i'll take a cup of kindness yet for auld lang syne

GOOD RIDDANCE, 2009.

I look forward to throwing off the chains of the old decade and beginning the new.  Peace out, wretched 00s and your self-important exposé.  Adieu, you mongrel of a year with your sensationalisms, heartbreak, furor, and upset.  You have outworn your welcome, 2009.

And WELCOME, newest of years.  Cheers to a fresh new decade upon which to make our mark, our moment in history, our next major life changes.  Here's to our generation's next ten years, carefully paved by our last with caution, volatilism, and heart.  In our last ten years we survived Y2K, 9/11, Katrina, swine flu, and economic crisis; in our next may we exercise our new tools of persistence, hope, love, and a belief our ability to create a better tomorrow.

In lieu of resolutions, choose changes.  Seek those moments in which you feel fulfilled, strong, and passionate; pursue them.  Pay attention to those strengths you've forgotten you possess; remind yourself how strong you've been, will be, and can be for yourself and others.  Find moments of being, and just be.  Breathe, rest, and do that which will bring you closer, more intimately connected to your neighbors.
Choose to reuse, recycle, reduce.  Make creative choices over consumerist ones.  Celebrate a quieter space of life: cook more, laugh more, talk more, plant more, save more, live more.
Filter more.  Turn off technology more.  Choose local news, visit local parks, meet neighbors for coffee at a local shop.  Listen more.
Love more.

Welcome, 2010.  You've been a long time coming.

it's like ComicCon, but for lit students. and i will never tire of calling it that.

The Sched.

Tuesday
8pm: Played a real life Virginian for a WHOLE WEEK.  Cheers to warm weather, sweet Southern people, and a whole lotta family.

Sunday
7am: Hugged my favorite palm tree for the last time.
4pm: Got stuck in the 30th Street L turnstile.  People laughed instead of helped. Humiliating lesson learned.
6pm: Grad student reunion happy hour downtown!
7pm: My first MLA panel, 'bout robots.

Monday
8am - 3pm: Convened. HARD.
3pm-bedtime: Napped by accident. Did MLA things. Napped again.
11pm: Unpacked MLA things. Pretty sure I made back my registration fees in free books and tote bags.  Hello, next year's presents.

Tuesday
8a: Convening.  So. Much. Convening.
1pm: First drag sighting, Marriott Grad Lounge. Felt wretchedly dowdy in my sneakers, jeans, and button-down.  Sank further and further into my chair as the young German man in fierce zebra coat, high-heeled boots, and immaculate red wig discussed identity theory with an MLA delegate. 
[Note to self: be more fierce.]
3p: Sad moment in the Scottish Writing booth: totes have disappeared. Sorry, Mom.

Wednesday
8a: Too. Tired. To. Function.
9a: Mobbed the Exhibitor for almost-free-they're-so-discounted new books!
10.30a: Slunk back into the grad lounge with armfuls of fought-over-and-won paperbacks.  Still panting.  Bleeding from the right cheekbone.  Victorious.  People stare.
11a: Beth to the rescue!  Bestowed with Scottish Writers tote; a thrilled Mom promises a thank you note. BETH IS AWESOME.
12noon: FINALLY. A Virginia Woolf panel!
12.15p: IT IS SO AMAZING.
1:45p: Attend final panel of the convention.  Any guesses?
-  SHOCKER: "Roundtable for Graduate Students Re: Life in the Corporate University"
- WHAT.

The lessons.

