grad apps

I did not expect the application process to take this long/ I been at it for three weeks or so now.

I have applied to 10 programs with two more to go. I have to say it is getting hard to be excited about their program. Each school peppers their application with questions about why I am interested in them. At first giving thoughtful answers was easy and took little time but as I progressed through them it got much harder. Suffice it to say I am burned out.

But I knew I would get this way

:-O

Cause I know me, see? So long ago I wrote templates with blanks in them for all my essays and responses. I wrote thoughtful responses to their questions and essay prompts a month go so I wouldn't have to do it now when I'm burned out. Smart on my part. But I can still make mistakes so I fill in the blanks and then wait a day to read it to make sure its seamless and answers the prompt and stuff.

The thing is they all want different things. Except UC schools. They have the same prompts, questions and stuff. I recycled my UC Irvine essay for UC Riverside and switched the names. But I graduated from that school so I had to make it more personal, you know? I probably know the professor who will read my writing sample very well, so I had to.

But I think it was U of Michigan that wanted 2000 word personal statement and u of Florida wanted 500. So I had to write a new one, largely borrowed from the middle of the larger one, but whatever. When I get burned out like this I got to relax, get away from it and recheck everything when I am fresh before I submit it.

Oh, another thing: I didn't know it would cost so much money to apply. Each school charges a fee of about 70 bucks. Venderbilt was free, U of Florida was 30 bucks, UC Riverside was 80 (bastards). I am applying to 12 of them.

KA-CHING.

It cleaned me out. But on top of the application fees you have to send your GRE scores to some of them (not all) at 25 bucks a pop, and your official transcripts have to go to each one, and some want two, and some split their departments, one for writing and one for graduate admissions and they both want two transcripts. At around ten bucks a pop those transcripts add up too, especially when one *&%$&%#^#$^% school wants four of them, two for each department. (UC Irvine said something nice here, they said, "Just send one transcript and if we need an additional copy we will make one. Brilliant! Why can't these other schools discover a copy machine?) Plus packaging, envelopes, paper, pens staples, and mailing. It adds up very quickly. I am keeping track right now, and when I am all done I will post it so you can see the breakdown. GRE scores, transcripts and fees--that's a racket.

Just think last year the U of Michigan in ann arbor made a ton of money from application fees. Even though i dislike it, let's do some math. If around 1,200 people apply to the U of M and each fee is 70 bucks that is around 84,000 dollars-from writers no less. (Bunch of wealthy people, writers.) The company that does GRE testing (I do not like them) ETS charges around 25 bucks to send your scores to colleges (((IMPORTANT: Unless you send the scores the same time as when you take the test, I didn't have the addresses of all the colleges when I took the test.))) so 25 bucks a pop times 1200 people required to send them in is about 30,000 dollars. And that is just one university. Feels like a racket to me. It's like a necessary evil that is unnecessary.

SO if you plan to apply to graduate school here are some tips for you:

1) Start early. Some of them start accepting applications in September of April, others December.
2) Go to each university website and read what they require, they have their prompts available sometimes, and list when they can start accepting applications.
3) Save up about a grand to apply for ten universities (through a wide net to increase your chances of being accepted because they only accept people ONCE a year, and some schools alternate which year they accept majors, ie fiction applicants accepted odd years, poetry applicants accepted even years, so if you miss that then you got to wait two years.
4) Do writing related stuff before you apply, they ask a lot of questions about it and I had very little to add to that because I was only published the one time I tried. Leaving all those questions blank made me feel really bad.

I guess that's all for now, time for bed.

MFA Update

Personal statement has been worked and reworked and in two days and four drafts later it is something I am quite proud of. Of course it wouldn't have been possible without my best friend Mike.

My prose was like a tattered sword; yeah it could kill you but it would take a few swings before it broke the skin. Thanks to Mike that sword would get sharpened to a razors edge so that one clean cut will cleave a man in two. So to speak. The point is the P.S. is sharp now.

Personal Statement: Mission Accomplished
Statement of Purpose: Round One! Fight!!

It doesn't make sense to me, it is so vague:

In an essay, please describe your natural ability and motivation for graduate study in writing, including your preparation for writing, your academic plans or research interests and experience with writing, and your future career goals. Please be specific about why our MFA program would be a good intellectual fit for you.

I will be doing this tomorrow and applying in the evening. If all goes according to plan.

You got it, Teddy!

