Woulda, coulda, shoulda...

I know what I did wrong three years ago; I didn't ask anyone for help. I didn't clue anyone into what I was doing until the application was sent, and then I could finally relax and think about adding people into the conversation. I should have had outside eyes viewing my writing sample, I should have had the right people recommending me. Woulda, coulda, shoulda, perhaps? But if I didn't have that experience to learn from, I wouldn't be as close to things as I am now.

I plan on taking the GRE diagnostic test offered by the Princeton Review sometime next week, to see where I stand and then start off by taking a test class. If I like what I see, I'll register for the 20k/5 weeks worth of prep classes and give my GRE in late August/early September. Once that's done. Oh and the TOEFL. I'll probably register for that sometime in August, so I can get that out of my hair quickly. The first order of business, however, and one that I've been putting off unnecessarily, is making a chart of all the required material of all universities. I have the basic info of each program I'm applying to down, but I still need more especially deadlines, GRE and TOEFL insitution codes, and whether they require universities to mail in the transcript directly or whether they should be added into the application packet. The last in particular, because in that case, I'll have to start ordering in transcripts now, especially from Curtin which is in Australia.

I guess, there goes that idea of not writing down what I need to do in this blog! Ha! Nice try, MP...but you failed. This blog has become far too much a part of my identity, to close it off now.

Online applications open up in September, and I want to have everything down by then. Everything from the statement of purpose to the transcripts to the letters of recommendation to the writing sample. Everything needs to be done so that when the process opens, all I have to do is click and upload, and then mail out whatever's left. There is no way out now, and if I stop and don't end up applying because for some sorry ass reason, I couldn't give the GRE, I will kill myself. Or perhaps, if not kill, then seriously maim someone else. Nobody likes a job half done, after all.

I have a plan. All that's left to do is honor it.

?

The problem with writing The Broken Hearts Club aka The Business of Breaking Hearts aka the annnoyingly unending short story, was that I was writing it from my own perspective. I never really separated the writer as the narratorial voice, and there were scenes that I wrote that I pictured happening in my own house. I never really separated myself. But in retrospect, have I ever really separated myself from my characters? This was different, though. This was taking my house with me and putting it smack into the story. Usually I transport myself to another place, the ideal setting for the story and not vice versa. One other thing; I understand now why when I told a friend about the story, the characters, etc she rolled her eyes and said oh, it's one of those stories. It's taken me a year to realize it was one of those stories, and it wasn't me.

That's another reason I want to pursue the MFA...to experiment with the subjects that I undertake with a relatively confident ability. Of course, much of this will be the direct result of broader experience.

My mother asked me yesterday how the process was coming along for me, but I think for now it's better to downplay it as much as possible and I'll be stepping back from things with the blog as well. Sorry, peeps. I'm a loner and would much prefer to keep things in the dark until I'm not, of course. For a while, I've been writing this in the dream that it's been mostly anonymous and it's been a checklist of sorts for me; my public diary and journal for those publically impersonal moments that are too personal for the members of the Desi Writers Lounge community but not for the public webosphere. You know how it works. Strangers for as long as I can keep them as.

Worry not; there will be some leakages. I think I mentioned in one of my earlier posts that this blog has helped in bringing me out of myself, allowed the part of me that posts here to seep out into the real world. That's been important to me, but regarding the MFA I need this to be for me. I won't be detailing each and every step anymore; the bigger, chunkier details will still be out there for all to read, o'course.

Going back into that valley is almost heartening. I can hear the rise and swell of orchestral music ushering, welcoming me home.

:)

Blank Slates

Been watching close to the entire first season of Joan of Arcadia. Great, great show for anyone who's interested. A lot of laugh out loud moments in there along with the tearjerking ones. But anyway, the point for this entry was to quote...or paraphrase one of the characters, after her work had been bashed in by a critic. You'd think being the administrator of a critiquing (read harcore bashing) community would help me understand, or make it easier or whatever, but it never does. But anyway, the quote. It was something along the lines of how artists can't stop doing what they're doing, because it's a part of them. It sounds terribly cliched put that way, but it rang home for me. Maybe I needed to hear it from a televised source instead of from the voices in my head.

I don't know; I can't seem to think of more stuff to write in this space so I'll just end it here. There is a high chance though, that I'll end up writing more tomorrow...aka today, which will make it seem a double entry when it's really not. Or it is.

You get the idea.

Gen Y and the Way We Work

Things are a'changin, and like any gust of fresh air it's going to involve taking a look at the good and the bad and the purely interesting. For starters, I might be one of the few in my generation in Pakistan (not the world at large) that has a purely Y take on the corporate workplace. I don't want to do what I'm doing forever; I want to move towards something I care about from an altruistic point of view, and I love the flexibility that my job provides in allowing me to work wherever I am. If you think about it, it's pretty liberating in terms of managing another person I've never met, never seen, and talked to briefly over the phone, in Germany.