• Fact: "Neoliberal zombies are feasting on the remains of the academic institution."
• Also: "Universities have never not been corporations." Jean Howard, Columbia
• GASP.
• Woolf has the best cult following of ALL the cult followings.  Joining the Society in January!
• Jackie will elbow tottering old professors out of the way in an outright SPRINT to the Penguin table for final sales.
• Don't buy anything til the last day.  Then, buy 14 books for $31.  That is $2.21 a book.  Plus free totes.  Playa WHAT.
• Professionals in the Lit(/humanities) field love to hear themselves talk.  A lot.  They will blatantly disregard the timer, and the timekeepers should be shot.
• If the MLA selects you to panel for something, you are an authority on that something.
• BUT: Just when you feel important enough to be listened to by a panel and responsive audience of your peers, they schedule you for a room with 15 chairs, at 7:15pm, and all of three people show up.
• This is considered being "respected in the field."
• You can also tell the CFP panel anything to get selected for a panel and then present a whole different paper at conference.
• See: robot debacle of December 2009.
• The myth of the American dream does not exist for professors.  Also: they know.  They're working on it.  But who cares about professors anyway.
• Often presenters do not know how to turn on a projector, adjust to their needed input settings, or change the Powerpoint slide.  Facts.  I witnessed all of these.  This explains in horrifying detail the slow death of the Literature field.
• One presenter actually suggested (at the "rethinking the MA degree" panel) that "Information Technology" isn't important really to the field.
• I would like to take this moment to assert that I do not know how to do research outside of online journal databases.  And I can read Queen Victoria's notes on her speeches housed at Buckingham ONLINE you guys.
• It is now clear why English Lit gets such a bad rap.
• Philadelphia is cold. as. ballz.
• "Fame, Stardom, and Celebrity" means "I study celebrities for a living" possibly "because those who can't, write papers about it."
• This is not encouraging to one obsessed with fame.
• Suddenly my life as a graduate student makes a lot more sense.  Encouraging?  Maybe not.  More direction? Absolutely not.  But sense-making? ... Yep.

the "jingle" of "jingle bells" is an imperative verb: the speaker is asking the bells to jingle! this has been your grammar trivia of the holiday season!

Happy Christmas, you guys.



May your Christmas be all kinds of bright and beautiful, wherever however whatever your plans!  I hope all the love and cheer of the holiday season spends an extra moment with you and yours.  But also that your least favorite visitors don't overstay their welcome.  That's awkward.
This English major is having a very happy humanities holiday, full of new books, new anthologies, and old friends.  It's going to take me months to get through all my brand-new, beautifully re-editioned classics (so excited)! 
Hope your holiday is just as wonderful!

if i knew then what i know now ... i would have brought an icescraper with me

Oh, btw: I survived the SnowPocalypse.

I braved the storm Saturday to catch some 9am snow-action shots for my Constant(ly Curious) Readers.  It was misery:

You're welcome.

This, you may recognize, is the southeast view from my window.  Please compare to sunny, beautiful Fall views.  I'm tempted to call "WHITEOUT" but then, I'm prone to drama:

And Sunday noon-ish, after snow[plow]man had worked his dubious magic on the parking lot.  Poor Christine.  She fought tooth and nail against this move, and it's hard to blame her:

When I got outside and saw the above, I did in fact stop short.

Um, this is a first: on the rare occasion I see snow, it is way rarer that will stick to the ground.  This predicament blew my mind.  I was bewildered.  I squinted at the parking lot and tallied my ideas.

• 1) All-wheel drive?
• Instantly squished: I would have to AWD it over 23 inches of snow from a dead standstill and I am not about to bottom out on a snowdrift.  In my parking lot.
• 2) I was out of ideas. 

I literally called Dan and asked for help.

I would also like to take a moment and stress how grateful I am for my HM-GBiffles: he only laughed once.  Then he carefully described "digging out," what tools one can use for it, and the necessity of vehicular "rocking" finesse.  Slowly the grim reality dawned: this is going to mean a snowshovel.

I mean, it's all part of the experience, right?  I made the call to live up North for kicks and giggles -- time to become one with the community.  Like an anthropology project.  From hell.

So I rolled up my winter coat sleeves and marched to the front desk.  I explained I'm from the South and utterly baffled by all this white stuff, but understand that a tool one might call a "shovel for snow" exists and could be just what I need.

I was offered both snowshovel and Dennis (property manager)'s snowshoveling machine. The shovel looked heavy.  Dennis's machine came operated by Dennis.

Thanks Dennis!

To conclude, I'm unconvinced that snow is desirable, but at least I know what it's like to live in a state that can actually handle snowfall.  A few questions remain, like: I'm still not entirely sure how the highway got plowed so fast?  Especially when the concrete dividers are so high.  Where does almost two feet of snow GO but to the side of the road ... when there's no side of the road ...?

Also my understanding is that Virginia is crippled for weeks.  I'll be sending canned foods and batteries in to the drive soon, Constant VA Readers.  Be strong.

So ... til the next PhillyVenture!
xoxo Anne

GUYS. YOU GUYS.

So that seminar paper that was consumed by my Mac?  Worth like all of my grade?  That I hope and dream, one day, to call a master's thesis?

On fish?

A- you guys

Cue Triumphant Moment:

Photo Credit: Amanda Fuller

Used here, "A-" stands for "Life validation."  I will most definitely be presenting those pages for qualification next semester.

