posted 2004/02/29 at 23:52
New on Backwash: "Just Some Recipes". Pretty much what the title indicates, as I fulfill a promise to another BW columnist. For those of you who weren't around to witness my short-lived food Website called Kitchen Stadium the Second, both recipes from that site are posted here for your convenience.
Just to follow up on the post from earlier in the day, my plans with my friends got canceled almost as soon as I wrote that entry, so oh well. And it never occurred to me until a couple of hours ago to do a "Fuck the Oscars" party, and now it's too late for that. Sigh.
posted at 15:31
So what am I doing this leap day? Engaging in an extra day of self-loathing and hating the entire universe, thanks for asking.
Actually, I'll be meeting up with some friends tonight, and hopefully doing some stuff before then. We're in the middle of our February Thaw right now, and I have to say that even if January's weather was horrid, apart from some bone-chiling temperatures earlier in the month, February turned out pretty decent. This will actually be the sixth least snowiest winter in Toledo history, according to the news. Now I only hope that March turns out to be just as mild.
posted 2004/02/27 at 20:47
In kind of a desperate attempt to have fun, I actually went to a local pizza/party place to play Dance Dance Revolution. The good news is that I had a bit of fun, and got to see real experts play -- I think I may have even picked up some steps from them. The bad news is that it cost a fortune -- a buck for three songs. The ugly news is that those metal dance pads freaking hurt.
posted 2004/02/25 at 22:40
Since some people apparently need a reminder of this, here you go: Mess with me all you want. I don't care. Mess with my friends, Goddess help you, because no one else will.
posted 2004/02/24 at 23:02
Gee, I go and write that last post late last night, wake up this morning ... and Syracuse doesn't want me either! That should make some people happy, but Syracuse had been my first choice school, because they offered the best fellowships as well as the cheapest apartment rentals of any of the schools I'd been looking at. Plus there was another, more important, reason I wanted to go to Syracuse, but I really can't get into that.
So yeah. Life sucks. Pass the donuts.
posted at 02:19
Nothing quite like pulling your six-week old binder out of your backpack and finding one of the rings so fucked up that you can't even turn pages in the binder anymore. And I specifically bought one of the heavy-duty ones because I tend to be rough on my books and stuff.
In case you couldn't guess, right now I should either be doing homework or falling asleep. (I'm allowed late nights on Sunday because I don't have class on Mondays.) I swear, though, I am just feeling so deflated right now. Even when I'm with Spectrum people, even when I'm doing stuff that should bring me at least some sense of fun, it's just not working. Usually my depression is triggered by something, and while I've had lots of potential triggers these past couple of weeks, none of them seem to be the cause of it. I think this latest spell may actually be a strictly chemical-based reaction.
I've still got one last grad school application to send out -- to Antioch University Los Angeles -- but I just can't seem to bring up the willpower to get it done, especially after getting the rejection letter from Indiana. I didn't even want to apply to Indiana, but my advisor thought I was aiming a bit high with the other schools I was applying to, and suggested Indiana as a "safety net" in case I didn't get into any of the other schools. And now even the safety net's gone. And you know, I wouldn't have even minded so much if I hadn't had to take those loans out to get through this last year at UT. If I don't get into graduate school, then I'm going to leave UT with a degree that won't even be worth the paper it's printed on (undergraduate degrees in creative writing don't mean shit), having to find some sort of way to pay back my student loan money with no marketable skills. At least if I didn't have that money to pay off, I could go back to mooching off my parents for all those years before I went back to college.
If there's one thing that's come up repeatedly in the counseling I've received, it's that one of my biggest problems is that I'm always trying to be perfect -- based both on setting unrealistic goals for myself and a deep-rooted need to be accepted by others -- and that I don't take rejection that well. So what will it mean if, despite a perfect GPA, despite near-perfect GREs, despite being a "well-rounded" student in every sense of the term, and despite the fact that I've built credentials as a writer that most undergraduates don't have, that somehow I still can't get into any MFA programme? What if being perfect isn't even enough?
I can't think about that right now. Back to schoolwork.
posted 2004/02/23 at 02:50
New on Backwash: "Compromising Ourselves". A quickie column (I wouldn't have even done a column this week if I hadn't had so many links to use) about the whole Nader and Kucinich and "Anyone But Bush" stuff that I probably am in no shape to debate coherently right now.
