A case study in Juxtaposition

      Well, things were looking bad.
     Our hero was being eaten alive by the comps, by finals, and by the stone-ridden gall bladder that threatened to burst from her guts like Alien
     Our hero? I meant heroine.

      The letters were flying (okay, crawling) in. Minnesota, REJECT. Iowa REJECT. Northwestern?

I'm writing to bring you up to date on the status of your application for graduate study in rhetoric at Northwestern. At the moment you are on a very short waiting list.

As we indicated earlier, the Graduate School permits us to admit only as many applicants as we can fund. We found your credentials to be certainly worthy of admission, but there were not enough funded positions to enable us to admit all of the qualified candidates. This is why you are currently on our waiting list.

If initial offers are declined on April 15, it is possible that we may be able to extend an offer to you. In all frankness, though, this is a remote possibility, because some attrition is built in to the number of offers initially authorized. Even though the waiting list is very short, it is unlikely that we will be able to go to it.

Therefore, if you have an offer from another institution for which there is a reply deadline coming up soon, I would advise you to accept it. I make this suggestion very reluctantly, because we would love to have you come here, but I cannot ask you to keep waiting against what is a small chance that something will open up here.

Please let me know whether you wish to remain on the waiting list or whether you prefer to withdraw your application.

Sincerely,
David Zarefsky


      And I wrote this in response

it's not that
we don't want you
Oh we want you
enter our courts in praise

it's that
we can't afford you
lit whore
bad economy, cheerio


      And there was sorrow in the land...or something.
      And then there was the Gall Bladder of Doom. But that's another, yucky story.
      And then, it was Friday, April 15, the Ides of April, Tax Day. Mother called to tell me that The University of Denver had also accepted me (Yea!) But sadly could not fund me (Boo!).
      So I watched Buffy, I watched Stargate, and, after much procrastination, I cleaned. I cleaned the bathroom (toilet and all), I cleaned the floors (Both Swiffer Wet AND Dry, twice), I cleaned the dinning room, I cleaned the stove. I was eyeing the inside of the refrigerator when Sharon stopped me. Apparently I was clutching my stomach in pain and shouting obscenities at the germs I was vanquishing. So it goes (again?).
      Yea so I walked through the valley of the shaddow of Academia...
      In a "funk" (not the right word, but I have lost my words and dont know where to find them. Leave them alone, and they'll come home, wagging their affixed morphemes behind them), I tried to write my paper for rhetoric. This was, of course, not a good idea. But I did it anyway, and am on page Six, thank you. ("As Blair and Michel concluded, 'Quote'. Their assertion that 'Quote can add to our understanding of...")
      Sharon attempted to cheer me up by watching "The Fugitive" with me (mmm Ford) and then I took some pain meds to aid my poor stomach, now even more angry at me for the cleaning spree. Feeling a little loopy, I decided to check my email. This was the turning point.
      The first one was trying to sell me Viagra. I won't count that as the turning point.
      The second was from a student. This was also expected.
      The third was from Jackie Spada, our adorable English Department Graduate "Administrative Assistant" (sigh), with the subject line "RESULTS." As we all know, any subject line that is in all Caps and from someone you know is either a) Really important or b) Caps lock error.
      This, Of course, was a) Really Important. Quote

April 15, 2005
Ms. Amy Clemons
Department of English
406 Holmes Hall

Dear Amy:
Congratulations! I am pleased to inform you that you have successfully completed the MA Comprehensive Examination. Your exam results are as follows:

4 areas passed, 3 distinctions

You may review your examination in the Graduate Office if you desire. You may pick up copies of your reader’s comments from the Graduate Studies Office after Monday, April 25, 2005.
Again, congratulations and best wishes.
Sincerely,

Stuart Peterfreund
Chair, Graduate Committee



      And the seventh seal broke, and there was a thousand years of peace...
      Or something like that.
      Upon squealing (EEK!) and awakening my roommate (Sharon, not Emma), and rejoicing with Gretchen online, I checked the email immediately below Jackie's joyous response was an ominous email from one Jill Quirk. Yes, the same Jill who is in one of my January postings, Jill from Purdue.
Jill who had told me just days earlier that I was on the waiting list at Purdue. Jill who had, on just this Tuesday, shattered the last of my ego....

Amy -

We can admit you and offer you a teaching assistantship. Please contact me and let me know if you are still interested or have made other plans. I can send the offer letters out on Monday.

Thanks!

Jill

Jill Quirk
Purdue University
Department of English/Comparative Literature
304 Heavilon Hall
500 Oval Drive
West Lafayette, IN 47907



      Ta-da.

      I'll leave the "case study in Juxtaposition" part up to you. It's interesting to see how formal emails work and the constelation of forms they take on, isn't it?