For the first time I am sitting in my room at my new desk looking out the window and watching the snow fall. I am out of coffee, milk and food. I am hungry. The snow right outside the window blows to the right, further out it blows to the left. My car looks like a frosted miniwheat.

From 10am to midnight yesterday I wrote my personal statement for grad school. And now that I read it over I can see that it is crap--amateur prose that sounds like I am trying to impress someone. Maybe that is what it is supposed to sound like? Maybe the selection committee knows what they are looking for. Either way another round of revision is necessary. And then I move from the personal statement to the statement of purpose. Which is kinda the same thing but with a focus on academics. I don't know what that means. I can't spend too much time on this because I have to modify it to fit each of my choices when I apply, and I haven't applied anywhere yet. As soon as I get this stupid essay done I can start applying. And then I will be free of huge responsibilities for a few months.

In my mind I thought of myself as a strong applicant, but as I write down what I have done I see that I am not, that the University of Michigan will be receiving 800 other personal statements and choosing like 10 people. Maybe my writing samples will wow them. Confidence is not high and I'm hungry. But Teddy Roosevelt said, "Do what you can, with what you have, where you are."

That MFA feeling

[noon and twenty] I am preparing to apply to graduate school for creative writing within the month. I have a lot to say about this because it is surprisingly complicated and I still have a lot to do.

Firstly, I want to apply to eight to ten schools to have a lot of options. I looked at a lot of schools and comprised a list of schools that I would like to attend based on how well they fund incoming students, like me, how well their faculty writes, the future success of graduates and places that would be a nice fit for me, places that would push me as a writer, places where I would create the best stuff and get the most out of my Master of Fine Arts degree.

This list ended up being 24 schools long.

So I went back through the list and selected schools that I absolutely had to apply to, based on my own personal excitement about the program. This yielded a list of 18.

Than I asked my roommate Justin about his thoughts about narrowing the list down. He asked if I considered what it would be like to live in these places for a couple years. I hadn't. So I made a new list of graduate schools that were located in places I would actually like to live in. Justin pointed out that there are places and colleges on my list that have considerably colder, and harsher winters. Winters that made you wish you had a ton-ton to cut open and crawl inside of (they smell worse on the inside I hear). There were also places that had summers and springs that felt like the inside of a sauna for months at a time. I removed the universities of Minnesota, Alabama, and etc., from the list.

This new list was 15 schools long. Still too many. Especially since each school has a non-refundable fee of about 60 buckeroos. I then went to each program's creative writing MFA web page and researched what was required, not only for admission to the school, but what was required of me while I was there. There were a couple schools who required a lot of material from me (three short stories, a critical English essay, statement of purpose, statement of intent, personal statement, resume, etc) on top of all that their website was difficult to navigate and unclear. So, as awesome as Purdue might have been, they are too needy for me. So I removed them from the list. There was another one that was more literature based than I want to be so I got rid of that one.

It's hard work, all this research. Once I have this done however, I will start writing the things I need to apply. Personal statements and the like.

After that I fill out their online application forms and send them all my stuff, test scores, writing sample... oh the writing sample. Let me talk about that.

Some of the schools want multiple stories totaling no less than 40 pages. I had planed to send my one super-razor-sharp-polished nonfiction piece that could pass for fiction, but it is only 25 pages or so. This means I had to find another work I had written, something that isn't quite as polished, and polish that up right now. I hope a school doesn't require 3 or more short stories totaling more than 60 pages, or I am screwed and wont be applying to that school. So far, only a few have asked for two stories.

The due date for everything ranges from December 15th to January 15th. each school is different. So I want to apply to the schools with the earlier due date first.

Anyway, I had to write this down. Sometimes it streamlines my thoughts and helps me see what I still have to do.

If this doesn't make sense to you, that is alright because this was for me, and I know what I mean. ;-)

More posts to come in the near future.

Oh, the MFA feeling: Sore lower back, tired eyes from scanning pages of text about how awesome a school thinks it is, a slight headache, a little hunger, the smell of hot coffee nearby (mug number 2) and the odor of someone who forgot to shower last night after work (me).

[1:45 pm] I removed John Hopkins university from the list (now 12 schools long). The school offers a Master of Arts, not a Master of Fine arts degree. The difference is the MFA is more dedicated, requiring additional time and effort. The MA is quicker, and the university says you can apply anytime, take a class at a time, night and weekends in Washington DC, or Baltimore. I don't want quicker, I want longer, more dedicated and more difficult. This is my future life here, I want to learn as much as I can rather than get a master's degree so I can check off of some bucket list.

