M.A. Exam Part 1

I PASSED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Walking down the aisle in cap and gown is Dec. 12th. I can't remember what my date is for mailing out invitations/announcements, because I wrote that down at home. :p So if you really want one, email me a current mailing address.

*Away to squee offline.*

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The BookWorm

MA Exam Part 2

I PASSED PART TWO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Unless I get told differently, I should be walking in December, after I finish the Faulkner paper for the Fall semester. So I am one more step closer to the pictured event.



So what does this mean for my writing schedule? I haven't gotten that far yet. Planning out my project schedule will have to wait until I get home and can take an uninterrupted look at the calendar.

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The BookWorm

Thesis Quest The End

Yeap, it's over before it even begun.

Tuesday after getting an answer from Financial Aid about the loan money, I went to see my adviser. Now just to recap, everybody I had asked to be my thesis director had told me "no." I needed to find out if I could take all six hours of thesis in the fall, when hopefully the timing would be better for any professor.

"Yes, you can but why do you need to?"
"To graduate and to have six hours for the federal guidelines with financial aid."
"But you can graduate with just coursework."
"Okay, I just dealt with Financial Aid for two hours. Explain slowly."

There are two tracks offered by the English Department. Pick a concentration, take 30 hours of coursework, 6 hours of thesis and produce the thesis, then take what is called the comps. exam (essay test on an assigned novel and critical theory about it). Track #2 is pick a concentration or jump into the literature one, take 36 hours of coursework, pull a long paper for one of those classes and work with the professor who first graded it to revise it into something publishable, then take the comps. exam.

With the class I have this semester, I have ended up with 36 hours. I can revise the paper and take the comps. exam in the Fall semester, and provided I pass everything, do the graduation walk in December. The only fees I would have to pay is graduation fees ($10 if I pay before February 15th, but I'm also thinking about gown and invitations). I do need to ask if the fees carry over to the next semester if you don't pass the first go around. I'm planning on it, but I need to know.

Now I just have to find a professor and a paper I want to work with for three months. :p

I'm kind of at odds with the decision too. One part is "yeah, light in tunnel!" but another part was looking forward to actually getting through the process. This is the second time I have avoided a thesis. Scholars' College made undergraduates do one, but by the time it got to my year, I was suffering from burnout so bad, I jumped ship to Northwestern's regular undergraduate program and got out. I know I have no reason to actually do a thesis with a Masters', but I did tell myself from go, I would get it done this time around. And now I'm not.

Still I hope this means I can deal with my completion issues and jump into the submissions process now.

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The BookWorm

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

So bummed I can't concentrate on homework

I just got the word that SLU is sending my loan money back. I'm not enrolled in enough hours. So tomorrow morning, I have to go fight for it back instead of going to work. And go bitch to someone that I would have enough hours only nobody agreed to be my thesis director!

If I knew they were going to pull this shit, I would have enrolled in something to drop after I got my money.

It's just I was counting on that money so bad to get me in a better financial leverage. Dishwasher aside--because I can wait for it--I need to pay my parents back. I don't have enough income to make ends meet without the student loans.

And it galls me beyond belief that there is so many rules and regulations, do's and don't's on money I HAVE to pay BACK! My reform: you're in school, you attend classes, it doesn't matter how many, take out what you and the bank say you can afford. LIKE WITH EVERY OTHER FUCKING LOAN OFFERED IN THE NATION!!!!!!

Well, here's to me trying to read something.

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The BookWorm

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

Thesis Quest Part 2

Just got my third rejection for the job of being my thesis advisor. Currently waiting on a response to my "now what?" to the graduate studies in English head. Really hoping that I can still graduate in Decemeber, and that it won't be put off until May 2009. I am willing to work during the summer semester. However at the rate things are going, I doubt any of the professors are willing.

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The BookWorm

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

DONE with the semester!

Turned in my last final last night. Now I need to get the thesis question settled, but I am aware it may not get settled until the beginning of next semester. :p

Of course as soon as I have gotten the major deadline stressor over and done with, I start brainstorming website changes. Right now I'm blaming that on commuting fog. I want to get some other projects around the house finished off the projects list before starting that.

I haven't been sticking to the diet as well as I should, though I can say that my stress-induced sugar cravings were limited to one piece of chocolate cake Tuesday and one candy bar Wednesday. And I'm only officially on Day 3 and sick of salads already. While making the grocery list, I found a couple of soup recipes for Phase One in the SBD Quick & Easy Cookbook. So my plan is to get the stuff for the next couple of days, plus soup makings, and frozen dinners and breakfasts. That way when I'm packing my lunch and snacks and can't face salad again, I have some other choices. I'm also going to see about substituting the suppers for lunches. Recipe wise, almost everything is for serving four people. I'm following the portion controls and freezing the rest, but the meal plan doesn't really cover leftovers.

I also missed my eye exam last Saturday, so I need to reschedule that. What makes me feel so stupid is I spent that whole Saturday going "I'm forgetting something." And it was my own fault since I mis-filed the note to remind me about it.

That's about it. I have some writing stuff but that will go up at DUF.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

Can I go back to bed now?

For a three-day weekend, I feel the only thing I accomplished was screwing up my sleep schedule. It could be PMS fatigue though. Or it could be the diet cream soda I thought was decaffeinated really isn't. Add a foggy day and having to drive into work before the sun is really up, my bed is calling me right now.

I did learn that my mother and my shopping habits are completely incompatible. I make a list and may browse the store once I'm in it, but I try to stick to the list and not overspend. I do not select a store just to browse for ideas because another store I need isn't open yet. My mother views shopping/browsing as entertainment. Two hours and my lower back that got out of whack by Sunday was killing me and I was annoyed, especially since I had no money to spend and she never lingered on the stuff I want to look at.

