I Think They'll Keep Me

So my sigh of relief may be one of exhaustion or surrender, but as in other matters of my life, I'm pretending that things will be ok. After a meeting with the university president and provost last night, I feel more encouraged that our PhD programs will not be cut. Administrators have gone on record saying that reasons for suspending admissions are mostly financial, and that they plan to follow the recommendations of the faculty and outside review committee. I think and hope that means that if faculty and students can work up a new and improved program then we'll be able to keep our PhD programs in English and History.

Interesting Fact: Drew University is the only school of its size in America to grant PhD's in the liberal arts. While this is all nice and prestigious and speaks to the uniqueness off our programs, it also confuses outsiders as to why we have such programs and how we're able to financially support them. Our programs exist because of some very nice people who fund the grad school and because of the dedicated faculty and enthusiastic students here. It's a great program and I'm glad things are looking up. And I'm glad I don't have to worry about it anymore for right now.

Other than that, I'm hanging on by my pinky toes as far as getting my own schoolwork done while grading composition papers, babysitting, and tutoring at least two nights a week. Things will thankfully slow down after mid-October, so my sanity is really looking forward to that.

Upcoming events: I'm conferencing in Tulsa at the Modernist Studies Association conference and presenting a paper on The Implications of Posthumous Publication that's based of my thesis. That's on October 19th, and I'll return just in time to have Laura and Brandon's birthday party then attend the Vieira's halloween party the next weekend.

Parties are much better than work. Bring on the party.

Speaking of party, I'm all alone on this chilly Friday night watching tv and surfing the internet to avoid reading student papers. I did watch Jarhead today (nice movie, not overtly provocative, but better than the amount of buzz it got) and the last two episodes of Carnivale, so I got some closure on my netflix list. Oh, but I did go to the pub earlier and (in the words of Robert Earl Keen) had such a good time I had to take a nap. No one wanted to go out after that though. Wah, wah, waaaah. Here I sit waiting for my roommate and Buist to get back and entertain me with some southernisms. Where's my man to have dinner with?