[2:00pm] I was ready to write off the University of Florida at Gainesville because they seemed so uppity. They talked about what is required, how most prospective students don't get in and how awesome they are. Obviously written by some english/computer science/engineer type person. Not that there is anything wrong with those kinds of people. It is just that their writing lacks the kind of flow that I would appreciate in a prospective school. Than I read the Department of Creative writing's MFA page. What a breath of fresh air that was. They get it, and renewed my interest in their program.

[2:30pm] The word "slate" is appearing a lot in the writing program's websites. In the form, "...writers have an active slate of readings and activities to do..." What's with that? Is 'slate' that cool of a word? One college website even used the British informal usage meaning 'to criticize.' really? Is there some meeting where all the ideas are shared for what to put up on the website? And one guy, maybe an intern, says, "what about using the word 'slate?' It means the same as plan, schedule, book or organize and also has some peripheral meanings having to do with color, geology, and history--as many writers first wrote with slate." And they must have responded, "Brilliant!" And promptly taken the idea as their own condemning that intern to coffee barista status indefinitely. Oh the humanity!

Gay Prom

A lot has happened. Too much to fill you in on, so I wont. I can't even remeber where I left off. But basically there were car problems, relationship problems, life problems, financial woes and on and on. But that is life, some of us are more aware of that than others.

I had so much to tell you yesterday but I got sleepy instead.

I recently discovered Dan Savage the Gay, Sex and relationship columnist. He is way cool. Funny and smart with an eerily perfect perspective on relationships and sex. It's refreshing and hilarious.

That reminds me, this one time I went to gay prom, you know those proms that honor Constance McMillan, that high school girl that asked if she could bring her girlfriend to prom as her date? The school said, "no." She said, "You can't deny my civil rights." They canceled prom altogether and parents financed a private prom which excluded the lesbian couple. Anyway, I went to gay prom with Loo and JoJo, her gay friend since forever, and I remember walking in and seeing these two girls probably 20 years old. They were unbelievably hot. They wore ball gowns that hugged their figures, they had ample bosoms, long legs, great skin, and hair. They looked regal.

Anyway, they might be the hottest girls I have ever seen in real life. And they were walking towards us. I smiled at them, like I do to all beautiful women that walk towards me. If they saw me they gave no indication. What they did instead of acknowledge my existence was check out Loo, head to toe and back. Then they smiled, they liked what they saw. Then they split up and walked around us. I turned to watch them go, but I wasn't sure which one to follow. Almost tore my head in half trying to follow them both. Anyway, I followed the brunette. I watched her walk by as though she was on a runway, watched her stiletto-heeled feet lightly click and clack on the hardwood floor, watched her thighs flex under her indigo gown, watched her hips sway and her breasts bounce with each step. Then she rejoined the other girl and the two of them turned to watch something. I followed their eyes right to Loo's curvaceous backside. I think the three of us really liked that view.

It was a little weird to be in that place, but not for reasons you might think. Just about every girl there didn't care about me, but liked Loo A LOT. I had nothing that they wanted. I was invisible to them. That's never happened to me before. And the boys by contrast were really nice and respectable. I only got hit on twice, than the word got out that I was a... you know, this would work better in Dialog.

"Hey, Dustin meet Brian," JoJo said. I turned to face Dustin. He was tall, wearing a silver tuxedo vest, fedora and fancy pants. He had two earrings in one ear and short red hair. He was tall like me. He looked like a sharply dressed young man, 21 maybe.

"Hey, Brian. Nice to meet you," Dustin said as we shook hands. JoJo looked away scanning the dance floor for friends I imagine.

"Likewise," I said.

"Wow, that's some grip you have there," Dustin said smiling. That's when JoJo turned back to us.

"Dustin," JoJo said, "he's a breeder."

"Damn it!" Dustin said, "How come all the hot ones..."

"Sorry man," I said.

"Its kool man, nice to meet you anyway," Dustin said. And we got to talking.

But the term 'Breeder,' I love.

Anyway, after guy number two hit on me I had the word so I said, "I'm a breeder." He laughed and asked what I was doing there. I told him I was supporting the LGBT community. And he said I had to be an insider to use the term breeder, he added I was OK (for a breeder I guess), than added that I needed a name tag that said, "Hello my name is BREEDER." We both laughed. The rest of the night I danced with Loo and watched the hot lesbians dance the night away. I watched the gay guys too because they are amazing dancers.