One thing I've seen though in managing people from my generation; you have to follow up. We like posing questions to our superiors and getting answers quickly, before we become monotoned automatons who get fed up easily, if the same behavior repeats itself for too long. We offer our loyalty willingly and like to be appreciated, again being turned off if the loyalty goes unchecked too often. Maybe we're a little too inflated with our own sense of self importance and can afford to take it down a notch? I did say there were goods and bads to this argument. There's also the fact of micro management; in general and with me in particular, Y's hate it when their bosses, instead of helping them solve a problem, solve it for them because it's too much of a "process" to explain it to them. And then they wonder why we're frustrated?

Another reason for applying to the MFA in Creative Writing now, as opposed to doing it earlier, is the jadedness of being in the corporate workplace, virtual though it may have been. I want to pursue this degree because it's going to help me in making a difference; a lot of programs offer community outreach, and with the TCF collaboration coming up in August, there is every chance that I'm going to become increasingly enmeshed in this activity. Though there may be a lot of gripe about MFA programs not presenting a "real" outlook to the world and churning out homogenized writers, it all depends I suppose, on whether you have the independence, creativity and clarity of mind to stick through with your own goals. Instead of caving in to the collective group of peer pressure. I always maintain that Desi Writers Lounge and the intensity of being involved with that community has helped broaden my mind, allowed me the liberty to write on subjects I never thought I could or would. And always, always, always willing to kick me where it hurts when I was slackening down, pushing me beyond where I thought I could go. The one piece of advice I got from former MFA grad and one time literary crush, Kamila Shamsie, about what to expect from the program was this: "to write, no excuses"; is enough of a motivation for me. I know where I am creatively and the kind of work I want to do and how I'd like to do it, a lot better than I would have at age 21 when I first applied. You're probably wondering if I already know this, why exactly am I applying to the program. The answer to that is simple: I want to write, I want the liberation to write whatever I would like to and I want to undergo a process of discovering cultures, people and mindsets outside the comfort zone of my own.

So for me, although I have considered alternative venues, I was always going to come back to this at the end. It seems only inevitable, in retrospect. There are a lot of things that are imbued in my person and personality now that have been the by product of rejection at 22 (shortly after I turned 22, I received my letter). Working at the day job has brought another sense of maturity that I might never have had otherwise. Oh, I still have a lot to grow into and learn from, but I think I'm a lot more open to that than I was before and in the act of challenging myself, I want the MFA.

The one aspect where I differ from the generalizations of my generation is that I am intrinsically a loner, craving solitude as opposed to company, a concept completely misunderstood by family. I once read a quote somewhere that stated that family and friends were the natural enemy to a writer, and I remember thinking at the time that maybe it was a little too harsh. It's taken me time to realize that it was much closer to the truth than any other explanation of my character. Perhaps All My Love was a testament to myself; a letter written by one part of me to another. I love how openly interpretive my work was, and hopefully, still is.

I just realized something: I've been living my statement of purpose for the last three years. Never intentionally of course, but a me unsubstantiated is a me changed. As I sign off, I'll leave it to you to interpret that.

:)

The Deep End

When is the precise moment an acquaintance becomes a friend? Try to narrow it down for me, would you. That exact second when you realize that the person you've known for a couple of weeks, a few months is suddenly more meaningful to you than you realized. But when you enter the world of friendship, you're in a whole different ballgame. Friends aren't family, as I am consistently being reminded...by family (of course!), and so, are never permanent. You enjoy their time with you while it lasts, and when it ends, you smile at the memories as you pick off more acquaintances. But that's an empty life. The truth is, it takes time and patience and a lot of us just don't have it anymore. And my God, it takes work. A lot of it. But, as is anything worth cultivating, it's a two way street and nothing's worse as you watch the other person deposit pieces of you on the wayside, while you watch from a distance. Appropriately, nothing's better when you realize your investment's paid off, and that a casual friendship that over time had become more, until it wasn't has suddenly undergone a reawakening of a sort.

Chartering courses, being a sucker at navigation, you know the drill. Inevitably perhaps, we expect ourselves to fail and so allow ourselves forgiveness for our own actions. That and stepping away in order, or so we convince ourselves, to not let the last tatters of self-respect flail in the wind of a rupturing hurricane. Hmm...or maybe that's a complicated way of saying shit happens, and we're just too afraid to deal with the consequences when it hits the fan. A little less flowery, to be sure, but honest.

Taking a step back from writing about the application process although the points of what is still left to do are weighing on my mind with each passing day. I have to prioritize and then implement if I have learned anything from when I last applied. The first order of business being to create a checklist of what all universities require and then taking each thing from there. Will do that over the weekend, I think. Or later in the evening today. They say it takes 36 hours to work on your applications, spread out over a large period. I have at least 6 months ahead of me in which to work through it all. Much of what I have to do will take up an entire day, say, Saturday and then I can breathe a little easier, emphasis on a little.

For all my rants on 2007 being my best creative year, it's come to put that to the test, I suppose.

Tally ho!

