Creative Writing Masters

[sierramcconnell]

I was the one who always said no thank you to food offerings, and labeled antisocial for it, all the while salivating and wanting to say yes, but, no, deviating from my carefully planned diet is harmful. Even the twenty-gram carbohyrdrates of a Lifesaver hard candy throws me off budget. When pressured, I explained why, and further alienated my cohort from being labeled a health complainer and as if a noncontagious disease is communicable. Can't win for losing. I've been working on figuring out better ways to say no thank you. Like, no thank you, momma says it'll spoil my dinner. All the people who offer me beers, no thank you, doctor says it doesn't mix with my pain medicine.

I say no thank you a lot now and people are all, "Oh, right, because you're watching your weight, right?"

"Huh?"

"You're losing weight, right?"

Yeah, that's why I just shoved a king sized Pay Day down my throat. XD I have to be careful about other people's fingers. Especially when they're coughing and I know they're a germ magnet! XD Or, and I'm sorry to those who do, they have kids. Unless I know what vaccines they've had and what the handwashing\potty schedule is, no, I'm sorry, I can't trust you not to be unclean. XD

You have a cute little baby but that snot trail running down it's nose is a biohazard waiting to happen.

[Margo]

I've been working on figuring out better ways to say no thank you.

Just say you're allergic to something really common, something that's probably in most of the stuff people would offer you...milk or eggs or nuts or something. Works for me all the time. Or how about, "Oh, no thanks. It looks great but I've just eaten. I'm really full."

[polymath]

My allergies are a whole 'nother ball game. One, I'm allergic to crowds and crowding and crowded work spaces. Ornamental yard grasses and some species of pervasive weeds and trees, too. I live where I don't have to deal too much with my allergies. School will be a trial. It's all there, crowding and landscapery. Staying inside studying as much as possible, air conditioned residence, for sure. Late evening campus quiet and small class sizes are a bonus for master's writing programs.

[Steppe]

I think you guys are talking about being hyper aware in the full spectrum sense.
It just happens as factors pile up into a decent style snowball and threaten to roll down hill and cause an avalanche.
I was most miserable until I realized I had allergies and could do a tiny bit about it around about the age of twenty-five.
I had the head banging car crash too at nineteen, probably from being too hopped up on adrenaline from not breathing right
and using street drugs and alcohol to medicate the stress symptom instead of the root cause which was a deep desire to breathe.
Instead of paying to go back to school I plan on listening to people who do. Using intuition I can surf my way into good waves of information.

I find peace in reminding myself everybody has a load to carry and people who say or act like they don't are really engaged in serial blockage.
People can get away from dealing with the dark currents of self and life for only so long before the shadow self of the individual and the collective
shadows of the social order build up strength and start beating their chests in the dark alleys.
An extension of the theme.
I use certain routines and rituals to get myself in motion when I have been sedentary for more than 4-5 days and have clicked into self absorption.
I got to the point where I get a extreme kick from meeting strangers in benign ways where nothing more than small talk and minutia is exchanged.
All summer long my neighbor below me was losing his mind listening to music so loud it could shake the floors. It's a very complex story and I was stretched not to lose my cool in front of other people and really tear into the kid and go after the landlady for not doing her job.
Thankfully other people lost their cool in socially acceptable ways.
(A big sign in the lobby addressing the individual's problem)
Meanwhile the landlady who is an employee of the absentee owner and lives in the building first had a stroke, then cancer of the liver, then finally five weeks ago fell backwards and broke her back and had surgery and rods. The whole time I'm thinking it might have been better for her to boot the kid out of the building. But she can't, she made a decision to treat the building like it was her private home and the kid is a friend of her family, something I learned surreptitiously while over in her office one day and she told her husband her son was visiting the kid below me with the mega bass unit.
She has moved three people out from below him into top floor apartments in the three years i have been here. She offered me an apartment on the other side of the building but it is on her floor and hallway. She gives me the creeps a lot more than some stupid kid playing at being the teachers pet and annoying his neighbors, because she is the set-up condition creator for the problem, as opposed to just a conflicted individual with no self control.
I have used the whole situation as a life study in the difference between sociopathy and psychopathy boiling down the gist of the equation into: A psychopath knows the rules and breaks them strategically to gain advantage, whilst a sociopath has limited knowledge of the rules and is vulnerable to the manipulation of the psychopath.

One way or another I have decided it is best to mind my own business and be tolerant or simply move.
I dig the view though. I am on the top floor and can see down the street to the docks and bay and out across the city over to Martha's Vineyard.
In the end I have had to man up and accept they are both sick and suffering and do my best to carry the stress load as a contribution to society.

Sometimes that's all there is left; the grin and bear it version of tolerance.
Plus I'll use the social knowledge gained and the textural rhythums experienced in a story eventually.
That's why writing is a cool art form because everything serves the writing and can be converted into an asset.

Good luck in the academic quests.

[bcomet]

I was the oldest student in all my classes. More than half my instructors were younger than me by at least a decade. One made a point of asking my birth date in front of the class and then made a frequent point of holding me below him in pecking order for me being two weeks younger. But then, his emotional maturity was another matter.

Asking your age is both illegal as well as unkind and is considered ageism.

