February 25, 2005
Grad Schools
The funny thing is that at the end of December I didn't care about Duke at all. I liked the program, and I really liked Peter Euben, but I didn't want to spend seven or eight years in North Carolina, and I didn't want to drag Jen along to the same hell. I suppose, too, I just really wanted to attend Santa Cruz.
I didn't spend much time on the application. My sop was copied, almost entirely, from the one I wrote to UCSC, and I didn't follow up with any of my professors, to make sure they sent the letters of recommendation. I just didn't care.
And now, every day, I race home from work, looking for that email from the Graduate School, looking for a response, an indication, anything at all. Jen says, "I love you," and I reply, "TWELVE DAYS! Twelve days since two other people were accepted BUT NO EMAIL FOR ME!" She's a patient one. She strokes my hair, and kisses my cheek, and sighs with me. "You'll hear soon."
The numbers creep up. Thirteen days. Fourteen days. Almost the end of February. February, when they said all decisions would be made. Two more people posted responses yesterday. Rejections. Maybe they've started sending those now.
When I applied to Duke, I didn't care about getting in. I didn't care about going. I applied so I could tell Meg Mott that I did. So I could tell everyone I did. But I didn't really care. Didn't really care until it occured to me, occurs to me now, that soon I won't be able to say I applied to Duke.
Because I won't have applied to Duke. I'll have been rejected by Duke. Rejected. I know it sounds worse than it is. And to be rejected from Duke is not bad at all. Of 300 top applicants, maybe 20 are offered admission. And I'm hardly a top applicant, with my 3.0 GPA (I never sent my updated transcripts, with senior grades included, that is closer to 3.6, because... I didn't care), my barely adequete GRE scores, and my sop that reads like I should be applying to a lit program, or at least a purely cross-disciplinary program. So it shouldn't be a big deal.
But it is. Of course. It always is. Even if I were a shitty writer, and had a 2.0 GPA, and didn't top 400 on my GREs, it would suck to be rejected from Duke. And I've noticed that HistCon has started phoning applicants, and my voicemail is empty, and so, I imagine, it will suck to be rejected from Santa Cruz. Of course. It always does.
Sometimes I ask myself what I really want. And I think more than going to Duke, more than going to Santa Cruz, more than anything else, I want to move to Portland, with Jen, and cook, and write in my little blog, and forget about postmodernism and Foucault and tragedy and memory and loss for a few years. I know it won't happen like that. Memory is the sense of loss, Marilynne Robinson writes, and loss pulls us after it. It's still pulling. Tugging at my ears. Calling my name. Leaning so close I can almost feel my hair stroked and smell those fresh berries, and hear the train rumbling along at night. I know it won't happen like that. I'll get to Portland, with Jen, and cook, and write in my little blog, and wish I were thinking about postmodernism and Foucault and tragedy and memory and loss. Because the loss pulls us after it.
Posted by Sean at February 25, 2005 05:22 PM