Sorry I've been gone so much lately, but I'm kind of getting behind in my schoolwork, and to top it off I'm in a real depression pit right now. Even the stuff in my life that's supposed to be real fun is just not doing anything for me right now. Hopefully I'll have time to write about it more later.
posted 2004/02/20 at 13:51
Undergraduate GPA: 4.0
Verbal GRE score: 750
Quantitative GRE score: 800
Analytic Writing GRE score: 6.0
Number of honours society memberships: 2
Months served as President of Spectrum: 15
Number of poems published: 2
Amount of money won in writing competitions over past two years: $525
Amount of money spent applying to graduate schools: $525
Waking up this morning and getting a rejection letter from Indiana University: Priceless.
There are some things that money can't buy.
A life is one of them.
I'm a total and complete fucking loser.
posted 2004/02/16 at 22:37
Just in case anyone's heard about the huge crane crash in Toledo earlier today, I wasn't there, and neither was anyone I know. Actually, at the time I was driving to Bowling Green State University, where I later met with a couple of creative writing professors to try to get a feel for their MFA programme. I've only got one more grad school application to fill out (for Antioch University Los Angeles), but good grief is it stressful.
posted 2004/02/15 at 02:26
As I warned you about in the previous post ...
New on Backwash: "Alone, on V-Day and Forever". So sue me, I really needed a drama queen moment to bemoan all the crap I've been through the past few weeks, okay?
posted 2004/02/14 at 23:12
I think it safe to say that the good mood I'd found myself in the past few weeks has now gone. I may write a bit about what that's been like for Backwash here tonight or tomorrow night, but suffice it to say that the anger of my past couple of columns may give way to full-blown despair.
In not-quite-related news, all of my grad school applications but one are out now, and I'll be going down to Bowling Green on Monday to meet with one of the professors there, whom I saw in action during the conference down there last year. I'm hoping it goes well, but I think I keep leaning more and more towards schools that would require me to get the hell out of here.
posted 2004/02/13 at 23:50
Quick show of hands, how many of you prefer Valentine's Day over Friday the 13th?
Okay, now for those of you who raised your hands: FUCK OFF AND DIE.
posted 2004/02/10 at 15:23
Can someone please tell me how I can go to UT for two and a half years and see no one from my old private school, and now I seem to be running into freaking everyone on campus? And why do these people feel compelled to ask me what's been going on with me all these years? I'm like, "Can't you tell just by looking at me?" Criminy.
posted 2004/02/09 at 23:55
You know, one of the odd things about having Mondays off from classes is that if I have to go to campus on Monday for some reason, like I did earlier today, I go there and for a minute I'm like, "Wait, what are all these people doing here?" Then I remember that they have class and I don't. I would laugh in their faces about that, but I don't because I'm a nice person. *snicker*
posted 2004/02/08 at 22:58
New on Backwash: "Religion and Sex -- Mostly Sex". As if Governor Taft signing Ohio's DOMA into law and the Religious Right descending on Massachusetts to protest the notion that GLBT people have the right to marry wasn't bad enough, I had my first encounter with an ex-gay last week. Add that to the Janet Jackson controversy, and I managed to surprise myself with how angry I got here. But I needed to get angry, you know?
posted 2004/02/07 at 19:23
You know, there's nothing quite like driving across town all day to make you realize how relatively safe and peaceful your own little neighbourhood is.
I think I lost yesterday, somehow. Between a lack of sleep for a couple of nights and all the stuff I had to do Thursday, I got up on Friday and I was like, "Holy crap I can't do anything today." I know I need to give myself days off like that to recharge and all that, but there's still a lot more to be done. Only eleven more weeks of classes and one last finals week, and it's all done over here. Now if only some of those graduate schools would let me know whether or not they want me in the fall ...
posted 2004/02/05 at 23:44
Is it narcissistic of me to use my own photographs of the Toledo Botanical Garden in my screen saver? Just asking.
Sorry I haven't written much lately, but I just had to spew out a huge story, plus I had a paper and a test today. Combine that with my Honours courses and independent study and Spectrum and ... whew.
Oh, and that other thing, too. More on that to come soon, hopefully.
posted 2004/02/02 at 14:59
As a public service to everyone competing to become the next President of the United States, may I offer this free soundbite for use in your campaigns:
"I would sooner put my ass up on Mouth Rushmore than allow Ronald Reagan's face to go up there!"
This has been a public service by Sean Shannon. Good night, and drive safely!
posted 2004/02/01 at 23:02
New on Backwash: "Eat Me, I'm Low in Carbohydrates!" I haven't done a real red-faced polemic in a while, and I've been holding back my venom about the Atkins nonsense for way too long now. So enjoy me at my most infuriated I've been in a Backwash column for a long time.
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