I met all kinds of people there that night, big hulked-out dudes in ball gowns who shaved their furry backs in the shape of their backless gowns. I met girls in tuxedos with mustaches and everything in between. Sometimes I didn't know which sex a person was, not that it was important, I'm just saying I found myself wondering for the sake of wonder.

I had a great time.

But I became aware of some interesting things. My brain likes to gather information, mix it all together and asks "what if."

And after thinking about it I found some things I am envious of gay people about.

I dislike that pretty women have a stupefying effect on me. Like if a woman is hot but mean/rude/bitchy I can overlook that on account of her hotness. This also works with nicely shaped female parts. Like if a girl has a great pair of breasts, but is rude, or mean, or just bad my thought process is, "yeah, she is mean, but she has nice boobs, so...it evens out." A gay guy? Not even. Gay boys can tell hot girls that are acting annoying or whatever that they are annoying. They see them as people first, rather than: Boobs Yay! Butt yay! Hot legs Yay! Oh, yeah, person, person, person... It's a skill I don't have. So basically an 'ugly' girl with a hot body is seen as an ugly girl by a gay guy, where as I see the body parts first and it clouds my judgment. I imagine the reverse is true though about gay guys, like if a dude is being a dick but gay guys think he is hot they probably are bamboozled as well.

There is a documentary called the Science of Sex Appeal that is very interesting. Something that is interesting about it is that pregnant women emit a pheromone from their scalp that calms men down. There are a bunch of chemical warfare battles going on back and fourth between men and women. But a gay couple will never get that chemical warfare. Two gay guys will not get that calming pheromone from a pregnant woman. Now, the really interesting part is that men and women have a smell that is unique to them based on the bacteria that live on their skin. Each person is unique in this regard. Now the people who smell the most genetically diverse from you say, will smell attractive to you because the offspring you would have would have a more complete set of genes and be able to handle infections and diseases better. Now, men have an odor that actually repels women. They dislike the smell greatly. BUT, that same odor, if smelled while women are ovulating, smells amazing to them. Like wise a woman who is ovulating looks and smells better to heterosexual men, it is the period of time that she is most fertile.

What about gay people? Well, as it turns out, those smells that heterosexual people like in the opposite sex, the raw and natural biological chemistry smells, are enjoyed by same sexed gay people. Ovulating women are found even more desirable to lesbians. And a man's smell is enjoyed by a gay man all the time (assuming it's a dynamic smell--this is different than B.O.) There are a bunch of other things, but basically a gay man's brain is physiologically similar to a hetero sexual woman's brain. A gay woman's brain is physiologically similar to a hetero sexual man's brain. This means that both gay men and heterosexual women find the same basic things attractive in men, they can't help it.

Anyway, that's all for today.

Check out Dan Savage on YouTube.

"Don't be a pussy" part 2

Rereading it now I see I left out a thought or two.

Is it just me, or does it seem like anytime a woman complains of some vaginal discomfort of any kind men usually say, "what a woman." Like it is womanly to express pain, especially for woman parts. And when sex is concerned you got to be careful/delicate or you could do irreparable damage, as though the vagina hasn't evolved to handle frequent and vigorous sex for hours at a time. You know a 20 minute porn scene is edited down from several hours right? And the whole scene is a bust if the guy has a failure.

I was listening to a Viagra infomercial once and the woman was talking about how the pill helped THEM, how THEY had a problem or more specifically how, "WE were having erectile dysfunction." Like the guy's limp dick was her fault, her problem, her body part, her half of the blame. See, even when erectile problems are concerned it's a woman's fault, or men want it to be. I do know sometimes women will blame themselves for erectile failure, like they didn't do enough, they aren't pretty enough anymore, or some such. But this was different. And I am in favor of couples working together through tough times but the guy sat there and nodded like, "Yeah, I wish she could get her erectile failure in order so we could screw again. What a drag. Psh, women, what can you do?"

brb Dr. Who.

"Don't be a pussy"

I don't like things that I don't understand. And I don't understand the saying, "Don't be a pussy." It's the last word that really confuses me. It could be cat. It could be vagina. To find out I went to work one day back in Camarillo where it's mostly Mexican guys and we talk sex and toilet humor all day to pass the time.

One day one of the guys couldn't get the tire off this one wheel and from across the back room someone calls out, "Ahaha what a pussy, can't even get the tire off."

