Reactive meets reality:

I went to the mattresses, like you do in these situations, and I have discovered some bottom lines. How much to reveal about an institution where I have connections? Someone is asking someone if I should apply and the asker advises that the asked will probably say no (and the asked would know), as I am not A.B.D. (all but dissertation) nor do I have an MFA and so I would probably not be in the running in this market. Other mice are seeking the cheese of answers, so the tree has been shaken and we await what drops. Ph.D. questions in the comments – there is a cycle to applications – which are due in early February for fall starts – so we’re a year off. It’s been long enough since my last GRE (graduate record exam) that I should probably retest (I was quite hung over last time and did quite well, so we test the bounds of state dependant memory there) and I’ve actually never taken the subject test in English (as I am a World Lit guy and historically we haven’t been well represented by said test as our canon is mostly not white, not male and not dead).

Programs being considered:

Subaltern studies at Madison Wisconsin
World Lit in Puerto Rico
Public Intellectuals in Boca Raton Florida
MFA Iowa City

Any of these will cost serious bucks both through tuition and unemployment – I am already in debt up to eyeballs, I spend over half my current income on it, and PhD’s have a one in 500 shot at a university job where I will make just a little bit more than I currently make. Does this realistically sound like a good idea? Why don’t I open a bar, go to law school, and get a job in advertising while I write the great American essay. I may have already won the lottery – I need to go chat with my numbers. Like Ponce de Leon seeking the fountain of youth in 1500’s Florida, I am conditioned (by the American Dream which has some origins in that Spanish search for wealth and youth in the brave Mundus Novus) to seek the instantaneous spark of the quick fix for my noxious new age nowhere.

(Inane Wayne D quote – “We came from nowhere, now we’re here = now here, and we are heading to nowhere. The only thing that changes are the spaces.” You hear something like that and you might think you’ve actually heard something, but you haven’t – just vaguely Calvanist mutterings about the elect being elect because they know they’re elect and just letting themselves be elect already – double predestination is a handy sort of God loves this football team – kind of thinking. Don’t feel bad about the world. Feel good about yourself! That is doing your part. Is it? Sounds like apologist crap to me, in denial about the cost of privilege).