Rejection letter

@#%#$%^ University
Faculty of Arts and Sciences
Department of !@##$%$
!@@## Street, New York, NY

April 23, 2008


Dear Don,

After careful consideration of the many qualified rejection letters received, I regret to inform you that the committee has decided that it cannot accept your rejection letter at this time.

I realize that this will be disappointing news for you, but that you understand that this decision in no way reflects on the quality of your rejection, and that not all rejection letters meet the needs and parameters of the Program in question. On behalf of the committee, I would like to thank you for giving us an opportunity to learn about your rejection and to consider it.

Yours Sincerely,

Your Small American, BPhD*

*(Begrudging Doctorate in Philosophy)

Renewed defense of muskrat-like dissertation

I feel like if people did not like the muskrat, that is their loss. Too bad, suckers!
The muskrat is indisputably awesome. It is a tenant of awesomeness.

Defense of dissertation

Hey, back off of my dissertation. People. Just back off.

I mean really, all it wants to do is swim around in mud and eat bugs and pancakes. Who could have a problem with that? That's the nice thing about having a dissertation that's existing (unquestionably!) but doesn't claim to do much fancy stuff. What questions could they ask? "Why does it swim in mud? Why does it like pancakes?" It's a muskrat, for crying out loud. The answers are obvious.

Send me good psychic vibes at 4:30 pm!!

shmisshertation

Hey, I have to defend dissertation/muskrat creature on Monday. Do you guys want to barbecue at our house afterwards? Like around 7 pm?

Dissertation plus delicious jam and pancakes

+

= I'm done!*

*By which I mean, I sent them everything but the bibliography, which I have to do next week. Then, after I meet with them in like two weeks, I'll take the whole thing apart again and put it back together per their comments, I guess copy edit it (or pay someone else to do this?), figure out the weird margins thing and the cotton paper, and submit it. And then I'll really be done.

The first-rate education

And now, for some refreshing fun. Kids, can you spot the grammar error in this excerpt of an e-mail sent by an associate dean and director of the honors college at our beloved university?

"As graduation time at X@##$%%* once again approaches, the Honors College would like to take this opportunity to show our appreciation to the faculty members and instructors who have taught Honors College courses this year. Without whom we certainly could not continue to provide our students with the first-rate education that they receive. "

Wow, awesome free present to YOU, reader.

CC told me about pandora radio and guess what, it is totally awesome. It is free, and you tell them your favorite band and then they make a whole radio station of all these songs you have not heard, but which rock out, and are similar to your favorite band.

In other news, the title of the below-post should be: "Fascism: We Were Just Renting!"

Also, if I have to write my diss much more, I am going to have another melt down. And no one wants that to happen to poor darling CC. So someone stop my diss from having to be written. Take a stand, person/someone!

The tenants of a new world

Advisor email: YSA, I corrected this, I think your word processing program is auto correcting "tenets," here you have written "the tenants of sexual conservatism."

Me realizing to self: For 200 pages I wrote all about "the tenants of Nazism."

In conclusion

I actually still am writing a conclusion for my diss, which I was supposed to turn in to my committee oh, four days ago. But it is not going so well.

In conclusion, as I have argued, the Weimar Republic was in some respects a wacky, wacky place and time (see Introduction, pp. 1-23) (for some people*). In concluding my argument, I seek to evoke all that I have argued thus far, for example and including in Chapters 1, 2, 3, and 4. Please recall those chapters and their arguments to your mind. Then, mash the arguments together in your mind. I conclude my study thusly: all the chapter arguments mashed together beg this question: what, exactly, are biopolitics, and what do they mean to us, and for our future (if we have one), and, with respect to them, what was the Weimar Republic?

THE
N

D

*Race, class, gender, ability/disablity, and sexuality!!!

Go dissertation, goooo!

Four clean copies of everything but the last chapter, plus the two copies that I printed first and by mistake messed up the page numbers (sorry, forest). It is going out to the committee right now!

It takes some guts to print this much of something you wrote yourself, let me tell you. Like when halfway through printing my 1,200 pages, the printer ran out of toner (that is, I used up all the toner) and the computer lab guy had to change the toner cartridge right under the big sign on the wall that says "you may print up to three copies of any document."

Camel treachery

A few weeks ago, CC and me started seeing posters up all over town for an event at the children's library (theme: Aladdin) upcoming, at which, poster promised, the highlight would be (the following is a direct quotation):

"Desert snakes, bugs, falcons, and a REAL LIVE CAMEL! "

As you can imagine, we became very enthused about this event and planned to attend. In the weeks to come, we would talk frequently about the impending visit of A REAL CAMEL! to our town. We wondered, for example, what the camel was doing right then, whether it was anticipating visiting us, whether it wanted to come to our town, whether it was mistreated in its current location, what it ate, the difference between camels and dromedaries, etc. CC even told her family about this.

We had several conversations about this.

Then we forgot to attend (it was this Saturday and my dissertation is due tomorrow.)

(Scratch that, CC points out: in three hours.)

Anyway, we were very disappointed that we forgot to go see the camel. We spoke at length about this. Did the camel enjoy its visit? The children must have been so excited! How could we forget? Etc.

Then, this afternoon, CC saw the photograph below on the front page of the local paper.

(Phone call)

CC: I have information about the camel.
YSA: What? What?
CC: I saw a picture, and, I think it is not a camel. Rather, it is a human in a camel costume!
YSA: How can that be? They said a REAL LIVE CAMEL!

Dear reader, is this not a case of false advertising, and have those dear children not as a consequence lost all hope?