THIS IS MY LIFE GUYS FROM BEING BACK TO NOW.
When I'm at work, a frozen yogurt place, that shall remain nameless lest this blog appear on a search engine, and it's self-serve and people come in and the doorbell rings and I stand there at the register and smile or say hello or say welcome to froyo-that-must-not-be-named and they either ignore me entirely or occasionally smile back. Then the store is long so they either know where to go, or they stop in front of me and start staring at the Smoothie boards looking for the list of yogurt flavors instead of walking 10 more god damn steps to where the yogurt machines are, hoping some yogurt fairy will just appear and write the flavors on the board so I'm like the asshole who has to say, excuse me do you want frozen yogurt or a smoothie? and the ones who want a smoothie are offended that I am insinuating they're stupid and the ones who don't want a smoothie are offended that I am insinuating they're stupid.
Some of them stop and ask me for "a taster cup" or "a taste thing" or "a taster" or "a little cup to taste" and I go, oh a sample cup? ( >_>) BEFORE THEY EVEN SEE WHAT FLAVORS WE HAVE or after they look they ask and I have to walk over to give it to them because if we have the bucket sitting out apparently everyone will just stand there and eat free samples and then leave (which happens even when they ask for samples).
Then they are singularly unable to swirl the yogurt in the cup without spilling it over the edge, onto the face of the machine, or on their hands and then walk over and ask me for a napkin. Or they take the small cup like "I dont want a big cup then I'll just fill it up and eat too much" but then their inability to swirl the yogurt properly makes them fill up the entire small cup so much that it wont fit any toppings and then they spill the fucking toppings all over the toppings bar because their yogurt is two inches over the rim of the cup and it all couldve fit in the large cup. #icant
It looks like this legit
and I'm just standing there wanting to be like,
but I can't, because it's not my job to do it for them, just to clean up after them.
But honestly I like a lot of the customers and some of them try to keep it clean. But some of them couldn't give two shits about aiming the spoon of coconut flakes into their cup of yogurt and spill it all over. And some take one of the spoons and use it for everything and contaminate everything with peanut. Dont get me started on the peanuts.
So graduate school.
I have three professors.
One is Jackie. Jackie is brilliant, and insightful, and hilarious. She knows all the tricks about teaching and how to simplify your ideas. She is one of the most intimidating women I've ever met, partly because she is smart as a whip, and the other part is how she looks at you. She is the most intense active listener I've ever come across. For that course, which is Teaching Writing, if we make a statement about our pedagogy (new fancy vocab word) she will then rephrase it in the form of a question which will make you wonder if everything you have ever said in your life is a lie. I mean full on intellectual debates back and forth between us declaring something about our beliefs and her responding with questions that we never thought of before and causing us to full on contradict ourselves and then pointing out that contradiction. Which is amazing but very very scary. But we need that.
Another is Martha. She is brilliant, insightful, and just fantastic. I would love her if I wasn't so freaking terrified of her. But I do love her. Her class is Genre Development: Novel, the class which has 21 books on the reading list, and is structured on discussion of the texts - two huge presentations - and two huge essays. The class is 50% PARTICIPATION and 50% ESSAYS. 2 ESSAYS AT 25% EACH. Martha was a copy-editor previously and has pointed out things about my writing voice that I didn't notice before.
The last is Cathy. She is brilliant, insightful, and just plain cool. I'd love to be her friend. She's new to the faculty this year and so has bonded with the first year MFAs because we were noobs together. The class I have with her has 2nd year students too though. Anyway, she - as most professors do - gives very useful workshop comments - is funny as hell and I want her to be the voice of my future audiobooks.
I am taking three classes:
Fiction Workshop - Monday 7pm - 930 pm
First day we got our schedule of workshop. I am paired with a second-year fiction student (no pressure, same day as kid who is no doubt amazing nice) and last in the list. So that was fine, gave me plenty of time to get something together. So during class, every class, we workshop 2 people's stories, we go in a circle and we have to write on their piece and also write a one-page informal essayish thingy about what we thought of it and stuff, which we had to print one copy for them and one copy for Cathy. Which was fine.
Oh and on the first day, when discussing page length, we all agreed that 30 pages was the max we could read and comment on in a week, so if we wanted to hand in something longer than 30 pages, we had to give it earlier, so like 60 pages would be 2 weeks in advance and 90 pages would be 3 weeks in advance etc. I was like, hey day 1, how about I hand all y'all my 392 page novel that no one but Professor Kaldas and my best friend's mom have read in its entirety?
But I didn't. I'm just giving them 65ish pages of it.