That was my chance so I said, "Yeah what a cat." They all looked at me. They looked at each other without moving their heads.

"Did he just say what a cat? That's wack. Fuckin Brian. Ha Ha," they said.

I determined it wasn't cat. So I waited for the next opportunity to use vagina.

A little later someone else was trying to get the spare tire out of a car and it was all rusted in there. It wouldn't come out. From across the room you could hear them calling out, "Lets go you fuckin pussy."

So I said, "Yeah, let's go you vagina."

"Did he just call him a vagina? I think he did. That's strong language. Fuckin Brian. HA Ha," they said.

It didn't seem to be cat or vagina. So the next time they said someone was a pussy I asked them why. What did they have in common with a vagina, I asked. The answers were basically synonyms. The answers regarded a perceived softness of character that was fearful and delicate, easy to hurt, weak, frail even.

It started a thought in my head. I recognized a certain anti-woman thing going on here. They insisted "don't be such a pussy," was the same as, "Don't be such a woman," because they thought women were fearful and delicate, weak, easy to hurt and etc. I asked them if the opposite was true, that someone who was tough, fearless, strong, difficult to hurt, healthy was a penis.

Their demeanor changed. They all looked at each other, afraid. Afraid to respond first maybe? It took me a little while to figure out what was going on. And then I did. I had entered queer territory. I had said, "penis." If they followed it with, "yeah," then they might seem gay to their friends. So there they stood, immobilized by fear of being thought gay. That's when I figured why they were quick to denounce women, talk about meaningless sex, make fun of each other by joking about homosexuality and call each other pussies. The reason they were acting in a hyper-masculine way was because deep down they were afraid of gayness. (of all the things to be afraid of!) I chalked it up to Machismo, and figured it was a cultural thing, or at least an environment thing.

I don't talk that way, but I see the allure of it, to brag and boast about sex and women and conquests and all of it. I understand why they do it. I also understand why I don't. I'm comfortable in my hopeless-heterosexuality, so comfortable that I don't need their verbal pats on my back to boost my ego. Who cares? I certainly don't.

But back to the topic, if the insult about pussy is interchangeable with women and vagina than that leads to some interesting things doesn't it? When you think of vagina, do you think of weakness? I certainly don't. A Vagina seems strong to me. Maybe I think that way because I have a penis and I know it's not all it's cracked up to be. I can separate the myth and mystique, so to speak, from the reality.

For instance I know that the slightest graze of a ping pong ball across my penis can drop me to the floor into fetal position because of the shock of pain. You could argue that maybe I have a sensitive penis and therefore I can't apply this situation to other men. But I would argue I have seen many men drop from the passing graze of a ping pong ball, or a cell phone, or keys, or a softball (those aren't that soft by the way.) And conversely I have seen women take worse punishment to their vagina and not even express discomfort. For example, in 8th grade I hit a softball directly into this girl's vagina. (not deliberately) It worked like a catchers glove stopping the ball, which she bent down to pick up and throw back to home plate where I was standing. I was mouthing the words, "Are you ok?" when I was tagged out. She was ok, a few weeks later when I caught a soft ball in a similar way I was down and out for five minutes.

Women have a higher pain tolerance than men, or at least that's what I have read a long time ago. But the test they used was kinda, well, weird. They inflicted pain on men and women and recorded at what point they said ow. Men said ow first, so they say that men have a lower pain tolerance, I am ok with that being true. But I wonder if there is a maximum pain and if men or women can handle more. I have seen men and women get hurt and men usually are more vocal about it than women, even though they might experience the same amount of pain. Does that make sense? I'll never know because I am not a woman so I can't compare two equal pains back to back.

They say that you call someone a pussy if they are soft, or girly. But if you are a heterosexual male isn't a soft vagina ideal? It just doesn't make sense. Especially when you think about all the things vagina can do. Any porno film can show you that a vagina can take an extreme amount of abuse, the penis by contrast is returned limp, spent, soft and delicate. The vagina can still take more, the penis cannot. And yet the vagina is still the weak one some how, as though the soft, delicate, and sensitive penis is somehow manly because men say it is. And lets not forget that a vagina can pass a baby through itself. It's just you got to give credit where credit is due is all I'm saying.

So the saying don't be a pussy doesn't make sense, and you should take it as a compliment because it means you are strong, versatile, and all the heterosexual men will do anything to be with you.

I guess that's all. It's been bothering me for awhile. I finally wrote it down, though I don't know if it makes sense to anyone but me.