April 12, 2013

You know those moments when you're reading something and you just go, "YES!" and everything makes sense because suddenly a complex truth about your life has just been shared in the simplest of ways?

Well, that happened to me today. For, like, the fiftieth time this week. Nora Ephron, people. She gets it. 

"Why hadn't I realized how much of what I thought of as love was simply my own highly developed gift for making lemonade? What failure of imagination had caused me to forget that life was full of other possibilities, including the possibility that eventually I would fall in love again?"

This is my "HOLY HELL, WHAT DID I GET MYSELF INTO?!" face as I'm putting the finishing touches on my essay about the way Mistress Overdone represents the scale of justice and mercy in William Shakespeare's Measure For Measure. I wrote out that entire thing because after that chunk of literary research I did, I deserve to sound smart about it.

But just so you don't think my life is always full of these fantastic epiphanies and glorious moments (ha, ha), I will have you know that yesterday, I turned in a resume for a job at the writing center on campus.  And, I mean, that job is not an easy thing to just get. I must've revised it at least one hundred times with my professor, added swanky names to my reference list like "Dr. Christine Cooper-Rompato, Associate Professor of English" (who happens to be the most incredible professor I have come to know in my undergraduate career), revised it by myself in the library, criticized my writing sample more times than should even be humanly possible, and didn't notice until TODAY, AFTER my resume had already submitted that I had 
misspelled a word!! 
 I'm not trying to be dramatic, but almost threw up.

And, do you know what else? While we're on the subject, I would just like to bring up the fact that yesterday in my Non-Fiction exploration class, we learned about publishing and the challenges that come along with it. I mean, I know it's hard. I've always known that this is not an easy field to come out of with a job (unless you want to be a technical writer... *crickets chirping*), but I was stressing out while my professor listed the hoops a person has to jump through to get published. And, like I said before, I knew they were there, but now they're real hoops! Not far-off-into-the-distant-future-hoops. Real ones. The kind that come in the form of rejection letters and an intimidating faculty who expects you to submit to publishing companies before graduation, while simultaneously asking you write good thesis statements and personal essays about your body parts.. and then there are the empty writer promises that you're guilty of spewing.  They usually sound something like, "Sure I'll have that piece to you by next week" when you're confident there's not enough material in your brain to give weight to even a rough draft!! 

Also, lest we not forget I'm the applicant who misspelled a word on her academic vita LIKE AN IDIOT.

I'm getting overwhelmed. This post needs to be finished now.

W.W.N.D.
(What would Nora do?)
I'm making T-shirts.

And to end on a few good notes, let me take you to my happy place:
 I bought thirty dollars worth of books today (all things Fitzgerald and John Green) and rented Dead Poet's Society because... it's Dead Poet's Society.
Aaaaaaand I went to a poetry reading, too. Michael Sowder was there and I almost went over to say hello, but I got too nervous. I'm still really obsessed with him.

2 comments:

  1. maybe it will be one of those things where they're so intrigued by your writing that their brain will just read the word without noticing that a letter is reversed. crossing my fingers for you.

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  2. I've done that before. Almost had a heart attack. Misspelled word from an English major? That's pretty freakin weird.

    Also, I love your new header. I want you to make me one, actually. I'll pay you. In tickle fights?

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i like words. and you. write me a few?