A Really Personal Statement

Applying to graduate school, as I believe I have said in this blog before, is a lot like whoring yourself out. You've really got to sell yourself as the right man/woman for the position -- I'll fit into your department (everybody likes me); I'll work like a dog; I've already proven myself academically; I'll continue to do it all with a smile and you'll enjoy working with me. Pick me! Pick me! I'll even bake you cookies!

Too bad a few of these won't fit into the application envelope...

I applied to several Ph.D. programs on the East Coast this winter... what if I had written what I was really thinking, and perhaps more importantly, feeling? Not just statements about how qualified I am to join the department, but "Look, I'm a damn good teacher. Just ask my students -- there are so many who have thanked me over and over for the help and understanding that I've been able to give them. I love helping them -- but I can't continue to do that to the best of my ability if I don't earn my Ph.D. So please please please help me fulfill my goals and dreams (not to be trite) and give me one of your coveted positions."

Or, what about this? "When I was younger, I used to sit in my room reading novels until three in the morning, sometimes sobbing at the outcome. I dreamed that someday I would write a novel like that, and my novel would change people's lives. When I got older, I realized that the primary way that I could really make a difference in people's lives, especially given my talents and interests, was to help them learn skills that they could really use. I want to continue to teach literature because I feel that it teaches each reader compassion for people who are in very different situations and belong to very different cultures than their own; I want to continue to teach composition because learning how to communicate clearly and in a structured fashion is something that will help a student no matter what they want to do with their lives. I want to teach either/both subjects because I believe that both literature and composition help us all build our critical thinking skills, something that sharpens and strengthens society as a whole."

What if I could write those things -- would the admissions committees even care?

Instead, I submitted the usual (but artful) personal statements, detailing the research that I've done and that I am currently doing. Some people find my articles about Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Nancy Drew and Harry Potter very interesting -- others probably look down on what I've written and published. Many schools ask you to discuss your teaching experiences -- but there's barely room to say more than what is already listed on my resume... the where, when, and for how long I have taught. I don't get a chance to say much about my passion for teaching, or my classroom philosophy. I really don't even get a chance to explain my passion for certain kinds of literature and film -- no one ever asks you to explain why you write about Buffy or Nancy or Harry. So, either they think your research is cutting edge, or they think it's silly -- or as a few faculty members have advised me, past its moment.

A lot rides on that single personal statement. You have to get it right; they have to like you. More than like you. So I worked hard on each essay that I wrote -- considered how I would fit in to the department, what faculty I would work with on my dissertation. But after getting rejected by half the schools that I applied to this winter, I find myself wishing that I could have conveyed more about my passion for both teaching itself and the research that I do into certain types of literature. Why don't they ever ask you questions like, "Why do you think this material is important?" or "Why is it important to you to earn a Ph.D.?"

Shouldn't the faculty care about those aspects of your personality and motivation, since those are the things that will sustain you through the long, agonizing years of a graduate degree program? It would be nice if you were required to write a personal statement that was at least a little bit... personal.

To Ph.D. or not to Ph.D.?

It's been over a year since I last posted to this blog -- but I'm a girl who has also had the same Netflix DVD sitting beside my TV (Slumdog Millionaire, if anybody is interested) for almost 3 months now, without watching it. Sometimes I'm really good about taking care of things, but sometimes I just let things go in a ridiculous way.

At first I didn't write because I was wrapped up in writing my Master's Thesis... when you take on a project like that, it takes over your life--yet you still have to deal with other classes and do your own laundry so that you don't start smelling like the broccoli and cheese you had for dinner last week. I'm looking forward to the fact that when I write my doctoral dissertation, at least I'll have completed my classwork by the time and I can mainly focus on writing the dissertation without the distractions of other research and papers on completely different subjects. I work best when I can stay focused on one track.

Then I didn't write because I graduated (THANK GOD) and didn't have a whole lot left to say about my career in graduate school because it was over. (At least for the time being.)


I didn't really think I had a whole to say about anything, for that matter. My brain went on autopilot, and I was lucky enough to find a couple of gigs that let me kick back and have a little fun. I worked at summer camp (as usual) over the summer and spent a lot of time with family, then got a job teaching Composition and Argumentative/Academic Rhetoric at a community college in the fall. I've been doing things that let me relate to my own humanity again -- drawing, playing with kids, making jewelry, learning how to watercolor, reading novels on a whim instead of being assigned to read them, visiting with friends from back home in Michigan (Christmas was wonderful). I've gone to the beach and gorged on coconut shrimp and amaretto sours, photographed the cherry blossoms, decorated Christmas cookies, rearranged the furniture in my apartment, learned how to play Dutch Blitz (a great card game), enjoyed the historic and quickly-infamous "Blizzard of 2010" in the D.C. area... Life seems pretty good, overall.



So now the nagging question is -- do I really want to go back to graduate school?

The answer is both yes and no.

No, because I'm enjoying the fact that when I wake up in the morning, I can think about what I want to have for breakfast, watch the news on MSNBC or an episode of Law & Order on Netflix Instant Viewing, take a leisurely shower and think about what I want to wear -- all of this before I really start my day. I don't have to role out of bed, wrap myself up in a robe and immediately sit down at the computer to work on my thesis for a few hours before I can even think about taking a shower and running my errands. I don't have to read and research for eight hours a day unless I'm totally engrossed in a novel and I want to keep reading... and when I'm reading, I can stop to look out the window, enjoy the brightness of the sunshine or the blueness of the sky, and actually think for a minute about what it is that I just read. I have time to meditate, not just consume.