Fish.  It's what's for analyzing.

i may or may not live through snowmegeddon.

Philadelphia has already experienced more snow in 12 hours Virginia has in the last five years combined*.  It is currently 23 degrees (feels like 9!), snowing really hard, and scary you guys.

As you may be aware, SnowWatch `09 is a big deal for parts of the MidAtlantic.  Virginia specifically is losing it: they have like one snowplow for the state, and no evacuation plan, and if you drive you will die. But Philadelphia?: "oh, we'll get between 15-18 inches. Whatevs.  Hot cocoa!"
I am < thrilled.  Snow all kinds of monkeys with you.  Your plans get defenestrated and SNOW becomes your plans.  Even the threat of snow turns VA (and me) into a tizzy. I do not need "like 15-18in." of it snowing me in all stranded-like.

So, I'll admit, at first I was annoyed with my W&M/VA/DC news feed: it was blowing up about the Snowmegeddon like two days before it even happened.  That is great, you guys, enjoy the snow.  Throw a snowball on someone's face. Get your clothes all wet and catch pneumonic swine flu. Huzzah.
Philadelphians, on the other hand, curiously peeped once pre-monster-snow:

"I leave for a weekend in NYC in one hour.  If it snows a foot like the weather reports are saying, I. AM. SCREWED.  Buying snowpants on 5th Avenue?" - PZimmz

Please note: that is a travel peep.  Perhaps the updater will be inconvenienced by the wretched meteorological phenomenon that is snow.  I commiserate and wish him godspeed.
Let's take a look at some comparable VA updates:

"SNOW glorious SNOW!" -Lemon

"snowsnowsnow :)" -KGpers

While adorable, those are "I'm so stoked about precipitation!" peeps.  I do not understand.  It is snow, it is wicked inconvenient, and it is not fun. Yours truly, The Grinch.

This morning I had a chilling realization: at least my VA homies are talking about the snow.  They look forward to the requisite snowballing and the VA state of emergency.  They are weather-aware.
It scares me to pieces that the Philadelphians are not. even. fazed. by the SnowPocalypse.  As if ... as if this isn't a SnowPocalypse. AT. ALL.

Maybe this is normal snow expectation.  Like SnowPocalypse `09 is just the tip of the iceberg.  THE RAPIDLY MELTING ICEBERG.

I went grocery shopping yesterday just to have food in the cabinets in case I get snowed into my apartment complex for the next three days, as a VAian does when TWO FEET OF SNOW is forecast.  Sitting there in the parking lot in 23 degree weather, shivering in my birthday coat, gloves, and boots waiting for Christine to warm up, I witnessed the single most terrifying thing I have ever seen in my life.

My apartment complex has its own snowplow.  The snow[plow]man was test-driving it around and around and around and around my truck.  And me, sitting in it, looking on in frozen horror.

It is going to be a long. long. winter.

*That might be true

my laptop's "n" key is significantly more faded than other keys. i don't think i really use it more than other keys. is it less hardy than other keys ...?

I have turned in my last papers, returned my last 40 books to the library, and celebrated at a TUEGS bonanza. VICTORY.
Further, it has been precisely four months since my traumatic move to Philadelphia.  I have lived in Pennsylvania for 123 days (and have yet to meet into Steve Carrell, weirdly).
I must have learned something. Behold, the lessons ye are about to receive, ever-Constant Reader.

A Leadership Self-Assessment, found on a random business website 

(inspired by Diana) Edited by me.

• [Graduate Student] Attributes ...
• Do I view problems as opportunities?
• The major problems this semester: overloading on credits. No financial aid (thanks, economy!). Living by myself in a huge, terrifying city.  Tackling graduate school alone.  Sudden panic at the prospect of joblessness next year.  Constant self-doubt buffeted by incessant defense of life plan.  
• Problems? Yes.  But are they ... opportunities?
• FO SHO!: everyone loves a good rags-to-riches story.  This is America!  Land of probl delusions of opportunities!
• Am I a priority setter?
• If by "priority" you mean "learn to budget like a crazy-person," then maybe.  If you mean "cram frantic paper-writing/speed-reading around bouts of drinking and graduate-student tomfoolery" then yes.
• Am I courageous?
• I prefer "obstinate."
  
• Am I a critical/creative thinker?
• I'd rather not relive V's class here; this is a happy place.
• But in the spring I am taking a class with Rachel DuPlessis on "Virginia Woolf: Poetic Prose;" the course requirements are a 15-page critical paper on writing (?) and a 15-page creative essay (!)
• So let's hope together, you guys.
  
