By Corinne Flax

October 12, 2005

Acorn and Road Kill Stew

It's another day, and this one is Tuesday. Today I opened the Bux, and consequently I've spent the rest of the day not sure if I'm alive or dead, awake or asleep, coming or going etc. I did manage to crank out an essay for Columbia/NYU (yes I'm going to use the same essay for two schools, I'm just lazy is all,) and that feels good, sort of. Plus I'm writing this, and I took a walk, so really who can call me unproductive? Really the only person doing that is me, but self flagellation is a personal specialty of mine. I just can't edit anything the day I write it, so I have the essay all typed up and sitting next to me, but I refuse to look at it. At least I've always maintained I can't same day edit, but perhaps that's from lack of trying.

It's really grey and nasty outside today, it's been raining on and off for a couple of days. Hello Autumn! I was (finally) completely aware that it's fall a few days ago, all because of the driveway. All summer I've run out the door barefoot, whether to take out the trash or pick up the mail. So a few days ago I went to do that and was stopped short by acorns. Those little nuts hurt like hell when you step on them with bare feet! I was yelping with pain as I picked my way over to the mailbox, and the trip back was even worse. That was when I figured out what all those thumping noises had been; acorns falling on the roof! In regard to the thumping noises, there are a lot of them, and they make me nervous. Essentially one whole side of the house (my parent's house that is) is made of glass, and I live in on the ground floor. One whole side of my room is sliding glass doors that open into the yard.

I've seen a lot of crazy critters scooting by outside my window late at night. Big nasty opossums followed by their kits, fat racoons heading for the trash cans, more deer than I care to count. Seeing the animals doesn't make me as nervous as just hearing them does. When I only hear them but don't see them, that's when they start to make me nervous. Of course the animals have been particularly active lately, because it's fall. From the skunks to the chipmunks (cheap rhyme I know) everything is running around like crazy trying to get its bed ready for the winter. The squirrels have all gone belligerently crazy and bombard me with acorns every time I walk out the door. I've seen more opossums, skunks, racoons, and muskrats in the last week then I did all summer. Unfortunately most of these animals sightings were road kill, but what can you do? A friend of mine in highschool had this whole poster of road kill recipes, but to the best of my knowledge he never did try to cook any of them.

To get back to more pleasant subjects tomorrow is as they say, another day. Another day to edit my essay, to rewrite someone else's essay, to read "Madame Bovary"which I'm enjoying very much. Another day to take walks in the country, to return the library book I've had out forever, to sing karaoke with my friends, to eat pizza with random toppings like eggplant and feta cheese. Last week I saw not one, but two plays and it's made me think about how much of life is just a sort of net that we drape over ourselves to give us shape. Underneath all the trappings and decorations we're such basic creatures engaged in an elemental struggle for existence, and that's what makes life interesting.

-----

October 8, 2005

So Much To Do

I'll let you all in on a little secret. I love Howard Stern. I've been listening to his show since I was in sixth grade, and when he goes off the air in a month or two I will definitely go through a brief, but powerful mourning phase. It's going to feel like someone who I've spent 65% of my mornings with for the last ten years is abandoning me. How will I live without Robin's news? Without Fred's sound effects? And what about Artie Lange? He's really funny! Not that I'll be buying getting Sirius radio or anything like that just to listen to the Stern show. That would be ridiculous.

So let's see what's going on today...I'm going to volunteer in about 45 minutes, and then it's onto the train with Jamsie to take him to his daddy. After that I'm meeting up with T and we're going to the Max Protetch gallery to check out an opening of architectural models. T always knows about these openings, and both of us are very fond of free wine and cheese. Hell, we like wine and cheese and the fact that it's free is a serious bonus. After the opening who knows, there's a list of people who are going to try and find us in the East Village, but you can never tell if stuff like that is going to work out.

On Saturday I'm coming back home to see a production of "The Glass Menagerie" at the Curtain Call Theatre in Stamford CT. A friend of mine is in it, and the theater is cabaret style, which means I'll be bringing a picnic dinner and all that good stuff. I've always liked "The Glass Menagerie," so I'm pretty excited about that. Also I'll be going with my friend Ja to celebrate her birthday, and we almost never see one another anymore, despite living in the same small city in Connecticut, so that's exciting too.

I've got all the Bank Street stuff squared away finally, there's still some editing to do, but essentially that's all done. Close inspection has proved that the same essay will do for Teacher's College and NYU, and that essay will be written next week. My essays for Bank Street focused on how amazing I think Bank Street is, and how perfectly I will fit into their world. For NYU and Teacher's College I'm going to try and focus more on being located in Manhattan and teaching in the city itself, and my professional goals in relation to the city. All fairly boring standard stuff, but hopefully the stuff good essays are made of.

The word next is dangerous for me. I have a real tendency of making plans and lists of things that I have to do next, and then feeling as if these lists are actually grinding me into the ground. The weight of the future seems to rest all to heavily on my shoulders, and I wonder if I'll really be able to support the castles I'm building in my proverbial clouds. Of course you never know what you can do until you try, and you never know what's going to happen until it does. I think I'll try and focus on my second graders and my free wine and cheese for now, and be happy with the last warm fragments of summer sun.

