23 August 2006

that time of year

It's that time of year. I know all y'all are talking about going back to school, but I'm interested in the best thing about late August: the U.S Open.

Draws have been completed and posted. Mostly I'm interested in the draws because of unseeded Andre Agassi, a legend playing in the last tournament of his storied career. His draw looks ... meh. Could be better, could've been much, much worse. Agassi is likely to meet Baghdatis early, but that Cypriote's play has been so streaky, that I think Agassi has as good a chance as anyone in his corner (including Thomas Johansson and perennial bad-boy Sebastian Grosjean) to make it to the Round of 16. Here's to hoping.

Of course, there he'd be likely to meet up with Andy Roddick, who I see as the American man most likely to make a run at Flushing Meadows. Love him or hate him (and I know you do, NK), teaming up with Jimmy Connors has been good for A-Rod's psyche and he's playing with guts and belief for the first time in recent memory. Yes, James Blake did win Indianapolis, but his results since then have not only been dismal, he hasn't been playing with any really belief or spirit (more worrisome to me than even his results). After his early exit from New Haven (after failing to convert 5 match points, no less), I'm tempted to believe that Blake's ascent has reached its summit for the forseeable future.

On the women's side, I haven't seen Amelie Mauresmo play since her win at Wimbledon; with the "choke" monkey off her back, I imagine that she'll be swinging for the corners with greater abandon. I look forward to that. Unfortunately, Clijsters' ubiquitous wrist injury (though this time it was ligaments, not tendons) made a nasty reappearance in Montreal, and the relatively unknown, and blissfully dark-haired, Russian Ana Ivanovic clinched the US Open Series and has a lot of momentum going into the Open. Two other Russians, Sharapova and Petrova, both have something to prove at this Open, with lackluster results through the Spring and Summer. And, of course, it'll be great to see Americans Lindsay Davenport and Serena Williams (a wild card!) in action, as well as the up-and-coming Shenay Perry.

Yup, I love this time of year, and not just because it's the start of school.

the new advisor

comebacknikki asked about the meeting with my advisor.

I'm excited to announce that my advisor is really stylish. Flattering, funky clothes, cool glasses, and a great haircut.

I don't mean to be superficial about this, but you have to realize that, in Old Discipline, a stylish advisor was extremely rare. I don't know if my new advisor is an anomaly in Mysterious Discipline, but either way, I'll take it.

Of course, my advisor is also extremely intelligent, has strong intellectual commitments, and absolutely loves her job in a very palpable way.

While I ended up with a great committee chair my last time in grad school, he was from New Discipline and wasn't really into the academic advising side of things. She's just the kind of advisor I didn't have in my M.A. program, both in terms of style and substance, and I'm grateful.

So, I am hoping that our relationship will be productive and satisfying both professionally and personally. It is a testament to this little corner of the blogworld that I can admit that having a stylish advisor matters to me, at least a little, and that I feel happy and lucky to have just such an advisor as I embark on my doctoral studies.

(I'm also giggling to myself that I get label this post with the tags "graduate school" and "fashion." That's a first for me.)

22 August 2006

inhabiting new homes

Today, for the first time in this house, I walked home from work, came in the house, and thought, with a wonderfully full and relaxed sigh, "I love this home." My love for this place has been growing since we moved in, but today is the first day that it felt like home. And not just a home, but our home, reflecting our needs, tastes, and values.

It's a home where I can see myself dissertating. And it feels good to be home.

In other news, I've migrated this blog to the new blogger beta. So, I've changed my posting name and e-mail address in order to keep everything a bit more streamlined. I've also tweaked my template to (sort of) match my office area in the new house. The new template customizing feature ends up making my sidebar and title fonts huge and underlining my post titles, which I'm not crazy about, but I can live with it for now.

So, new homes all around.

A dinner of salmon broiled with fresh pesto, steamed corn on the cob, and organic red zin awaits. Yup, feeling good.

21 August 2006

it begins with a book

Tomorrow I have my first meeting with my advisor for the doctoral program I am beginning this fall.

It feels so strange to type these words. I'm starting my Ph.D.

I had a feeling I'd get around to the Ph.D. at some point, but I had no idea it would be so soon or in this discipline. (You can read more about that here.)

Tonight, as I pack my bag for school (a weeknight ritual, involving preparing my lunch, tracking down my keys, putting coffee beans in the grinder and water in the electric teapot, etc.), I am slipping a book into my backpack. It is the book that seduced me away from Old-School Discipline and continues to inspire me as I pursue a Ph.D. in Mysterious Discipline. It is beautiful and compelling and important.

Tomorrow I will shared this book--worn and well-loved--with my advisor, who is interested my area of study, which I'll call InterDiscipline, but doesn't have much background in it. In my humble estimation, this unorthodox book provides the best introduction to the burgeoning field of InterDiscipline. And the pages, with my fading highlighter strokes and comments tucked away in the margines, provide the most raw testament to my own beginnings and growth in this area.

Inside the book, which I bought across an ocean and in another hemisphere, the price--60.00 in the local currency--is noted on the title page. The edges of the pages are beginning to yellow.

I see this book and know it changed me, and the course of my life, profoundly. I am excited to begin the next, and hopefully last, stage of my schooling.

18 August 2006

stillness, for a moment

The whirl and tumult has ceased for few minutes. Big Sis has collapsed on the futon; Clark has fallen asleep sitting up in bed; and Niece (age 7) and Nephew (age 5) have retired to their bed in the guest room. I can hear them through 2 closed doors, attempting to "share" the down comforter.