• What is my tolerance for ambiguity?
• You mean V's emails? Or Miller's assignments? Or O'Hara's classes? Or J's "check mark" grading system?
• ZERO. I HAVE A ZERO TOLERANCE POLICY.
• Do I have a positive attitude towards change?
• Please.
• [Graduate Student] Skills ...
• Do I debate, enunciate, and clarify my values and beliefs?
• According to V: absolutely not. According to O: absolutely.
• Only my GPA will tell.
• I do so love to/am great at gossip, so if that counts.  Especially about people, things, places, and politics. Also people in politics.
  
• Do I ask the big-picture questions, including "what if?"
• What if we never landed on the moon?
• What if the Manhattan Project had failed?
• What if this is the post-nuclear alternate universe?
• What if there's life in a neighboring solar system, and we find it?
• What if the Internet collapsed tomorrow? 
• What if everyone dedicated ten hours a year to community service?
• What if the poverty/affluence gap began shrinking?
• What if my future-bestselling-series is adapted to a four-movie-saga. I'm sorry, when it is.
  
• Do I encourage dreaming and thinking the unthinkable?
• In my head I live on the LOST island.  Next please.
• Can I align the budget, planning, policies and instructional programs with the district goals and vision?
• That was the rabid, delusional thought behind "I'll do it in a year! A YEAR!"
• So maybe.  Yes if on January 21 I am handed a salaried, benis-full 24-month contract offer.
• And if I pass the French exam.  Fluency, baby.
• Do I practice and plan conscious abandonment? 
• What the hell is that?
• Does that mean fantasy and/or role-play?  Yes. I fantasize about my impending fame like six days a week.
• And also LOST. Um, Sawyer. Don't judge me: he's so well-read for a down-home Georgia boy killing machine.
  
• "Business" seriously makes no sense.
• [Graduate Student] Knowledge ...
• Do I know board roles and responsibilities in planning and implementing plans?
• As I comprise the board, this answer is pretty clear:
• NO.  I am making this up as I go along.
• WOOO PARTY
• Do I know the board and district vision, beliefs, and mission? 
• Sometimes.  People think it's cute that I have dreams and starry eyes and "want to help people," which is occasionally in itself enough to lose confidence.
• But then I remember those people can suck it. For I am AWESOME.  (I'm looking at YOU, SENSIBLENESS)
• What trait are you trying to make more descriptive of you?
• Listen, CorpAmer.  Employ English majors to clean up your basic communication skillz.  It's sad for you plus we need jobs.
• I choose confident.  This, I think, has been the tenuous theme of Fall 09.  I waffle between being giddily excited about my life to utterly devastated about the choices I've made
• Thus I'd like to be much more confident.
• Also "sexy."  And "Jim Halpert's life coach."
• I'm planning a trip to Scranton over winter break and you should come. I need help getting just the right picture to Photoshop myself into Dunder Mifflin's family/office park.
• You guys, you can't live in Pennsylvania and NOT go to Scranton. Don't look at me like that.

Cheers to life, love, and blogging, you guys.  I miss you.

and thus trumpets the victory of the english graduate student: first semester DOWN

- Golden Globe noms are out and LOST has a single "Michael Emerson" nomination. Ouch.  Michael Emerson remains the only claim to legitimate fame LOST has and it's BS you guys

- I've noticed that every time I've come into the grad student lounge the past few days, a certain undergrad at the front desk has followed me in, resulting in a fresh pot of coffee.  Is it Pavlovian? Am I an unrealized coffee tyrant? I confronted her today.
She stammered, "Um .. I always brew more when you come in, because you always drink coffee.  It's better fresh?"  She thought I was mad at her, when in reality I was trying to restrain myself from bursting into tears right there in front of Peter Logan and everybody. 
She has been added to my Christmas card list as "Coffee Queen" and we are COFFEE BIFFLES 4 LYF

- I trained for two hours yesterday at my new part-time job that will keep me fed over winter break. Most of the hours (based on my lazy availability) will be spent at the front desk of the fitness center, across from the cafe.  I am okay with this.  There is Internet and desk space to hide books, and there are definitely still free smoothies.  However, I am officially reevaluating my life:
The person training me gave me a quick tour of the center, indicating that on the rare occassion I see anyone improperly using a machine I should definitely call a trainer's attention to it.  Then she glanced over at me, LAUGHED, and said, "Oh, I'm sorry, I'll make sure you get an orientation session with each machine.  We'll schedule that next time."
I literally LOOK like I don't know what "working out" is.  20 minutes of "yoga" twice a week is clearly not doing anything for my delusional body image.  And I now work at the gym downstairs that I have free access to. 
Thus, a shameful, shameful New Year's resolution is born.