But yet -- I DO want to go back to get my Ph.D. because I love teaching literature. Right now, I'm teaching composition part time, which is basically the best position that I will get with only a Master's degree. I'm enjoying myself (a lot), but I won't make enough money to buy myself a condo or modest house, donate some money every once in a while to UNICEF's children's fund, and buy my kids' Christmas presents (let alone take a few vacations) if I don't get a full-time/tenured position at a college or university -- and for that, I need a Ph.D.

So, that's where I'm at right now -- I haven't brought you up to speed on everything that has happened since last January, but I've hit the highlights of what's relevant to the decision before me. Of course, the applications are all in for different Ph.D. programs in the Washington DC area and in the Carolinas... and everyone's fingers are crossed. The decision has already been made -- sacrifice 4 to 6 more years of a comfy, normal life of 9 to 5 hours with evenings free in order to prepare myself for the future that I want. It's a sacrifice that plenty of people make, and at least I'm lucky enough to truly love studying literature and literary theory. I would love grad school totally and completely -- if it weren't for the pace, the feeling that you cannot be a person any more. You have to be a machine to crank out the work at the rate that they expect. I've lost enough of my humanity in the last few years and I have to ask myself -- can I really afford to become a machine again? Because I think that is what it will take to earn my Ph.D.

It's Almost February...

...and I've spent most of January reading Harry Potter. Well, if the year has to be one-twelfth over, that was certainly an excellent use of my time. I've also been occupied with hundreds of sonnets--because as if I didn't have enough to do with my thesis and my comprehensive exams this semester, I have an independent study in poetry as well. I don't even have enough time to distract myself with the X-Files any more-- but at least I can justify my Harry Potter spree as work for my thesis. I haven't had any nightmares at all lately; I just keep falling into a sound sleep for about five hours and then simply waking up at 5 AM (!), so anxious about getting my work done that I feel the need to start up again at that ungodly hour of the morning.

The one break I allowed myself, however, was a day to go to the Inauguration of President Obama. And it did, indeed, take up an entire day--my husband and I joined the queue at the Metro station near our apartment at 6:30 AM, got down to the National Mall 3 hours later, and didn't get home until 5 PM (the ceremony finished around 1 PM). It was 7 hours of traveling in densely packed crowds in order to witness the important twenty minutes of the ceremony. Worth it? Well, now we can say that we were a part of history. It was worth getting out of the house for a day, even in the cold that stiffened my legs, numbed my feet, and froze my knees... it was also enough to tell me that I really don't feel the need to go to another presidential inauguration ever again, but at least I can say I was there for this one in particular.

All of this is to say that January has sped past, filled with anxiety-ridden nights, fifteen hour days and a strange mix of Shakespeare, Harry Potter and Pablo Neruda, with a little Barack Obama thrown in for some flavor. The nice thing is that even though I don't have any more time for X-Files marathons before bed, the inauguration has brought a resurgence of interesting political broadcasts. Now I can listen to msnbc.com reports on things like Obama's address to the State Department before bed, or the presidential press secretary's report on how Obama will indeed get to keep his Blackberry. These are important news items, after all--helpful to staying informed about political events and simultaneously able to help me drift off to sleep when I finally allow myself to put my homework down for the night.

The real challenge is how I will cope with the rest of the semester, once January passes by and I've re-read all my Harry Potter novels. Then I wont have an excuse any more; I'm going to have to start the actual process of WRITING my thesis... which I think will make February go much, much slower than January has.

Terrors Worse Than Alien Abduction

Christmas break has sped past, and I'm thrilled that I have nothing more exciting to report than the fact that I received a green ceramic turkey as a gift. Yes, a green ceramic turkey. All the usual holiday stories aside, though (including a little too much gin at one party, a little too much Chinese food at another) I spent my break from school uneventfully. We visited family and old friends in Michigan (where the cold reminded us why we moved south), then we returned home to D.C., where several X-Files marathons took up a lot of my time.

Guilt and anxiety have set in, though, that I did not study more for my comprehesive exam while I had the chance. I've got about twelve weeks to write and memorize about forty essays, plus prepare myself for the poetry section. I've also got to worry about my thesis; over the last week, I finally returned to my research, which made me realize just how much more work I have to do--with only eleven weeks to finish! And then there's my coursework to consider. Why, oh why, did I lay around watching Mulder and Scully so much?

Quite honestly, these terrors are exactly the reason why I keep retreating to the comfort of my new X-Files Complete Collectors Set DVDs, which I persuaded my husband to buy me for Christmas. Nine seasons of Mulder and Scully has been doing wonders for my insomnia: if I lull myself into a benign terror of alien abductions, incurable contagions, and government experimentation on human beings using alien DNA, I am at least able to fall asleep without thinking too much about all the work that will bury me in the next two and a half months.

Of course, every time I have an X-Files marathon, I start to have really disturbing dreams, which have already started. Only one of them has given me any sort of real fright--I dreamed a man was watching me and stalking me, so apparently I'm more afraid of human predators than aliens. The monster dreams mostly just amuse me--I'm quite fond of the most famous of all my dreams, the product of an intense several weeks of watching the X-Files and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I dreamed I was an alien slayer, a hybrid of Buffy and Mulder/Scully, I suppose. My friend Zack was being repeatedly impregnated by aliens and it was my job to hunt down the children he had borne and stab them through the heart with one of those click pencils that everybody loves using when they are in junior high. The whole thing was quite vivid, a little disturbing, but mostly hilarious... so much better than the dreams I tend to have about writing papers (and other academic nightmares) now that I'm in graduate school.


In the face of questions regarding Renaissance plays and free verse poetry, the X-Files has become my new comfort blanket. I'm hoping that if I watch enough X-Files, though, I'll start to have dreams about aliens and vampires again, instead of nightmares about endlessly re-writing my projects and taking tests. The real horror isn't the Hell that most people imagine, the place with flames and physical torture--it is, as Buffy once imagined, the experience of taking your exams over and over and over again...