Recommend

"University of Washington Graduate Admissions Officers:

I am delighted to write in support of Ms. Samantha Mastridge's candidacy for graduate study. I have known Ms. Mastridge for four and a half years, first as my advisee during her time at Flagler College and as a student enrolled in ENG 321 Southern Writers. There, she immediately distinguished herself by her excellent writing skills and epth of feeling for the literature we considered.

Ms. Mastridge holds herself to high standards. From the outset of the Southern Writers course, she responded extensively--in journal work to the literature--we discussed. Her test scores were among the highest in the class of 30 and her paper demonstrated original and perceptive scholarship.

Ms. Mastridge and I have corresponded several times since her graduation, continuing our conversations about her academic interests and future plans. It has long been her ambition to pursue graduate studies at the University of Washington. While here at Flagler College, Ms. Mastridge distinguised herself as one of our strongest English majors in her class; she has read widely, was an excellent staff memeber in our Writing center, and held membership in the honorary societies Sigma Tau Delta and Alpha Chi.

Ms. Mastridge is an ideal young scholar: she is bright, articulate, unfailingly polite, and has high academic and personal standards. She has always brought contagious optimisim and energy to our discussions. I endorse her candidacy with my highest recommendation.

Sincerely,
Darien Andreu"

Darien's fantastic, and I love both that she wrote me such a nice recommendation and that she sent me a copy. So is it wrong that I'm entertained that she's known me for -four- and a half years when I was only at Flagler for -three- years?

Also, I was never in Alpha Chi. My GPA wasn't high enough.

I'll wait up for you, dear

I demand stories of people, unapologetically. I don't ask nicely for them, as a rule--I want them, and I want them right then.

Downtown last night was a madhouse, a seething melee of carolers and bell-ringers. I dream of someday living in a world where Christmas carols are outlawed and bells regulated to one per city block. I used to get really panicky in crowds, and for years I've done my best to get over that. I've done so, for the most part, but Christmas crowds just freak me out. They're more frantic, perhaps, more willing to elbow those of us in elbow range in the eye. I wanted nothing more than to be out of that crowd last night. But this is only the beginning--there's still two and a half more weeks until Christmas.

Alternately, and perhaps paradoxically, Christmas always makes me feel like baking. For years Stacey and I would spend a whole day in the kitchen, making cookies and fudge and all sorts of other goodies to give to our friends. (We'll try and forget about the year that I boiled my fudge mixture on high instead of simmering it on low--the resulting mess had a consistancy much like taffy and everyone I knew refused to consume any of it.) It's been a few years since that's happened, but we did it for so long that the tradition has been toasted onto my brain.

Hey! Maybe I should write a Christmas newsletter this year--I could be one of -those- families.

Walk to the beat

A brisk walk, haircut, and sandwich later, I think I'm ready to explain this whole law school thing.

Monica says "samantha, most people don't use law school as a last-ditch option."

Jeff said much the same thing.

The way it goes is like this: I am obsessed with reinventing myself. I want to be someone new every day of the week, and eventually it gets to the point where I do something at least slightly drastic. (Snoopy, snoopy non-sequiters.) Law school has always been one of my tools, like the last option I have in my arsenal of renovation. I say 'if -this- doesn't work out, then I'll go to law school.' Becoming a lawyer has always seemed, somehow, the opposite of whatever it was that I'm always in the process of creating. And now it's gotten to the point where I'm realizing that whatever it is that I've been working towards for the last half-dozen years is not so much working out for me. So maybe it's time for something drastic.

I think sometimes that I say too much here, that I burden you all with more than you want to know. But in sixty years I don't want to look back and realize that I never gave people a chance to know me. I'm always so closed up with myself--my emotions and thoughts and personality--and I think that if I keep it under wraps for too long whatever is essentially me will suffocate, will wander off for lack of feeding. And that's really no way to live.