A few days ago, someone mentioned that I’d already broken one of my New Year’s resolutions - namely, updating this space roughly once a month. I took one look at my website (this being 2008 and me being a freelance writer, I just happened to be sitting at my computer at the time), confirmed the date of my previous post, and told him he was flat-out wrong. January 23rd was obviously last week. Or the week before.
Yet again, the clock on the wall seems to be moving at warp speed. Last month, I blamed the blur on freelancing and moving. This month, I’ll point a finger at the most fun I’ve had since second semester senior year of high school: the glorious waiting period of the grad school application process. Call it the calm between the storms or the momentary lull in the fast lane (this is English academia we’re talking about here - clearly, we traditionally move at high velocities. and by “move,” I mean read and write).
Unlike senior year at Palo Alto High School, however, this round of applications occurred in the pleasantly isolated void of my bedroom. No incessant discussion of early admits and possible notification dates, no one else’s anxiety to fuel my own. And so I was blissfully minding my own business, writing yet another college-application-related article for Education.com (ironic, no?), and generally not updating my website, when I got a call from the English department of UC Irvine.
And just like that, my not-so-peaceful little NorCal-rain-filled snowglobe shattered. An excited mention of this first acceptance and a query about when I might hear from other schools prompted one of my PhD friends to reveal one of the better-kept secrets of the technology age: on this entity known as “the Internet,” there are, in fact, two “websites” with various relevant information. Suddenly, the shards and puddles of my shattered-but-isolated snowglobe looked quite hospitable.
One of these sites, which I’ll call wallofbitterness.com (name has been changed for your own protection), is simply that - an anonymous list of notifications and one-line commentaries. As in, “Ohio State University; English, PhD; Rejected via Website on 20 Feb 2008. who really wants to live in ohio?” And “University Of Wisconsin, Madison; English, PhD; Rejected via Postal Service on 19 Feb 2008. Oh well, got in elsewhere, just don’t disappointment me twice in one day, Wisconsin. …polls close in 20 minutes…” Peppered in, of course, are the high-flying and minimally-cloaked gloating acceptances, like “University Of California, Los Angeles; English, PhD; Accepted via Website on 15 Feb 2008. OH MY GOD!” and “Yale University; English, PhD; Accepted via E-mail on 21 Feb 2008; !!!! I - I just, I mean. Wow.”
The other, drum_up_anxiety.net, is a discussion board started back in December, where people with Eliot-inspired pseudonyms and Bronte-dominated icons provoke anxiety and perpetuate one another’s deepest fears by sharing any and every minor bit of contact with various schools. The perfect example of this inane, unhealthy environment: I am what is known as a lurker - checking back far too frequently without making my presence known - but I managed to set off an avalanche of activity and anxiety by a simple email exchange.
After I heard from Irvine, I sent off a round of emails to the various professors and people who helped me through the application process. One of these people, the Student Services Manager in the English department, wondered whether she should email all of Stanford’s applicants to say that the department wouldn’t be notifying until February 29th. I responded that I thought it would be a very nice thing to do, given the propensity for guessing games on drum_up_anxiety.net.
Less than three hours later, I wandered compulsively back to my new most frequently visited sites (after gmail and facebook, of course). Lo and behold, there were multiple, simultaneously-written threads and posts involving this three-sentence email (one of which published the generic note in its entirety). Along with attempts to read between the lines (”Did everyone get this or just a select few?”), the flurry included a few real gems. “I love how utterly, utterly twitchy we are. Ok, I don’t, but I at least see the funny side.” “Damn you, Stanford. Damn you and your generous support packages and Center for the Study of the Novel.” “The Internet is the enemy of their secret English cabal. In Russian Livejournal, applicants discuss YOU.”
After I enjoyed my moment of schadenfreude (one of the anxiety-ridden posters had already gotten in to Berkeley), I decided it was time to delete the sites from my bookmarks. Two hours later, I found myself sifting back through the trash folder of my email to find the links…
And so it is that I blame my latest “how did we get here?” haze on what one Joyce-iconed individual described as “grad school crack.” Hence my new motto: Just say no. I swear, I only went back to grab the quotes for this post. Really.