And she wants me to go with Kai for the after Thanksgiving sales. I'm now thinking the only way I'm doing that is if I get promised a bookstore for a few hours.

Besides that excursion and fighting with a paper that does not want to get wrote, I got the house work on the schedule done but very little else. Though I think I know what one of the problems is. The get-budget-worked-out project was broken into smaller steps, but those steps are still too big for me to get a grasp on them. So I shove the whole damn thing aside for three days, but still worry about it. Nope, not what I'm supposed to do. So tonight in between paper fights, I'll break them down into smaller steps.

Professor said no. :p So now I need to go email the next ball rolling.

Vox Populi: Reasons to Quit: want to keep an eye on this thread.

And I finally got the South Beach Diet out of the library. I want an eating plan menu where I don't have to really plan what I'm going to eat for the next few months, and the companion book I checked out is the South Beach Diet 30-minute Recipes, which is about all the time I have to cook right now regardless.

I'm tired of planning what to cook and then trying to find freezer space for it and basically not cooking a lot of what I have bought because it takes too long to cook. I'm tired of juggling through all my cookbooks to find creative dishes that I want to eat and won't screw up my blood sugar and weight loss, and then ending up having to juggled through five cookbooks for all the recipes I'm using. It has become an exercise in too much think and I need a break to put the brain on other things.

Another idea I ran across to combat this type of fatigue is to only cook out of one cookbook until you've cooked all the recipes rather than buying a bunch of new cookbooks. And while I think this is a good idea and one worth doing once I don't have school pressure over my head, too many of my cookbooks are too specialized or just the typical catering-the-obesity-issue for me to use until after I've lost the weight. For example, how long do you think I could exist on Star War themed snack food? (It was a gift.) Or if I don't know what the ingredient in the Greek cookbook is, how can I cook it? Less think please.

South Beach Diet has sample meal plans and recipes for them. No think, just buy groceries and cook.

That's all I've got for this update in this blog.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

Why Do I Plan Anything?

So I can be disappointed. :p

While I'm not one to willfully destroy someone else's property, I think I understand the whole toss-his-shit-into-the-yard scenario better. Only my motivation isn't anger. We aren't living together any more and it's in my way and he's putting off dealing with it. It's supposed to happen tomorrow now. Sheesh, you'd think he would know I'm not going to do anything that would land me in jail and if I was tempted my weak moment would be when in all that horrible non-resolution mess. To put another way, when I want a straight answer, that's when I feel like beating the shit out of someone and everyone.

Got the emails done, the thesis plea just now. I think I was concise and nice, but not grovelingly. I'm not against begging as a tactic, I just like to save it.

So the crossroads are such: a) he says "no" and we find another solution or b) he says "yes" and proceeds to send my stories through copy-edit hell according to rules I can't find in my MLA Handbook (and no they haven't published a new edition since the one I own). Which may give him something else to look at beside the fact that I am a genre writer and I will not be writing the pretentious bullshit that is usually the results of MFAs. Oh well, have to wait for the ball to come down in order to run with it.

In other weirdness, while doing Google image search on Elizabethan cross dressing not only did random pics come up from Eric Burn's proposal to Wednesday White from Websnark but also the Ideal BookWorm from this blog. I had Moderate Safe Search on because I was at work, but still? I figured mine because I have been talking about that topic for the paper, but I don't remember anything about cross dressing in the proposal.

Weekend plans are tentative: I need to get the prescription filled and since the doctor changed the amount again, I better talk to them in person about it. :p I also have been trying to get two specific books out of the library for two weeks now. Need to get that off my list. And the money stuff. But it's a long weekend! I just have to go to school on Monday. But in all likelihood that doesn't help me since the money people I would need to talk to will be at home too. *headdesk*

And finish up the Frost paper. Any projects beyond that, I need to consult the lists. But that agenda is already feeling ready to roll. So I'm off to bed.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

Thesis Quest Part 1

So Wednesday seventh of November, I got to see my adviser and shocked him with the news that I had finished my curriculum... almost. I still need the Intermediate Fiction Workshop, which probably won't be offered again until Fall 2008 and when it is offered it will be in the middle of the day since it is a dual undergrad and grad course. Why the little darlings can't take a night class is a question I wisely avoid asking.

The light in the tunnel is taking the class as an independent study and starting on my thesis hours next semester. But I need the director of Creative Writing to sign off on that idea or come up with a better one.

"And why didn't you start this process back in September?"
"Nobody told me this was going to be complicated."

Thursday eighth of November (more missing office time), I go see the director of Creative Writing. Next semester no good for him; he's running a writing conference. The fiction writer professors are in short supply (i.e. the department needs to hire another one), so that leaves the professor I'm taking the Robert Frost class under who possibly doesn't like me and will probably say no to the whole plan since he would also need to be my thesis adviser. He was/is in Atlanta at a conference, so I have to email him. But if he says no, I can sign up for another writing course and will substitute it in for the class and beg somebody else to be my thesis adviser.

"This wouldn't be a problem if you were doing a poetry thesis. We've got poets on top of poets around here."
"Just the problem of I'm not a poet."
"Right. The eggheads should have hired another fiction writer. You guys are the ones suffering. But they wanted the film guy. Nice guy, nothing against him, but Communication teaches the film classes. He doesn't have anything to do."
"And I'm not doing a film for a thesis."

So now I'm at the point of having to come up with a nice business-like email to ask for something. And I hate having to ask people for things, especially when I feel they don't like me. I know I have to grit my teeth and just do it, but I'd rather bury myself in a house project going "la-la-la-can't-hear-you!"

Technically, I don't even have a thesis yet and the procrastination has already started.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/