For my first submission I wrote a farce (because I made up a playwrighting exercise on farce for Teaching class and was inspired). A farce is a tragedy that is comical and is propelled by panic and absurdity. It actually went over really well, everyone said that they laughed out loud but that it needed to focus more on only one character and that it didn't really have a plot. Like, things happen, but there was no plot. and I was sitting there like..................
And after the first few classes, we then had to individually teach a 30 minute lesson to the class on anything about craft. A craft lesson. And I had to go first! Yay!
So I did an exercise that I did in memoir class: "Write a letter to someone saying all of the things you want to say to them that you have never said to them." and then I gave them a decent 15 minutes to write, and 3 people shared. Then I went into my lesson on conflict.
Basically what I tried to do was to use this memoir exercise for fiction - and the way I connected the two was for initial novel planning, writing this "letter" from the protagonist to another character, then that other character back at the protagonist, basically from all main characters to each other - then figuring out whose story is most important and whose you want to be told - then deciding your POV based on that. Like, whose voice would start the novel, if the perspective would change for a certain development, or if first person makes more sense to use than third person or even second person. Basically. In a nutshell. Which was hard for me to explain in person and I was half trying to get them all to understand the connection between conflict and character and plot and memoir and letter writing and novel planning and ugh it was just a clusterfuck but two girls (who are now my friends) said that the letter inspired them for later writings which was good - though the purpose it was for with them was as a strictly memoir prompt...
Everyone who has taught their lesson since then has learned from my miserable example ;) lol
This monday I'm going to hand out 65 pages of my novel, so that'll be fun.
Teaching Creative Writing: Theory and Practice - Tuesday 4pm - 630pm
On the first day of this class, we all signed up for every single presentation slot for the entire semester. Of which there were like 6 or 7 that had to be filled in on the syllabus.
Each class is divided up into sections of some of the following things and I'll list them all:
One person is the discussion leader on an article we have to print out and read for class.
Everyone goes up and times themselves (3-5 mins) presenting the homework reading/presentation that they signed up for on day one.
Everyone goes up and times themselves (3-5 mins) presenting the homework exercise presentation that they typed up in a one page handout and distributed.
Two people go up and present/teach the element of craft they signed up for on day 1 that they typed up in a one page handout and distributed.
Three people have their teaching practice on the day that they signed up for on day 1.
Everyone goes up and presents their grading policy, their lesson plan, and their complete syllabi that they have to handout and defend and explain.
Immediately after your presentation/teaching/exercise everyone comments on how well you relayed the information and how well you structured your handout.
Jackie gets an average of 5-15 minutes to speak about what the lesson was for that day, because presentations/discussions of presentations go overtime.
In our most recent class we had a "Classroom Management Workshop". We have to write a complete syllabus for class this coming tuesday, so Jackie wanted us to be aware of some crazy classroom situations that occur that cannot be prepared for on the syllabus.
Did y'all know that a syllabus is a legal document? And that if the professor does not write on it "this schedule is subject to change at the teacher's discretion" then it CAN NOT BE CHANGED???
So everyone sat in a circle, there were 9 of us, and she passed out a bag of 15 scenarios. We would have a minute to read them and 10 minutes to write what we would do. Then we would do them in numerical order, reading out for 3 minutes what we would do - then everyone had 10 minutes to weigh in and discuss.
Context: The hypothetical class is Introduction to Creative Writing. It is 3 days a week, and is 50 minutes in duration, and begins at 9 am. The class is co-ed and contains 20 students of all years and majors.
The Adelphi attendance policy is 3 unexcused absences, then any after that are an automatic deduction of 1/3rd a letter grade (an A would become an A-, then B+, then B...etc)
Here were the scenarios:
1. You have a no cell phone policy on your syllabus, but you notice students in the back row are occasionally texting. They do not cause a disturbance, they participate, and they are doing well on assignments. What do you say to them?
2. Kristen has a total of 7 absences. She missed 3 classes for her grandfather's stroke, hospital visit, and funeral - 2 because her and her boyfriend got into a car accident and had to go to court - and 2 because she had to flu. She wants to schedule a meeting with you about make-up work. What do you talk about?
3. Two students sit together and on the previous quiz, their answers for one question are indentical in their strangeness, uniqueness, and are also incorrect. What do you do about it?
4. Terrence and Mark are roommates and do not get along. After a few weeks, Mike comes to you and says that every male character Terrence writes is based on him and his personal life and he is upset about it. What do you do about it?
5. Sheila writes a very descriptive and detailed poem about how she will go about ending her life. What do you do?
6. You are at the bar with a group of other professors and it is happy hour. You turn and notice one of your students, and they offer to buy you a drink. What do you do?
7. A student has a total of 7 absences. Two are for the flu, and you did notice him coughing and sniffing in class prior. When you question him, he says the other 5 were "for religious reasons." What do you say?