If it happens again, know your rights: politely refuse.

Students can feel very intimidated and teachers/professors have power over your degree, etc.

~~

For those MFA applicants with allergies of all kinds: there are a number of highly respected distance MFA programs (where you only have to attend in person for about two weeks a semester) that you might consider:
Goddard has two campuses (Vermont and Washington State) with writing MFAs and Antioch is another.

I think allergies are also a growing concern in our society. We are all bombarded with so many chemicals that it is becoming an increasing problem. Many people that don't start out with allergies still end up developing them when their systems just can't take any more, at which point the allergies can be extremely serious.

It's a slow process, banging this into the heads of the unsensitive. But chemical/perfume/scent/smoke-free environments are starting to show up at last. Boy, I just hate buying expensive concert tickets and finding myself next to someone who reeks of patchuli oil or perfumes (that I am allergic to).

[polymath]

Asking your age is both illegal as well as unkind and is considered ageism.

If it happens again, know your rights: politely refuse.

Students can feel very intimidated and teachers/professors have power over your degree, etc.

I knew my rights, know my rights. Sometimes going along to get along works out; sometimes it doesn't. In that case it didn't. I suspect the professor had an agenda or felt threatened by me, perhaps justifiably. I'd already called the professor on coming periously close to sexual harrassment with classmates. In retrospect, I realized that was at heart contributory. The professor was tenured though, and had been in trouble over similar issues. But the professor was a sweetheart darling of the department and untouchable at the time. Because I had a record of calling the professor on inappropriateness, my grade wasn't fiddled with, though I did get exactly what I deserved, no benefit of doubt whatsoever, which my classmates did get. It didn't matter. I still graduated with distinction without compromising my principles.

Low residency MFA writing programs appeal to me. There's one nearby, in state, but costs six times as much as the full-residency MA program I'll be attending. Out of state programs cost even more, up to eight times as much.

While university diversity policies proscribe age discrimination and age-related harrassment, ageism isn't generally an actionable cause, except for employment.

"The Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 (ADEA) protects individuals who are 40 years of age or older from employment discrimination based on age. The ADEA’s protections apply to both employees and job applicants. Under the ADEA, it is unlawful to discriminate against a person because of his/her age with respect to any term, condition, or privilege of employment, including hiring, firing, promotion, layoff, compensation, benefits, job assignments, and training. The ADEA permits employers to favor older workers based on age even when doing so adversely affects a younger worker who is 40 or older." U.S. EEOC. http://www.eeoc.gov/facts/age.html

Though the reality is age discrimination does occur, is in fact pandemic. But try proving it in court. It's hard enough to prove blatant sexual harrassment or racial discrimination or criminal workplace harrassment.

[sierramcconnell]

I have to agree with poly. It's near impossible to prove discrimination. It's why I don't shop at Best Buy. I went there looking for a job when I was laid off from the government. I told them frankly in the group interview I was looking for a supervising position and the guy that was already a supervisor on the Geek Squad was a male African American without a degree. The people there loved me but I didn't hear anything back for a week. I called and he said, very quietly and hesitantly, "you might want to find another job. I can't hire you."

When I got hired here I met someone and told them about that. He was friends with him. He asked the guy point blank. The excuse I had gotten from Best Buy was that they had 'lost my paperwork'. But the man told my friend that he couldn't hire me because I was, "an educated white female who would have gotten his job and there was no way he'd work for a woman".

Unfortunately, the guy I worked with here couldn't testify in court because he had his own legal issues. But the guy over at Best Buy still works there as a MANAGER.

I don't buy things there and I don't recommend them.

If you think racism just goes the one way, it goes both. Actually, it probably mostly goes that way because it's harder to prove. XD

[Steppe]

I know of people (sister and cousin)who worked in a supervisory capacity in the mental health system who became whistle blowers.
They lost their jobs but did succeed in getting the system to change in the way the system needed to be changed.
I was recently in a business venture that cost me an after tax loss of one million dollars and the company twenty-seven million.
(mishandling of a recently finished ocean going yacht on its early sea trials and equipment tests)
There was no actionable basis in law for me because it was my potential commission but the customers recovered what they could
and the business is now defunct and processed out of bankruptcy and the previous owner runs and owns a large gas/convenience store on a mortgage.
I go there just to support him and let him know there's no grudge or hard feelings and we've talked about the past with good humor.

Personal history and peoples degree of attachment to it and how it effects their business and social interaction decisions is eternally fascinating to me.
I worked as a sub-contractor on a lucrative 300 unit development and a middle level worker was always late with the lifts, ladders and staging pushing me further and further behind schedule until he finally confronted me on the reality of maybe I wasn't up to being a contractor with a high unit load and should consider being a salaried employee instead. I knew the gig was finished and walked. When confronted for the return of the site arrival and set up down payment I told the lead contractor I gave the remaining expense money to the supervisor who sabotaged me. The boss nodded his head with resignation slowly and the shook my hand. It was his way of letting me knowing he had no intention of shooting me or his nephew. The middle level supervisor (nephew) went on and on removing efficient rivals like that which really doesn't matter in the construction business where the key idea is "never kill the job." and stretch it out for as long as possible.