 - I hate when you get in the elevator with 6 other people and each of you hits a different floor number.  I hate that.  It adds like 8 seconds every floor the elevator stops on, and I inevitably am going to the uppermost floor of any building I enter.  The only socially acceptable option, once you've exhausted the light reading you've brought for the upward transit, is to curl up quietly in the corner of the elevator and nap.  To keep the rage at bay.

- Today was my last day as a Fall 2009 graduate student, and it. feels. awesome.

picture every "my computer ate my thesis" horror story you've ever heard. add a dose of bad karma, and me.

This is me, posting at 6am. 

This is me, having just pretty much pulled an all-nighter as I last minute stumbled upon a new-and-improved direction for a 20-page seminar paper, that I hope to use as my MA thesis, that is adding a lot of pressure to my life.  This is me exhuasted and looking forward to turning this monster in in a few hours.

This is me, cup of tea in hand after a three-hour midnight nap.  This is me coming back to reboot my computer at 5am to wrap it up strong.

This is me, finally (frantically) getting my Mac to start back up, and this is me presented with a message that no, no it did not calmly shut down a mere three hours ago.  It came CRASHING DOWN in a BLAZING FIREBALL of twisted white plastic and massive word processing documents.

This is me, with 30% less seminar paper and 85% less sanity.  And like four hours left.

sometimes i am thinking. and then self-publishing.

Often I have thoughts.

• My professor brought cocktail fixin's for our final class, and instead of lecture we had screwdrivers, Bloody Marys, and wine.  9am Tuesday.  I would like to strongly recommend graduate school to you if you need some life plans
• Of note: exam week is much harder. Blowout does not exist. My brain is extra-mushy and I think I legitimately have carpal tunnel from the typing bonanza of the last three weeks.
• But if that's what floats your boat, then yes, it is awesome.
• One of my professors came to the lounge for coffee and happened to see me on a Twitter break.  "Oh, are you on the chat-Twitter-mail?"
• I made an awkward noise between a laugh, snort, and cough, which led to choking. It was hilarious, and yet I wanted to respect my professor. I think I just scared him.
• This is how hellish my finals week has been:
• I turned in a close reading last week on Laertes.  It was a pretty amazing (if I do say so myself) deconstruction of the father's inappropriately gendered response to a daughter's suicide, and I was really proud of such a neat angle this late in the game
• Until I went back to the passage for my seminar paper yesterday and realized Laertes is Ophelia's BROTHER
• I turned in my rewrite today.
• The shame will live forever.
• I officially have a winter break job: making smoothies at the cafe/sitting at the gym desk in the lobby area!
• + Commute can't be beat: enter elevator. Hit "Lobby." Turn left.
  
• + I don't have to work at McDonald's
  
• - She doesn't allow books or Internet during down time.  Ouch. It's like the Middle Ages up in here.
  
• + I'll only work mornings and will have the rest of the day for napping/reading/cocktails
• - The pay is next-to-nothing
  
• + I will get paid
• This is more for the Tribe 09ers (et al)
• Tribe mascots announced! HERE 
• I'm all about "The Tribe Pugs," personally.  I'm down with adorably cute mascots, and imagine the JMU Bulldogs' confusion as we unleash the "Tribe Pugs!"  (AHAHAHAHAHAHA it will be awesome.)
• That is my vote. You can give your own feedback here.
• I can feel, physically, how exhausted my Mac is.
• I just counted and no joke:
• 2 Firefox windows
• 15 tabs of research/Gmail/FB/primary sources
  
• A software download that needs to restart my computer, hovering in the background because:
• 8 Word files are hanging out, two more in the dock, and a PDF that I'm not done transcribing
• Google Chrome Beta download! For Mac!  It exists here!  And PS. its URL tags "huzzah" at the end, it's adorable.  And I can't shut down until I can also do that!
• Mac can hardly move.  Grad school is wearing him out.
• I have 55 more pages to turn in by 9am Tuesday. 20 of which are due tomorrow at 9am. I am a little nervous I'll fall asleep at my desk and sleep right through the deadline. 
• Probably the nightmare of sleeping through the deadline will wake me up.  So I'm not all that worried?
• BUT THEN it is winter break and winter break means books, wine, mo' money, Christmas, family, travel, sleep ...
• This grad school thing you guys. It's brutal.