Big Sis, Niece, and Nephew are not actually family. That means we don't share genes or ancestors. (Then again, Niece and Nephew are adopted, so they don't share those things with Big Sis, either.) It also means we don't have to stress about having everything perfect when they visit and we have a lot of fun when they come. But they are close enough to feel like family. If anything were to happen to Big Sis and her husband, we would raise Niece and Nephew. Though I don't like to contemplate this "God Forbid" scenario, it means a lot to have this special relationship with these kids.

We were up early, playing Legos, fixing Cheerios and oatmeal (for the little kids) and veggie frittata (for us big kids), taking Dog on a walk. Clark and Big Sis went to do some errands. I made lunch while they were gone: 2 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and 3 tuna sandwiches. Pickles, yellow pepper strips, and baby carrots for all.

We are getting ready to go to the TownNextDoor Festival. Niece is excited to go on the midway rides and see the crafts; Nephew is pumped for tractors and the kiddie tractor pull. I am just happy to get experience it all with them. (Except for the rides; that's Clark's area of expertise. Rides pretty much make me want to ralph.)

Although I don't envision a life where Clark and I are raising kidlets of our own, it is impossible for me to imagine a life without children. Niece and Nephew are as much "mine" as anyone I have ever known. Their quirks, their faults, their successes, their charms feel familiar and safe.

It's good to have them visit, good to have Big Sis, Niece, and Nephew be the first visitors with whom we share our first, our new home.

11 August 2006

a GREvious requirement

So, the GRE. I have taken it twice now. Not for a better score, but because after five years, your scores “expire.” I guess, after five years, it would be easy to forget the antonym of “encomium” and what the ratio of the sides in a 30-60-90 triangle is.

So, I got to take the GRE for the second time last week, seven years after I took it the first time.

I am one of those annoying people that does not get nervous before standardized tests. I only took the SAT once (and I never took the PSAT or the SAT in junior high or any of that crap), and got a 700 on both sides. That was fine with me. Maybe I would’ve felt differently if I hadn’t done as well, but I never felt like I should get a higher score on the SAT or that the score was somehow indicative of how “smart” I was.

The first time I GRE’d, there were verbal, quantitative, and analytical sections. At that time, analytical was basically logic problems and generally gave test-takers the most trouble. Because of my training in philosophy, that’s the section I scored the highest in (I can’t remember the number, but it came out to 94th percentile). I scored in the 60th percentile in math, which was fine with me because I was pursuing a Ph.D. in the humanities. In verbal, my score was only in the 85th percentile. I was disappointed with this score, because I felt it didn’t accurately reflect my facility with language. However, I wasn’t disappointed enough to re-take the $100 exam (that was the price in the late 1990s).

After taking the GRE again, I’ve confirmed that my math skillz are bad. Well, really, they’re more “rusty” than “bad,” if that distinction makes any sense. I scored in the 50th percentile in math. And that score would’ve been much, much worse if I hadn’t done some test prep.

This time around, verbal score went up quite a bit—from 85th to 95th percentile. I guess grad school and work have made me a little smarter, after all. That feels good.

Of course, ETS has eliminated the section on which I scored the highest the first time around, analytical. However, I am sure that this time around, I would not have scored so high on that section. It’s been a long time since I took symbolic logic.

Instead, there was an “analytical writing” section in which I was given a choice of two statements. I chose one and had 45 minutes to write a persuasive essay based on the statement. Then, I was given a short paragraph about an issue, on which I had to write a critical assessment of the argument in 30 minutes. I felt pretty solid about those, though that kind of writing always feels so contrived to me. I don’t get my score on the writing section for another two to three weeks, so I may have more to write then.

Of course, none of this commentary means that much, because the GRE is supposedly undergoing a major overhaul. ETS is rolling out a new, and supposedly much different, version in Fall 2007. I still think the GRE sucks. Educational testing is a racket! At $130, the GRE is, by far, the most expensive part of preparing a graduate school application. Yet, GRE scores, in my experience, do not correlate to one’s success or failure in grad school. At all.

It’s hard not to feel more than a little cynical about ETS’ call for more “accountability” (read: testing) in higher education. ETS is supposedly a nonprofit, but I don’t buy that for a minute.

I was a bit nervous about telling Grad Director about my GRE math score. Mysterious Discipline isn’t particularly math-oriented, but it does use applied math quite a bit and certainly values the math score a lot more than a humanities program. He said my math score was above average for the discipline and that my verbal score was excellent, boosting my strength as a candidate. So, $130 and a few stressful weeks later, I guess I accomplished what I needed to on the GRE. But it doesn’t it make me any happier about having had to do it.

I know the GRE is a distant memory for most of my readers, but how did you feel about the test? Your scores? Their impact on your grad school application?

mish-mash. my brain is mush!

Thanks, all, for all the comments I haven’t responded to.

Ugh. That’s how I feel right now. Why? I’m not sure. There’s a lot of good going on. But I’m exhausted. I am working every day, and then going home and working 5 to 6 more hours at home helping Clark with home improvement projects. So, I’m dragging

But I have lots I want to share about:

home improvement
Clark’s home improvement injury
my weekend trip to metro Boston
Kittie’s antics
ESPN’s coverage of the US Open Series
Maria Sharapova’s money lust
GRE prep and the exam itself
Adjusting to a new Megaboss
starting Grad School, again
Reading for Pleasure Wednesday: Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain

Any suggestions about where I should start?

And, Dr. Crazy, I miss New Kid, too.

03 August 2006

oops

I'm still in full-on GRE prep mode (I take the test tomorrow afternoon), but I had to take a quick break to share this. I'm reading through the possible issue topics for the GRE section on analytical writing and found this:

"The true strength of a country is best demonstrated by the willingness of its government to tolerate challenges from it's own citizens."

Do I get extra credit for finding bad grammar in the GRE's own test-prep material?