I had a wonderful, intellectually stimulating, weekend in Cleveland with some old college friends. I didn't realize how stimulating until I started driving home Sunday afternoon and couldn't stop coming up with poem ideas and lines. I wrote a few down when I stopped to get a cup of coffee halfway home. My brain is still buzzing now, and it was so nice to be surrounded by smart people, and to see the way that it helped my creativity; it makes me that much more excited for grad school, and that much more sure that I made the right decision in applying.
However, I am completely saddened that I don't think I got into Wisconsin! They sent a bunch of acceptances out via email yesterday, and I didn't get one, and I am crushed. It just seemed so "meant to be", the way I wrote it on my list before I'd even researched it, and the way I kept seeing that car with the Wisconsin license plates outside my apartment, and the way one of my friends in Cleveland was telling me she knows people out there who'd help me out.... I guess I can't fully count it out until I get the rejection in the mail, but I am quite sad that I don't think I made their cut. I'm starting to wonder if fate is just telling me to go to Penn State, and making the decision easier by not giving me any other acceptances.... I KNOW that I'll be happy at Penn if I go there, and I KNOW it's a good program, and I don't want to downplay either of those facts at all, BUT it's a blow to my ego not to get in anywhere else. I admit that, okay? I have an ego, and it will be really hurt if I only make into one of the nine schools I applied to. Even though it's a good one, and even though they only chose two poets, and even though there are plenty of people who applied to more schools and didn't get in anywhere. I still have that ego, and I still want to feel like I am wanted and valued, and I still want to feel like I have a choice of where to go....
Sigh.....
I'll post a little bit of something that popped into my head on the drive home Sunday:
Ohio
This state
is shaped
vaguely
like a heart
and my life
has flowed
like blood
through all
four chambers.
The title of this post is also a line that occurred to me on that drive, but one which is being worked into a poem.
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4 comments:
Hey, be thrilled about Penn State. Be over the moon about it. There's no rhyme or reason to these decisions sometimes, and you can spend oodles of time cutting yourself down wondering why you didn't get in here or did get in there. You got into one of your choices, with a fellowship. That's phenomenal news.
(And you still haven't heard back from everyone yet. You could have more good news on the way.)
Aren't I being all telly? Isn't that icky of me? :)
You're right, Dana! I KNOW all of that, and I AM thrilled with Penn State. I think a bit part of this, aside from the ego, is that I am kind of a control freak and I just want to have all the information in front of me, all the options, and be able to choose and start planning.
It's like I threw all these things up in the air, and some of them have come to earth, but the others are caught in eddies of wind, and I am chasing them in circles, waiting for them to land.
Thank you though, for the logical slap upside the head. You're totally right!
Emily, I know the feeling of having things in the air. I wasn't trying to slap you at all. I am more of a tickler. ;)
eh, i could use a good slap sometimes, logically of course, not physically.
i can't believe it's not even march yet....there is so much time left before we'll get all our answers. you haven't heard anything about grad school yet, have you?
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