These are thoughts that I have.

perspective

When I was little and adorable and in elementary school I was kind of the teacher's darling.  I could answer any question pretty quickly and always raced through tests and so I could get back to reading the books I had stashed in my desk.  But there was one question that would, without fail, throw me into a tailspin:

"What do you want to be when you grow up?"

Frick.

I'm told people like to refer back to what they wanted to be at 8 years old or whatever.  This is, evidently, a great way to tap into what made you happy as a child, where you found purpose and satisfaction, and what gave you hope for the future. Except, um, for me.

My friends all knew they wanted to be doctors, firefighters, veterinarians, astronauts.  Oh, not me, thanks.  The standbys I rejected one after the other: 

• I never wanted to be a doctor; why deal with sick people all the time. Plus hospitals are associated with "sickness" in my mind
  
• Not a firefighter, either: I don't even like being in smoky bars, much less burning buildings
  
• A vet? FUZZY. ANIMALS. DYING.  Done and done.  
• Astronautism, aside from rocketing me one parsec closer to my greatest fear in life, is just creepy.  I don't ever want to walk on the moon.   More power to those of you that do, weirdos.

So I usually answered

"Annie Allen: President of the United States." 

And I was most definitely that kid in your 3rd grade class.  My teachers and friends did not challenge it.

At 8, "President" was at least half true.  I had the unfortunate curse of being pretty good at school in general and interested in a lot of things, which meant I was constantly reminded "You can be whatever you want to be!'"  THANKS but that's not helpful. 
I knew the President was at least in charge, smart, famous, respected, and reserved for men, so there was that.  Screw you, sexist America.  This is what a baby feminist looks like:

Laser lights and an androgynous sailor suit.

I don't think it gets better than that.

In high school I took 7 (seven) career placement tests.  I scored equally "suitable for" humanities, social sciences, general sciences, health services, and law on pretty much all of them.  Which is not helpful.   I have a Bachelor of Sciences in Psychology from a liberal arts college, and am now in a Master of Arts program for English Literature.  Specializing: Gender/Women's Studies.  Also Woolf.

For those keeping score at home: that's zero direction.

So this is me, looking back at what I wanted to be at 8: I mostly just wanted to experience everything and love every moment.  I wanted to go places, do things, change people's lives.  I wanted to be successful, happy, and above all, busy.

This, on the one hand, is an awesome "to be" for when I grow up.  I can be free to go anywhere and do anything, on the single condition that I'm happy and healthy.  I don't HAVE to have a conventional plan, corporate America, so suck it.  Or a tried-and-true path to enlightenment.  I can just be.
On the other: welp, I'm kind of a control freak.  Planning is right up there on my "Favorite Hobbies" list.  The plan of "No plan" is horrifying and I need a brown paper bag just typing about it.  Also I dread people asking me what I'm doing with my life and hate my half-lies when I answer them.
So.

"What do you want to be when you grow up?"   "What are you doing next year? After grad school? With your life?"
Honestly?  I want to be awesome.  And happy and proud and excited to start each new day. 
It's time to at least consider pursuing that.

ACT II

Stage lights dim. Spotlight upstage center. 

Enter Anne

An.      I told you that story so I could tell you this story.

I applied for Teach for America in October and attended a final interview today.  In my nervousness I tripped and ate it on-site, stabbed myself in the eye with a pen while removing the cap (a warning to you all: clicky pens are key), and called my interviewer by the wrong name twice.

Awkwardly, the best answer I could give to "Why Teach for America?" was:
"Um, that's a hard question to answer.  I can't really explain why I need to give back, or flock to nonprofit, or seek out opportunities to give low-income students a leg up on tomorrow.  I can't break down why Phonathon or SCG are on my resume.  I can't explain why putting myself through school changed my life, or why the full ride WM gave me from 2007-2009 correlates with a greater intensity of my desire to ... help.  Give back.  Reach out.  Be love.

"I can't answer that.  I will say that I'm doing this, because I have to."

I was honest, and real, and will know on January 21st if the corps wants me.  I hope they do: it's a small way to make a big difference, and a fast track to who I want to be. 

And who 8 year old Annie dreamed of being.

Exeunt

- FIN -