8. Tina accuses you of giving good grades to the popular students and bad grades to the quiet students. What do you say to her?
9. Gail goes to the bathroom every single class period. Now you notice that Anya and Val do too. What do you do?
10. Your students have handed in their final portfolios in manila envelopes, and have gone home for winter break. On the commute home, you accidentally leave the stack of envelopes on the train and they ride off, never to be seen again. What do you do?
11. Stacey hasn't done several assignments and has failed the last few quizzes. As a result she is automatically failing the course. When you meet with her to notify her that she is failing, she accuses you of racism / sexism. What do you do?
12. When you give out a particularly long assignment, one student begins yelling that they do not have to do the assignment because their parent is a wealthy alum who sits on the board. What do you say?
13. A student writes a story or poem expressing their undying love for you. What do you do?
14. A student friend requests you on Facebook. What do you do?
15. Dante's father is a well-known writer for the New York Times, and you often read his articles and admire his work. He calls you to set up a meeting to discuss the grade Dante received on his last writing assignment. What do you do?
Genre Development: Novel - Wednesday 6:20pm ~8:50 pm.
This class was my first graduate school class ever. Classes started on wednesday August 28th. Martha introduced herself - she is soft spoken, quite like a more smiley Miranda Priestly. She explains the 50% PARTICIPATION thing, and says that we will be reading 20 novellas, for the first half of the semester, 2 a week.
Then came the game changer.
One student was assigned a novella, and would then lead the discussion for one hour. The only discussion of this novella that would happen in the entire semester is that one hour, and it's allllll you. Any moment where you aren't sitting there in total silence or having to speak non stop for an hour is incumbent on you coming up with amazing discussion questions. No pressure guys.
Oh and best part? I was assigned to go first. 2 weeks later. With Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis.
The thing that Martha was clear about from the start is that the discussion would not be analytical or critical. It would be purely examining the structure of the novella, the elements of craft, and how the writer's choices affect the piece as a whole and what they convey to the reader.
So when I did my discussion of The Metamorphosis (which I really enjoyed reading, and it's one of my favorites from the class) a big thing that I researched was translation, because it was originally in German, and Martha had demanded we get this one particular translation because of the word choice in the first sentence. This one translator changed the german word with no english equivalent into "vermin" rather than "bug" or "insect" or "cockroach". Honestly, all of us by the end of the discussion and hearing Martha talk about the novella we were all convinced that Gregor didn't actually turn into a bug at all. Merely a vermin whose sudden transformation into this incapacitated state angered the family dependent / mooching off of him to view him with contempt and as this monstrous being who they then were forced to care for - leading to eventual neglect - and with his death they show no remorse and show signs that they will repeat the process with his sister. But I digress.
Novellas I can recommend after taking this course are, The Buddha in the Attic by Julie Otsuka, and Her Body Knows by David Grossman. Buddha is written in first person plural, and is about the immigration of Japanese women to America after they were sold for the money. It is their lives from Japan, to the ship, to the farms, labor camps, then to the city, then it ends with Pearl Harbor and their internment. It is incredible.
Body is written as a story within a story - a woman returns to her mother's deathbed to read her the story she wrote about her mother's love affair with a 15 year old boy who ran away. It is less about the story, and more about the fact that the daughter reading her mother's fictionalized life story helps them heal their troubled relationship.
Read them both, now.
I am a Writing Assistant for the class, Literature in English III.
I attended a grand total of 10 hours of training in the writing center for how to comment on student papers. I met with the professor and met the class twice.
The class has to turn in a 300-word paper or a 600-word paper every friday before 5pm, and the professor assigned me the job of reading and commenting on all 25 of them by the following wednesday so they could "apply my comments for their next assignment."
So this means, me, unprompted, giving them feedback on papers that they don't have to revise ever, and I am not hired to do copy-edits, so I sit there lecturing them on MLA and formatting and structure and thesis statements and questions on content and then maybe some of them read them, but so far only about 3 of the 25 have actually improved and taken my suggestions.
They wrote so many papers on Jane Eyre that I no longer hold any desire at all to read that book (of which the desire was miniscule before that anyway).
The prompts for their most recent papers are:
"From any of the readings from the past 2 weeks, identify and explain one element (plot, descriptive, rhetorical) that is crucial to defining the specificity or distinctiveness of the culture depicted. (300 words)"
"Based on the cultural element you identified in last week’s writing, explain how this culturally specific element is used by the writer to address broader human experience or realities. (600 words)"
Yeah...even I had to email the professor to make sure even I understood the assignment.
