Monday, October 04, 2004
Process, Progress
Today, day off from work, has seen renewal of energy focused on that one and only ephemeral being: the future, specifically graduate school. My list of schools has not changed much, just the order of consideration. Columbia, I think, is out. Loyola (chicago) and Brown are still in, joined by NYU and CUNY. Brown's Modern Culture and Media program is still by far the moneyest fit for my own intellectual predilections.
I composed an elastic draft of my "personal statement." A thought it solid and a stand-out, aside from a few dodgy passages. Thanks.
I also cracked open the free GRE English sample exam sent to me by ETS: 230 multiple choice questions covering the entire expanse of literature in the English language in 170 minutes. Among other skills, I have to be able to interpret passages for meaning, recognize specific writers' styles on sight, be able to pinpoint a writer or piece historically (we're talking dates here), and even sometimes identify the exact piece of literatuare or character mentioned in an obscure passage. So far, I get about 80% correct, with perhaps about 75% of those answered in complete confidence. Pretty good, I suppose, but I feel like all the sample questions are from "obvious" canonical texts. And then there's the pressure of live testing. That always fucks me up. Test is November 13th; application deadlines range from mid-December to mid-January. And I'm supposedly going to Vegas for Christmas.
Today, day off from work, has seen renewal of energy focused on that one and only ephemeral being: the future, specifically graduate school. My list of schools has not changed much, just the order of consideration. Columbia, I think, is out. Loyola (chicago) and Brown are still in, joined by NYU and CUNY. Brown's Modern Culture and Media program is still by far the moneyest fit for my own intellectual predilections.
I composed an elastic draft of my "personal statement." A thought it solid and a stand-out, aside from a few dodgy passages. Thanks.
I also cracked open the free GRE English sample exam sent to me by ETS: 230 multiple choice questions covering the entire expanse of literature in the English language in 170 minutes. Among other skills, I have to be able to interpret passages for meaning, recognize specific writers' styles on sight, be able to pinpoint a writer or piece historically (we're talking dates here), and even sometimes identify the exact piece of literatuare or character mentioned in an obscure passage. So far, I get about 80% correct, with perhaps about 75% of those answered in complete confidence. Pretty good, I suppose, but I feel like all the sample questions are from "obvious" canonical texts. And then there's the pressure of live testing. That always fucks me up. Test is November 13th; application deadlines range from mid-December to mid-January. And I'm supposedly going to Vegas for Christmas.
