Since it is probably unrealistic to assume that Persiflage readers have been the collective victims of an eight-month coma epidemic, I should probably attempt to explain my recent apocalyptic crisis of absenteeism.

Over the course of the summer, I came to the inevitable conclusion that seven years of post-secondary education had been far from sufficient preparation for the incessant demands of my day-to-day life.  The only solution, then, was to apply to PhD programs.  And so I did.  I sharpened up the 977 #2 pencils I had purchased in preparation for the bar exam, resuscitated my shady knowledge of isosceles triangles, and took the GRE.  I tracked down long-lost professors and begged them for recommendations.  (While one professor took the trouble to complete the recommendation forms while recovering from an emergency appendectomy, another wasted three meetings- all over lunch hours- bitching about the strain of being expected to complete check-box assessments of my capacities.  Who says there isn't diversity of opinion in academia?!)  I wrote a personal statement which I deemed completed only when Emily told me, "Nice.  You sound smart.  And motivated.  And also like you might be fun at parties."

To my own shock and amazement, I've been accepted at three of the programs to which I applied.   This success made me feel a bit better about having not so much "applied" to William & Mary as "filled out the online application, paid the fee, and proceeded to leave the packet containing each and every piece of supplementary material on a chair in my room, underneath several months' worth of issues of Daedalus and The New York Review of Books.**  Rather than a rejection, I'm simply considering that to have been a $40 donation to the school in the name of my friend A., who is an alumna.  Intellectual and charitable; that's me!

I'm currently in the process of deciding between a Large Midwestern Institution and a Somewhat Smaller Eastern Institution.  As such, I have of late been even more of a twitching ball of stress than usual.  Surprise!  Now that I've recovered the great majority of my spare time from the morass of the application process, it seems time to breathe new life into Persiflage.  In the immediate future, I'll be embarking upon some DIY home renovation and remodeling projects, especially with regard to getting rid of old posts that are stupid.

Thank you, oh faithful readers, for sticking around through the long hibernation.  Your loyalty will be rewarded, with striking and painful inadequacy, in the days to come.

**Please do not tell my parents about this.  It would make them cry.

Comments

[sarah]

You know, according to my former assistant who went to a special transcendental meditationalist college in Iowa, it gets really humid there in the summer from all the corn. No pesky need to drink water!

Congrats again!

[Ara]

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