As I stated earlier, I think the whole concept of examining the author's choices about a piece rather than analyzing the content of the story is foreign to undergrads. Is it just me? Let me know in the comments.
I definitely wouldn't have been able to argue in favor of or in disagreement with the writer of the novel/novella/play in an argument on culture...
So over the weeks I have been less and less enthusiastic about this extra workload particularly considering no other WA is required by their professor to read and comment on every piece.
So eventually they will turn one of the 600-word papers into their final essay, and for that they will be required to meet with me to discuss that first. I'll update you once that arrives because I can guarantee half don't bother scheduling and a further 1/4 don't show up.
But maybe I'm being pessimistic.
The paycheck is nice though.
All in all I can honestly say that graduate school has so far been one of the best decisions I've ever made.
I am thrilled to bits that Adelphi accepted me and that I enrolled.
Now, the only thing I'm worried about is the loans after graduation...but I have another year to deal with that...
Although here I have expressed my trepidation and pure terror for the assignments and workload but honestly this level of thinking was just absent from Hollins. I mean everyone has gone through 4 years of workshop so there aren't moments of unhelpful comments that come up in discussion (though I am still delightfully awkward at speaking during workshop)
I think the only professor to whom I can really compare the intensity of this program to is Julie Pfeiffer, and we all know my history with her...(though I have never denied her brilliance - and I owe her).
Since there are no core requirements or gen eds or anything, it is all really focussed on studying literature to become a better writer - to look at it through the eyes of a writer and to understand why it had to be written the way it was in order to achieve the things it achieves. It isn't about analyzing it as an untouchable classic or as "good" or "bad" it's about examining the choices that went into its existence.
The teaching course I knew I had to take because I want to be a professor, and it is also a pre-req for teaching the Intro course to real live undergrads (!!!). I have always been petrified of presentation/public speaking so the fact that every single class we are all going up there and presenting upwards of 4 things in one class has made the whole thing a lot easier. Still not 100% comfortable, but I'm getting there.
So far grad school hasn't rendered me to the drooling mess in memes or to the graduate school Barbie.
I know I am only 2 months in so I imagine the memes are more garnered toward thesis year, so...reserving judgement until then ;)
To my writer friends: I don't think an MFA is necessary if you don't plan on teaching. If I didn't want to teach, I would agree that it serves only as a gateway to more loan debt (though it does have some other uses). It does have its perks being part of a new writing community, with new people to force to read your stuff, but I mean, wouldn't someone do that same thing for you if you gave them a little money? Far less than the ~$40,000 it would cost for grad school?
I need this degree to be able to teach college, so the fact that writing workshops and a creative thesis and a practicum class in the NYC campus is just a glorious perk for the particular program I chose.
If any books nowadays are any indication, one does NOT need a master's degree to be published, or to be a great writer. Which I think all y'all are great writers anyway.
Anyway here are some fails:
When I was doing my hour-long presentation on The Metamorphosis I asked my first question, "What is the point of view?" and someone said "first." and I said, "does anyone agree?" and no one agreed because it was in third person, so I said, "I can see why you thought that because it is a close third so all action we see outside of the protagonist is only moments where the protagonist is overhearing conversation -" and Martha interrupted me and said, "why don't we have a discussion on points of view, because it appears none of you know what those are."
When I was presenting my fiction exercise for Teaching Writing, I learned from my mistakes teaching "the letter" to the fiction workshop people (of which 6 of them were in this class too) and tried to present it again as a purely fiction thing and no mention of memoir. Jackie tutted and said hmm and I sat down in a puddle of shame and Regina George yelled at me, "Sarah, stop trying to make The Letter happen, it's not going to happen."
When I was presenting on a poetry exercise, the Impersonal Universe Deck, which consisted of making a deck of words to pick from to use as inspiration for poems - and one of the prompts was to write an embarrassing word and I wrote clit, and then during the presentation I actually made the deck, and I was flipping through reading off words and giving out hypothetical poem themes and I flipped to clit and started laughing and then said, "clit...you can write a poem about clits...yeah that one was an embarrassing word...anyway, basically its whatever you need to get started...not your clit...but for poems....yeah..."
When I was the only hypothetical professor to get automatically fired when explaining what I would do in a hypothetical situation with a hypothetical student and their parent during the Teaching Writing's "Classroom Management Workshop". Which hypothetically breaks FERPA. I know that you Hollins readers have definitely heard of FERPA ;)
My friend Devin studied abroad in Melbourne and she asked me to bring her back a few packs of TimTams and I did and her twin / my friend rolled his eyes at the fact that I brought home a grand total of 13 packs but then I made him slam one and then he looked at me with wide eyes and I was like yeah now you understand.
So now he understands. His body knows.
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