I'm paying you another application fee, what do you want from me?  Damn it!

2:34

To apply to every program, you have to send some stuff to the Creative Writing Program and some stuff to that school’s graduate admissions.  Last year I would have asked if these major academic institutions are so unorganized and up their own buttholes that they can’t coordinate and share information between departments.  A year later after having already gone through the process and having worked at a major academic institution for over a year, I know better now.  Yes, yes they are.

1:12

Cost a pretty penny, but it's worth every cent.

All new writing samples, and yes, all new statements of purposes (because you won’t want these schools to think that you’ve been too lazy to write a new one), are the most important components of applications, by far.  And because of this, they are the most difficult to produce.  If I had to/ when I will have to I can sit down at my lap top one night at midnight and spend five hours cranking out all of the on line applications and such because it’s mindless, certified zombie work.  Writing is not.  You have to be in the mood and let it flow out of you, effortlessly like the morning dew from a leaf.  DAMN IT!!!

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It’s ironic that now that I’m in the midst of applying, I probably have the most pertinent and interesting information to supply this blog with, but have no time to write it.  Ah, such is life.  Oh well, I’ll keep doing my best to slap something down on the Internet every week that is vaguely if not inappropriately entertaining.  And then on the other side once my apps are in, weeks and weeks of pessimism and strained hope until my responses arrive.  Oh, who I am I kidding—pessimism and strained hope for the rest of my life!  Huzzah!

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