Quick note about the above song: it very well might end up my song of the year. It has spent the last three days on loop, and frankly it's a great musical expression of my mind state these days. I strongly strongly recommend anyone reading this to check out the song. Especially if you like indie, mellow, funky songs.
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| Blithewood Garden at Bard College: one of my favorite stomping grounds. |
Incidentally, it's Bard's MFA program that most interests me, although it's also the most out there.
Of the schools I've looked at with any seriousness, I think it's only SUNY Albany, Dominican University of California, Boston University, Northeastern University and the reachiest of my reach schools, Oxford University that still have open applications. When I spoke with Amanda about how much I want to go to graduate school, she said one thing: "Don't make the mistakes that you made last year."
The mistakes to which she was referring were two: one, that I only applied to one school and I consequently had no comparisons (price and otherwise) to make; two, and this was the big one, that I didn't apply for something that I really want to do.
Last year I applied solely to Bard's CEP program, and I believe I did so for all the wrong reasons. For one thing, I applied because I was nostalgic for Bard - painfully so. I think I even have a blog post somewhere last year about nostalgia that I wrote because of how nostalgic I was. For another thing, I applied to the CEP program because my father was strongly advocating my doing something like that. The result was that I wrote a perfunctory statement of purpose that lacked my usual passion or excitement. The truth is that I am passionate about the environment. The truth is also that it's not something I want to work with for the rest of my life. It's just not.
I turned down the offer from Bard, partly due to money, but also due to the fact that it didn't feel right to me. This year, I regret having turned down the offer - not because it was an offer to the CEP, but because it was an offer to a grad program. The thought of an acceptance letter, the thought of having an opportunity to go learn again, and about something I'm passionate about no less, gives me goosebumps just sitting here. Either that or the goosebumps are because I'm ill.
Or maybe I turned down Bard because I'm afraid. I fear change. I fear transition, even if it's for the best. Grad school, whether I go to London or Boston or California or New York, or whether I just stay in Albany, is a tough transition. Even now, I fear the changes that might bring to my life. But the difference between the here and the now and where I was as little as a few months ago, is that I feel ready. Ish. Ready-ish.
After the New Year (when I probably should have been finishing grad school applications), I wrote a faux statement of purpose hypothetically based around the choice to return to school in writing. It was a completely different statement of purpose; one full of fire and energy. It was a statement based around my absolute adoration of creating stories, of sending messages. It was a statement that said: "This guy wants to spend the rest of his life writing. And he wants to write well."
In the (almost) three years (three? dear God) since I graduated from Bard, I have worked a full time job, while also working very hard at writing. And yet, I have yet to get published. Maybe it's because I'm afraid to truly put myself out there. Maybe it's because I don't have those ever important connections that people talk about a lot these days. Maybe it's because that first publication is elusive, and that's what it takes to build momentum as an artist. But I know I have great stories to tell - great things to say - and I want to shout those things for all to hear. I believe grad school can do that for me. I believe grad school would be a life changing, and life affirming, experience for me.
Let's see what happens, shall we?
-Tom
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