Hitting the Books...

Well... it is now official. The journey that "officially" started back in March 2007 has now officially come to a close, transitioning to a new adventure.

Jenn and I had been talking about graduate school. She had taken the GRE last fall, looking into going for a Master's in Public Health, while I've been kicking around (for years) about going back for a Master's in English. After Jenn passed away, I finally decided to bite the bullet, and signed up to take the GRE at the end of April. (For those playing the home game, and keeping score - I met Mary Catherine a couple of days before taking the GRE...)

After getting the scores back (an 1150, again, for those playing the home game), I processed my application, but I dragged my feet on the Letters of Reference, and Statement of Purpose. Frankly, I knew what I really wanted to say in the "SoP" (I work for the university, and I can take up to three classes on their dime), but I didn't really think that would go over to well with anyone granting admissions, and it took me some time to really figure out how I wanted to present myself. Of course, there was also the slight identity crisis of "What DO I want to study and focus on?" which is always a major concern when starting to specialize...

I missed the chance to get everything processed and admitted for the Fall (which was part of my original plan), but I was able to defer my application to the Spring semester (thus also avoiding the flushing of my application fee).

Again, I sat in my chair at my desk, pondering and planning - but not actually getting anything done - until just before Thanksgiving. I had attempted contacting several possible academic references, but with no response (quite disappointing, actually). The other side of the problem - my pool of potential academic references that I actually know how to get in touch with is quite small, or easily years out of date.

I did get acceptances, though, from a few of my former instructors that would be willing to prepare letters for me, and I pondered some more, and prepared information for each of them (as they requested) to help with drafting and preparing their letters, getting them the information shortly after the Thanksgiving break.

The end result, is that all of my paperwork came together this week, and I was notified by email from the department that I have been accepted into the Master's in English program. The paperwork has not been processed by the university's Graduate School to make everything official (read: I can't register for classes yet), but I am in the program, starting in the Spring 2008 Semester...

Holy crap... I just realized it has now been almost five years since I was last in college (yeah, I know...) But the real kicker that I really just realized - the last English classes I took were almost ten years ago (I spent the last year and a half of my "English BA" taking Theatre classes to complete my minor.

Well... to change a phrase around a bit... write on!

(For the record... the first class I'm looking at taking, is going to be a script writing class... One of those nifty items in the curriculum that was added after I completed my BA in English... But a BA in English is a whole other song....)... Right.... write!