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Adilegian
Rogue Scholar
Joined: 05 Dec 2006
Location: Q*Bert Killscreen Nightmare
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 Posted: Thu Feb 05, 2009 5:11 pm Post subject: Help me sabotage one and a half years of MA work! |
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I'm defending my MA thesis tomorrow!
As with any Large, Looming Responsibility, I believe it's best to prepare for the worst.
The Hypothetical: Let's say things go terribly wrong somehow. We're talking about the education equivalent of suddenly being on the plane at the opening of Bioshock. Nothing left to lose.
How do I seal the deal and perfectly destroy this transcript I've cobbled from student loans and insomnia?
I am looking to you for suggestions, SB.
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Adilegian
Rogue Scholar
Joined: 05 Dec 2006
Location: Q*Bert Killscreen Nightmare
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| Posted: Sun Feb 08, 2009 5:53 am |
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I defended my thesis like a ninja: invisibly, with a hint of wafted cherry.
Quoth one member of my defense committee: "Opacity is your greatest virtue."
This pleases me. I've always believed so myself.
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Adilegian
Rogue Scholar
Joined: 05 Dec 2006
Location: Q*Bert Killscreen Nightmare
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| Posted: Sun Feb 08, 2009 8:01 am |
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| CubaLibre wrote: |
| Wasn't so hard, was it? Fun, even. |
It might have been different from most MA thesis defenses, since the majority of my material was self-generated. I had to submit 50 pages of my poems and a critical introduction.
The critical intro was mostly shit because it's hard for me to get a perspective on how my poems work for others. Everything I write has a pretty definite meaning for me, but that personal meaning isn't where the value lies... rather, it's value comes from the variety of associations it suggests for a reader to whom my personal catalog of images and words are strange. Hence, opacity is my greatest virtue!
My thesis was approved pending the submission of a revised critical intro, and that's no problem. It's easier for me to write about my poems using the terminology that others have applied to it rather than using the terminology I use myself. I've been told that I'm like the only living speaker of a dialect group, and I prefer knowing what nodes in other people's vocabularies I should attach my meanings to.
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Adilegian
Rogue Scholar
Joined: 05 Dec 2006
Location: Q*Bert Killscreen Nightmare
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| Posted: Tue Feb 10, 2009 12:29 am |
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| GalaxyHead wrote: |
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| I had to submit 50 pages of my poems and a critical introduction. |
Mind sharing these?
I am trying out for a poetry fellowship. |
I'll share after it's all finished and published. I'm pretty protective of my work until it's in some form that I can defend as being mine.
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Adilegian
Rogue Scholar
Joined: 05 Dec 2006
Location: Q*Bert Killscreen Nightmare
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| Posted: Tue Apr 07, 2009 10:01 pm |
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THESIS IS ENDED
MA GET
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Adilegian
Rogue Scholar
Joined: 05 Dec 2006
Location: Q*Bert Killscreen Nightmare
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| Posted: Wed Apr 08, 2009 12:37 am |
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| negativedge wrote: |
| posting from school itt |
At this level, school is everywhere.
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Adilegian
Rogue Scholar
Joined: 05 Dec 2006
Location: Q*Bert Killscreen Nightmare
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| Posted: Tue Apr 14, 2009 2:04 am |
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| CubaLibre wrote: |
| And now the doctorate. |
Oh God no. I've discovered that the work demands of grad school + my brain = incredibly unhealthy. I wouldn't mind doing a doctoral program over the course of, say, seven years though.
Besides, I'm really really interested in finding my way into a more permanent seat in the games industry, whether as a creative writer, journalist, or whatnot. I would love to get a PhD in poetry for my own betterment, but focusing time and energy on that right now just isn't how I want to spend the next three years.
And I've reached that decision after having spent two years getting an MA in poetry for my own betterment—not as a professional credential.
| ThisMachineKillsFascists wrote: |
| I want to read your poems and be once again pleasantly surprised by how many talented people post here. It's the SB difference, doncha'know. |
As soon as the whole thing gets bound and published, I'll scan the pages and host it somewhere. I'll let you know when/where that happens.
| boojiboy7 wrote: |
| maybe someday I will finish mine...ha ha ha. |
It feels surprisingly anticlimactic. Maybe I'll feel better about it after a year has passed and I'm no longer exhausted from critical analysis!
| GalaxyHead wrote: |
| Is the MA in poetry? Because that is ballsy and I salute you. |
Kiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinda. It's the best of both worlds, really… technically, it's an MA in English, Creative Writing Emphasis, Poetry Emphasis. In reality, most of my academic hours have been devoted to courses on reading different poetries or on writing and workshopping poems. I get the benefit of exercising my aesthetic and creative work ethic in a environment of others – some of whom are more dedicated to poetic endeavor than others – and I get the professional credential of an MA in English rather than an MA in Creative Writing.
I guess the plus side these is that an MA in English, for all its limitations, is more versatile than an MA in Creative Writing. Which kind of makes sense!
But! Salute noted and appreciated. I encourage everyone to drop what they're doing and go to school to entrench themselves in their personal passions, whatever those might be, heedless of economic consequences.
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Adilegian
Rogue Scholar
Joined: 05 Dec 2006
Location: Q*Bert Killscreen Nightmare
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| Posted: Tue Jun 09, 2009 8:36 pm |
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| This Machine Kills Fascis wrote: |
| I want to read your poems and be once again pleasantly surprised by how many talented people post here. It's the SB difference, doncha'know. |
Now that I have an internet connection in Denton... here!
http://www.adilegian.com/Howell_MAThesis_Spring2009.pdf
Kind of a big file since I scanned in the pages and made a doc out of the scanned images. But higher resolution = better writing right? I'm just thinking of you guys.
I noticed a few typos that bred when my OCD turned attention to other things (such as recurrences of sets of five), but, feh. This is what I did.
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Adilegian
Rogue Scholar
Joined: 05 Dec 2006
Location: Q*Bert Killscreen Nightmare
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| Posted: Wed Jun 24, 2009 5:33 am |
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If anyone took time to glance over the work posted above, I'm really interested to know anyone's responses. I always like getting feedback from people who aren't in a formalized Creative Writing program -- it's fresh and honest in a way that's sometimes hard to come by within a program, except for rare peers.
Absolutely not fishing for compliments, BTW.
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