It is not by design that I am writing a life update upon the new season (though I could make it be). I truly have neglected this blog in the past few months, only recently picking it up to write about how shitty the architecture was in the 1950s-1960s-1970s. I also wrote the "Why I Won't Have Kids Until I am 30" post.
First and foremost, in my last "Life Update" post I was discussing my progress in working on my MFA in Poetry materials. Now, I have completed that process. I feel it is an adequate accomplishment.
Working on my portfolio was difficult because I had a lot of filler and a lot of poems that needed heavy revision or needed to be replaced. Thankfully, with help of Monique Kluczykowski, a professor at GSC I had who also partakes in facebook and is also looking to getting her MFA at Iowa, I was able to create some necessary deadlines and write poems that are reasonably reflective of the themes I wish to use in the future and the poems turned out to be pretty decent. I gave her a deadline in December to have 5 poems and ended up writing 8, many of which landed in my portfolio. My deadline for my portfolio being done was December 15th, which was the first deadline for Vanderbilt. I decided to apply to Vanderbilt because not only is it a good program and not only does it have a good financial aid package, but the application is also free. Plus the deadline gave me a reason to get the portfolio done and it would give me an idea of how the MFA application process would be.
As I started applying my choice of schools started differing. I also need to backtrack a bit and explain something that I decided before I began this process in earnest. For awhile I've been contemplating the MAT in Secondary Education program as well, but I finally decided to not do it. I've been trying to prioritize whether I really want to live in Georgia for another two years and get a degree that is very narrow, or a degree that will help me prepare for both my interest in writing and my interest in higher education. In my previous posts, most recently in my "What I Won't Have Kids" post, I discussed my "30 List" and how I really want to move out of state for a bit. I love Georgia; this is my home and I will die a Braves fan. That being said, I've never left home and I'm growing to have some cabin fever. I could move to Atlanta or Athens and get away from the small town but I don't think that's quite it. I'm disappointed in what I'm seeing in the state, with city and region planning, and most especially with education. Ultimately, either at the college/university or secondary levels, I will be involved in education. Therefore I want to be in a state that cares about education. I don't feel Georgia does. There's evidence in the budget cuts, the heavy push for charter schools (which I highly frown upon), but also in the disillusionment in the most passionate teachers that I've seen and seeing what curriculum they are given. For instance, 4th graders that I've substituted are supposed to know the difference between point of view and perspective of an author of a written work. What is the difference? I don't know. I felt very inadequate in not being able to help them, then I realized there really isn't a difference. Now, this is a national thing, unfortunately, but I feel like the conservatism and apathy of Georgia has provoked me to move out of state for a bit, to gain perspective about Georgia. I feel before settling somewhere one should live somewhere else and be damn sure he or she wants to spend the rest of his or her life there.
With this in mind, I decided that moving out is a priority. It is necessary to do something for my future in whatever career I choose, but my priority is moving out. This is a goal I had when I graduated; I set a deadline, August 2013, to move out of my parents' house. I intend to keep this goal and expanding it to moving out of state, if possible (and I intend to make it possible). I'm looking primarily at North Carolina, but also the Chicago/Illinois & Indiana areas, and I may look at some other areas out of my comfort zone (Wisconsin, anyone?). I am looking at areas that have good education programs; UNC-Chapel Hill has a MAT in English that is one year, so I would still get my certification and master's in time.
I intend to place my optimism in getting accepted into a MFA program. I applied to no programs in the state of Georgia. All of the programs I applied to are fully funded for all students. Instead of 4 or 5 MFA programs, as I had initially intended, I applied to 7. Many of my schools changed. I applied to LSU, U of Mississippi, NC State, NC-Greensboro, Purdue, Florida, and Vanderbilt. It cost $500, give or take.
That's right, $500+/-. Why? Most of these schools had an average of $50-60 cost to apply, but there's other elements at play as well. For instance, to send a transcript for your institution you have to pay a fee and most of the MFA programs require two official transcripts from every school. I went to two institutions so I had to pay around $20 for these transcripts each time. That's reasonable. To send GRE scores, however, you had to pay $25 per institution. Because I sent two of my freebie GRE scores to MAT programs, I had to pay that for 5 institutions. So to apply to an institution I would end up paying close to $80 and $90 per university. It sucked for me because it was during the Christmas break, which meant because I am a substitute teacher I wouldn't get a gig until late Janurary and because I work at the library, which pays once a month, I just saw my back account go down and down and down. It was wretched for a miser like me. That being said, I certainly understand that financial cost is about the commitment you have for doing this and I am definitely committed to getting into one of these MFA programs.
What will I do if I don't get in? My hope is that given my experience in education and library services, two fields that transcend state lines, I may actually get a job in another state. I will move out regardless. That is a certainty.
The bittersweet part of this is whether or not I will have money. See, most people before moving out will save up a bunch of money. I am frugal, but I also decided to travel big before this period. I am going to Peru, and I intend to backpack in Peru and Argentina. So there's that.
