10.31.2012

Eves and Eyes


YIKES

Holy Moly, do we ever live in one giant-but-not-so-giant-as-you-might-think closed system! Warm and dry thoughts for all of my east coast friends and family. You guys are throwing a great party over there. Yikes.

Istanbul, in a weak show of solidarity, is balmy as can be.

I'd like to wish those of you with a working internet connection a very happy Halloween. May you sustain nary a chiding belly ache.

[Audience looks around] "What just happened?" "There must be some context we're missing."
Tomorrow I'll descend into NaNoWriMo* and may or may not emerge again until December - and I'd rather not be plagued with guilt over this temporary abandonment, so here's an itemized update for:

Graduate Applications (based on the late December/early January humanities deadline):
  • At this point, duh, have your list sorted and professors contacted -
  • and your writing sample done (or at least have a completed first draft under the eyes of a trusted editor friend).
  • If schools want official transcripts, order them. The bureaucracy around these things is such that it can take anywhere from 2 weeks to over a month to sort out and send off. Generally, though, schools will accept unofficial transcripts (you know, the ones that you've invalidated through mere contact, protracted or otherwise) as a scanned pdf.
  • Ditto GRE (and related) scores, if you failed to maintain the sense of existence in time and space necessary to order them after you completed that three-hour migraine...
In November, we'll be contacting professors about letters of recommendation and sending them updated resumes or recent papers, and writing statements of purpose.


On November's Bookshelf
  • Auerbach's Mimesis
  • Borges's Collected Fictions
  • G. Lewis's translation of the Dede Korkut stories
  • Gabriel Garcia Marquez's Chronicle of a Death Foretold and The Autumn of the Patriarch
  • Marshall Berman's All That is Solid Melts into Air
  • and Julian Barnes' Flaubert's Parrot
So! The house is scary professional clean, the laundry is all done and drying, the fridge is stocked, and that's what's in the stew pot.

Cheerio, friends.



*For those of you who've had trouble donating to their awesome program, this should help. And! in the kickstarter spirit, I'm offering a super awesome postal surprise to the first 5 people who donate 10 USD+. So come support a worthy cause and administer that solid kick in the pants you know you've dying to lay on me ever since I was a little jerk-hole in middle school! WIN.

10.22.2012

Election Season is Fast Upon Us!

Fall is great for so many things. Soups, sweaters, gourds, new vacuum cleaners. Doing your civic duty. Celebrating my favorite candy-laced holiday...

One day I'll be celebrating Halloween in a temperate locale, where one's costume choice isn't entirely dictated by the thinness of one's blood. Just you wait and see. Although I've managed alright in the past. Boris was a clever choice, 'cause you get to wear a fedora and a trench coat.

Best Chilly-weather Costume Ever
And who's to say Professor Trelawney doesn't wear great big baggy sweaters and scarves upon scarves upon scarves. (Hey whaddaya know! I spelled her name right...)



What else means Fall? Oh, that's right: (inter)National Novel Writing Month!

Who's in? You may not say it much, but I know how much you miss the fevered, adrenaline-soaked madness of exam week.  Those late nights at the library, the bitter anguish of an evening's work lost - just because your computer weakly refuses to condone your impiously motivated mortification of the flesh? Impious my ass! What better way to justify your existence than to make it miserable? The Pope knows what I'm talking about.

Well, it's Bayram, so Husbee will be home and we're looking forward to a quiet week of finishing writing samples, small flurries of translation, stocking up on coffee, and trying to get ahead of other commitments - 'cause November is going to Rock.

If you're not quite up for reliving a month's worth of that last week of thesis writing, but still want to feel involved and glowey - sponsor me! The money raised goes towards the school programs NaNoWriMo organizes, and of course adds fuel to the fire of shame that'll make sure I finish what I start.

Shame-fire is invisible! But effective!

Oh man. And here all I wanted to do was gloat about having sent in my absentee ballot...

Rock on, civic pride. In case you're not sure which way to vote, you can read my review of 'Why America Needs a Left' here.

Let's hear it for Fall!

10.08.2012

Busted

Well shpedoinkle. I broke the vacuum cleaner yesterday and the Dorian-the-cat promptly upended a struggling houseplant behind the sofa.

In other news, having cleaned up the prodigious mess with a dust pan, the day is already feeling ever so productive.

(Source)