webnography

Since I last wrote, I’ve mourned a rejection from my top choice program (Stanford’s Modern Thought & Literature), spent a few nights writhing feverishly from a sudden-onset flu bug, celebrated an acceptance from UC San Diego’s Communication program, and (with no small degree of assistance from my amazing supertrooper parents) moved the entirety of our belongings from Bushwick into Chelsea.

Burrowed cozily in the heart of this giant clusterfuck called Manhattan (or as one Geo Geller calls it “Madhattan”), I have too much work for what is undoubtedly too little pay but I’ve been keeping my worries away through what has fast become my favorite pasttime: gazing at maps and photos of San Diego while simultaneously checking current weather conditions in the area. At the time of this writing, it is 69 degrees and partly cloudy.

Now to catch up on that low-to-non-paying research and writing work that I so dearly love as to consider making the sacrifice of spending the next 5 years continuing it in San Diego…

As much as I enjoyed my vacation with the boy’s fam, I’ve determined that I’m not really a *vacation type*. It’s disorienting, and I feel as though my mind has lost its edge, like loose elastic with no snap left. In the past month, there’s been a good deal of broken glass: I acquired a Blackberry Storm and somehow broke the screen, and also had my car broken into and had to get three windows and a rearview mirror replaced. Our lease is up next month and we’ve already found an awesome sublet in Chelsea, so we will be spending our final four months in NYC in high style.

I’ve been hard at work crafting my first two publications, both book chapters for edited collections. One is a revised version of the final chapter of my thesis, an ethnographic account of processes of remembrance and commemoration of the dead on Facebook. It will hopefully be accepted as one of the final chapters in The Psychology of Facebook, edited by BJ Fogg. The other chapter, “Weaving the Underground Web: Neotribalism and Psytrance on Tribe.net,” is for a collection titled Psytrance: Local Scenes and Global Culture, edited by the marvelous Graham St. John.

Additionally, I’ve applied to seven different Ph.D programs, all located in California with the exception of Brown’s Modern Culture and Media Program. I am hoping at least one of them will accept me and offer decent funding so that I have a direction when we move to California in June. It’s simultaneously terrifying and exciting that I won’t really know where the hell I’ll be come August, but I fully intend on adventuring my way westward. Give a shout if you’d like us to hit you up on our travels. My car is already fully stocked with a tent, an air mattress, and a brand new campfire coffeepot

Next up on the agenda: Crafting a book proposal for The Virtual Campfire, and finally getting to work on percolating the website projects that have been brewing for far too many months.

seeing as i’ve been unanimously approved for application fee waivers by the schools to which i’m applying, i’m kicking myself in hindsight for not doing the same for the godforsaken GRE I took this evening - $140 so I could spend four hours in pure mental agony, desperately wishing i could treat it all like a game, but unfortunately dragged down to the shadows by a combination of my tepid fellow test-takers, the banal-to-the-point-of-vomiting,sadly cubicle computer terminals that made up the room (complete with partitions!), the menacing clock ticking down all the time i had left to be brilliant! now! do it!

i could go on. in fact, i think i will.

the essay topics were downright invidious. actually, the very notion of timed, structured essay composition makes my knees shrivel. anything i have ever written under such conditions has been pure shit. the act of writing is a fermentation process, not a robotic one. my creative juices utterly zapped from the get-go, it was thankfully not too difficult to resist the urge to thoughtstream, to let my words run wild on the page painting scenes. no. i had to be logical. non sequiturs are illogical, so i attempted to sequitize the lies.

and they are lies, too. the only thing i know to be true is that which i feel, am and do.

the verbal section is seemingly arbitrary, though the Kaplan word list I studied from did help me immensely. i abhor the idea that one’s grasp of language can be in any way accurately assessed through a barrage of esoteric words framed out of context. cool words do not generally stand alone; they exist in a more abstract compendium of cultural norms, stories, slang - those words are far more intriguing.

math was math. i did surprisingly well, far better than the verbal, though i consider myself a word-based, math-adverse person. the ’80’s-style computer monitor (BOXY FOXY) made grafts and subtle additions such as exclamation points difficult to read. a small sign next to the monitor begged me not to touch the screen. the whole time, i wanted to reach out and touch. those BANAL BANAL black-and-white graphs and charts and turn them into something colorful and engaging.

the exam took 4 hours total. i was the last person to leave the room. no one was sync’d or looked at one another, in fact when i finally broke from my math reverie, it kind of broke my heart to realize i was utterly alone in my despair.

oh yeah, there’s a lovely little bonus section that doesn’t count toward your score, but you don’t know which one it is! isn’t that clever?!

asinine-ass-exam, i am rid of you!