-----

October 4, 2005

This, That, And Also The Other

I've got my essays 1/4 written, and let me say that there's nothing more depressing then sitting around writing of self laudatory essays. With each one I feel less and less like the glowingly perfect person I seem to be describing. The Corinne in my essays is so perfect she seems impossible. How could anyone give of herself so selflessly to the community? How could any person be so good with children and adults? So absolutely perfect for the school she is applying to that to not let her in would not only be a mistake, it would be a sin.

We all know I'm a human and fallible and frail as such. There's nothing perfect about me, except maybe I'm perfectly imperfect. A flawed vessel that is good at knowing its own cracks and weaknesses. Not that I don't want to get into these schools, I do more then almost anything, it's just that writing these essays is such a drain. Which is funny because a) writing these blogs is a blast and b) writing other peoples essays is easy for me. I guess when it comes down to it I'd rather write fluff about someone else then about myself. Maybe I just don't perceive myself as particularly fluffable...or fluffy.

Although actually my hair is pretty damn fluffy.

At any rate, it's Tuesday and I've got a few hours before work. What shall I do with my time...write more fluff? Edit my fluff? Go for a walk? Probably the latter. Tomorrow I'll get up nice and early and do some editing, maybe even some writing. Plus I have to make up a list of questions to send to someone who I'm writing a model essay for. This is the first professional model essay I'll be writing (as in not one for a friend,) and I'm a bit nervous about it. Luckily I'm nervous about everything these days so it's not a big deal. Did I mention NYU requires a resume as part of their application, and my resume was last updated a year ago?

In other news, it's time to remind everyone that my birthday is indeed coming up. My friend T asked me what I wanted to do for my birthday and I said "Let's rent a cabin up in Maine and hide away for a few days." Of course that's borderline impossible, so we'll probably just get a big gang of people together for dinner and drinks, which will be fun. If anyone has a cabin they want to rent to me for cheap....let me know. I am actually dating someone important enough for me to want to write about it in this blog. This really isn't the forum for me to discuss my relationships, and especially not my past ones because they mostly were awful, but this one is nice and good and new.

We just had the 'what are we doing' conversation last night, and it went very smoothly. It's funny how people are all afraid of the same things, and when you actually open up you find out you were thinking the same thing. Or maybe that only happens when you're lucky, in which case I hope my luck holds.

-----

September 30, 2005

Change Your Mind And Your Socks

At Bank Street there's this program called museum education. Museum Education is a program where you intern in museums and classrooms, get your certification for teaching, and as a museum educator. Somehow I sort of over looked this when reading through the Bank Street catalogue, ADHD much? Anyway, I am definitely going to apply to that program, and with any luck I will get in even though it isn't general education. I mean come on, interning in museums? SCORE!!!

I actually called up the Dean of Admissions at Bank Street yesterday, her name is Ann Morgan and she has what must be the sweetest voice in the entire world. Seriously her voice is so sweet it's probably made out of honey. There I am, sort of freaking out because I want to change what I'm applying for, and she's telling me "Don't worry honey, you'll be fine, if you should be here, you'll get in." She even said "I'm sure you'll get in." Although I doubt she is sure of that, especially after how frantic I was on the phone, well not exactly frantic, more just needy.

I'm wondering if I should really apply to Columbia and NYU. Not because I don't think I'd get in, just that those schools are so expensive I'd probably go to Hunter instead, for prices sake, and in that case why apply to them at all? Although in a way it would be nice to say "Oh yeah I got into Teacher's College over at Columbia, decided not go." Like choosing between a Jaguar (expensive, fast, hard to maintain, and pretty) and V6 Honda (somewhat fast, affordable, easy to maintain) and choosing the Honda. Actually I drive a Honda so that was a loaded comparison.

Well these are all decisions I'll have to make, but not today. Today I volunteer at Columbus, which is exciting as always. Then it's into Manhattan with J, the kid I baby sit. After I drop J off with his step mama I'll meet up with Miss TzPz and we're heading back into Norwalk. T is basically my only friend who my parents like having in the house, and she's also the only one of my friends who seems to really like Norwalk. We're going up to MA to go to this dinner thing on Saturday. T edited a screen play and now I get to go with her to this big writer's dinner, and hob nob with smart successful people while drinking free wine. Clearly I'm going for the wine.

Actually I'm a little nervous about the dinner. Being all surrounded by writers and editors, jealousy should be seeping out of my pores before the night is over, and I'm sure my eyes would turn green if they weren't already. I know that life is a long hard race, and that endurance and perseverance are what will get me to the end eventually, but it's hard to not want everything to just click immediately. In a way this attitude comes from being over exposed to media. Life isn't a climax/anticlimax loop, but it becomes easy to expect that kind of pattern when that's what's constantly being presented to you as normal. Some things do actually happen overnight, but for me things that happen over night are generally unpleasant. The good stuff takes more time.

Send comments to: corinne@college-admission-essay.com

Blog Archives

September 18th - September 27th
August 29th - September 8th
August 16th - August 25th
August 9th - August 15th
August 2nd - August 8th
July 24th - August 1st
July 17th - July 23rd
July 7th - July 14th
June 22 - July 5th