Dr. Halpern is probably the coolest person I've ever met. Today he convinced me to write a memoir of all things, (a real one, not the joke fictional memoir I'd been working on until, y'know, I stopped) and then asked me to sit in on his class. Makes me kind of glad I'm going to NCSU for the grad degree after all.

I know I haven't updated this blog in a while, but given the general pervasiveness of blogs and the fact that this one is like all others, you should probably thank me.

So, after what seems like forever waiting to find out, I learned last week that I didn't get into some of the MFA programs I wanted, including the one I thought I actually had a decent shot getting into -- still waiting to hear back from some more, but I'm pretty much assuming they'll all be rejections at this point.

I kinda screwed up by not researching the programs more -- all those that I applied for were among the most competitive, which in retrospect was a really bad idea -- and I also really screwed up by not... well, writing more. I will admit I was not a very well-prepared candidate in some ways.

But I just found out I got accepted at the MA program at State, which I had applied to sort of as an afterthought among the MFA programs. But now I'm kinda thinking... why the hell not? It's 2 more years of studying literature, and it's not a terminal degree like the MFA is. I could forseeably get a PhD after getting the MA. So I figure maybe this isn't such a bad development. Staying in Raleigh will be cool in some ways, kinda stifling in others. I don't want to put down roots in Raleigh, having lived here 23 and a half years now I'm looking to try somewhere else out, so I'm hoping to get out of here eventually. But 2 more years I could do.

They said they didn't know if they could give me a teaching assistantship or not because they don't know what kind of funds they'll have, but that I'm on the list should they be able to secure money for them. Not quite sure how to take it but it seems like I have a chance, at least. That would be totally sweet.

In unrelated news, when I was driving from Asheville to Raleigh someone cut me off on the highway. I mention this because the car was one of the most ostentatious sports cars I've ever seen, like just unnecessarily flashy in its design, bright red, with a license plate that said something like "JSTSOBLESSD". All around it at other parts on the highway I see mostly busted out cars from the mid-nineties like my own. I was so dazed by the sad, sad irony I almost forgot how pissed I was at being cut off.

Also unrelated, I did a lot of personality-testing stuff while I was up in Asheville, on the Internet, and I got the same result I always get, INFP. I don't know, for some reason, reading the description for it really clicked for me this time. Having that kind of personality makes things kind of hard for me sometimes, I spend so much time in my own head that I worry I don't cultivate relationships/friendships well at all. I feel like sometimes I seem aloof or something with people I'm not quite comfortable with yet, but it's just how I am when I'm getting to know people.

I'm going to go play some Wii now.