The Odds and Ends of Applying

The Princeton Review does indeed have an office in Islamabad, located inside the Szabist campus in H-8/4. More information can be found at their site; got in touch with them via email and over the telephone, and their program looks pretty solid. The best part about it is that they offer a diagnostic test which helps you know where you stand currently and what areas you'll need to focus on and a free class, to ensure you like what you'll be paying for. After all that, 20k doesn't seem so bad, especially when you couple it with no repeat payments if, say, your GRE score isn't to your liking. So that's definitely something to consider. That and their classes are starting for sure in the last week of July, while the USEF coordinator wasn't sure that their classes will start in the second week of July, subject on the number of students joining them. So, yes, lots to consider. Of course, because TPR is an internationally recognized preparation center, they also include prep materials, and online access to prep software in their package. So yeah, there's a lot included in the 20k.

I have to say, though, that now that I've started the process, it feels like I'm going somewhere. Not saying that the day job wasn't going anywhere, or maybe that is what I'm saying. I just feel like I'm closer to doing something I actually want to do, and know where my goals lie and what I'm prepared to sacrifice in order to get there. Do you know how satsifying it is to know why you want something? Especially when you've been struggling with that discovery for eons? When I said it doesn't matter whether I get in or not, I lied. It does matter. It matters very much. I can't imagine going back to the life I had before I started this process. I can only think in terms of moving forward with my longterm goals, and this time...yes, this time if I don't make it in, it has every chance to break me that the same opportunity, three years old didn't. I am far too emotionally involved in this now, whether or not I care to acknowledge as much to family and friends. There it is. It is real. It is big, and it matters beyond belief.

In other news, and because I had to tell my parents that I was taking GRE prep classes because they might wonder where I was going for two/three hours twice a week, my father questions my decision to do the GRE. Of course, I haven't told him that I'm applying for the MFA in Creative Writing. For all intents and purposes, they think that idea is done...or at least, they're pretending to remain blissful in their assumed ignorance. We're all walking on glass here.

To each their own dreams, I suppose. I'm just less in the position to sacrifice mine any longer, and live in the segregated shade of gray as before. The time has come to start wanting more and once I awoke to this, I realized I'd never stopped.

Poetic, no?

Taking the Plunge

My parents are worried about the financial aspects of the program; I'm scrounging every penny I earn, rethinking my splurges and just over all, being as much of a miser as I can be surrounded by my nieces, nephews and family. Taking over the expense of GRE test prep, GRE registration and TOEFL registration allows me the liberty of focusing on two things: a) the day job which is paying for this program, at least in these initial stages and that will in all likelihood be the sole basis of my savings, if I do make it in and b) getting my writing portfolio in order. Once I have the portfolio down and the tests out of the way, I can fully focus my attentions on the personal statement which has so far comprised mostly rough drafts and heavy editing on the part of the desi writers. I have to love this community of writers, who somehow feel that being me, I should aspire to be better than I am. It's what's kept me going for so long, to be mushy and cliched.

My college transcripts will be taken care of; Curtin's agreed to send in my transcripts, officiated and all and BNU stands at the precipice of officiating my joint-Informatics transcripts. I think I may have to start asking my recommenders to be my recommenders, dundunDUNN.

It's not that I'm not thinking about the financial implications, I am and most of the programs I've applied to happen to be great, solid programs as well as provide full tuition to their students. Not every one does, of course, but there are a lot of them out there that do. They're also incredibly picky so writing sample, letters of recommendation, GRE scores and statement of intent/purpose all matter instrumentally. I am fully involved in this process, and much of today went by in the attempt to find the right test prep center. FYI: there is no Princeton Review office in Isloo. There may have been one in the past, but there sure as hell isn't one now. The replacement? USEF's GRE prep classes start July 16 and I have every intention of registering, sending in an email to that effect. 5 weeks, 18k rupees. It's pricey, sure but I'm expecting nothing less than the best and I intend to have it.

The weird thing is everyone keeps telling me I'll need to study hard for it, without realizing that I am way too geared up for this last shot (I'm 24 and if I get in, I'll be 25 when I go which means I'll be 27 or 28 when I return and trust me, my parents would die if I reapplied at 25 to get in at 26. The horror! Who would consider marrying an old maid?!), to even think of slackening down. It's why I'm not undertaking test prep on my own; in a structured environment where everyone's on the same page as I am, and possibly more geared up, being competitive again. Most importantly, I just don't feel I have the discipline of being able to get into the studying groove again on my own, and suffered through it when I tried 2 years ago, before I started working. So, there's a lot to consider. 18k isn't such a bad price to pay. It just means I probably won't be getting the E71 anytime soon. I'll live.

I am prepared to do as much as I can, take things to the next level, give myself the length and breadth to apply to the universities and programs I believe in, without having to rely on my parents for the finances to achieve the above. It's what stopped me three years ago from applying to more universities. That and the fact that my parents didn't want me relocating to somewhere without family. A little hypocritical, really considering they let my doctor sister do her residency in upstate New York! A little hands off approach goes a long way.

I can do this. I will lose hope and think I'm not cut out for this, I know, but I can do this. I am not the impervious 21 year old applying to a program she has wanted for 3 years. I am a 24 year old who's wanted it for 6. It pushed me through college. This is my year. And if it isn't...well, nobody can say I didn't try my damndest!