Tips for First Year Grad Students - Calendar (Summer 2003)
Tips for First Year Grad Students - Calendar (Summer 2003)
SEPTEMBER
-Attend awkward departmental icebreaker events. Ice not broken.
-Make 1st nonsensical comment in class. Humiliation.
OCTOBER
-Attend Halloween party dressed as DeLeuzian rhizome. Surprisingly, no one gets it.
-Register just in time to vote in recall election. Need to form own opinion obviated by flood of helpful messages forwarded to department email listserv.
NOVEMBER
-95th nonsensical comment in class (asserting in presentation that Lord Byron "really had that poetry thing going on"). Defend comment using smokescreen of theory jargon. Triumph!
-Fail major language exam. Defend ego by noting that your translation is a hybridized text, predictably censored by wielders of linguistic capital. (See above)
DECEMBER
-Procrastinate seminar paper by watching “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy” marathon. Inspired, write essay entitled “Queer Theory for the New Historicist.”
-Telephone fight with long distance S.O. Upon reflection, regret using word "moribund."
JANUARY
-Bought too many Christmas presents on stipend check. Refried beans 3 meals a day "very California."
-Realize your seminar grades are meaningless when Allen gives you an “Ǽ”
FEBRUARY
-Make first non graduate school friend. Immediately requests transfer to new postal route.
-Discover Trader Joe's. Momentary escape from numbing vortex of self doubt found in exciting chutney selection.
MARCH
-Spend spring break finishing paper. Friends and family note that your skin has progressed from "pasty" to "translucent."
-Roommate's enjoyment of NCAA basketball tournament ruined by your persistent analogies to Hegelian dialectic.
APRIL
-Arm twisted into attending union meeting. Spend weekend phone banking surly grads in Portuguese dept.
-Discover alternate route from parking lot to HIB. Really getting to know your way around campus now.
-70°outside. Wear Polartec fleece. Acclimatized.
MAY
- Pass minor language exam in Portuguese.
-Second visit to LA since school started. Admit to self that "location" was poor rationale for choosing U.C. Irvine.
JUNE
-Professor suggests that your paper could be revised for journal publication. Unfortunately, Highlights for Kids no longer in circulation.
-Sudden inkling that you know what the fuck anyone is talking about. False alarm.
