What I Learned

I'm afraid I have some back-pedaling to do. A couple of posts back, I bemoaned the lack of standardization in graduate school applications. I fretted about the ten slightly different requests for my name, address, and academic history. I bitched about the odd requests to know exactly how many classes I had taken and where and when and how I'd done in them (actually most of this bitching was done off screen in my head). Well Reader, I must take most of the complaints back now.

You see, I also lied to you. I said I had finished the graduate applications when, in fact, I had not. I assumed myself almost finished. Ass-U-Me. I was not almost finished. I was not nearly finished. I am, however, finished now, and I have learned something. There may just be a reason why all of these applications are slightly different. There might be a purpose behind statements of purpose, autobiographical sketches, statements of goals, and teaching philosophies. Socrates (or whoever) warned, "Know thyself." You might think you already do. You do not. Not until you have filled out ten slightly different applications and written more autobiographies than if you were running for President. In fact, I will not vote for a President until he or she has applied to Brown, Hollins, Kent State, Arizona, Michigan, Oregon, Sarah Lawrence, The New School, Syracuse, and California, Irvine. Obama? McCain?

Not until then dost thy know thyself. I trust Socrates. He was the only one among us who knew enough to not write anything down.

So what did I learn? I learned I want to write. Yes, I already knew that. But it's less academic now that I've knocked on the gates of academia. If I didn't want to write, or if I only slightly wanted to write, I would not have jumped through the flaming hoops of MFAdom. I am a writer, read circus performer.

The second thing I learned is that I want to teach. No, my mother was not right about this after all. Yes, she did say I should teach, but I refuse to let her be right and I'm going to give an explanation of why she's wrong as soon as I think of it. But seriously, I want to teach, but I want to teach writers. I want to teach people who want to write or who, at the very least, respect writers and want to engage writers on their turf, the page (okay, the computer screen works for this analogy too. I'm not being tropophobic).

I want to bring writing back. I want to bring literature back from this so-called brink it's been precariously perched on all these years. I want to start a movement that isn't built like an ironic scaffold over its predecessors. I want to mean something, and I want my literature to do the same.

Thank you non-standard graduate school applications.

Now that I know myself, who wants to let me in?