Admissions

It's that time of year again: scholarship essays, recommendation letters, GPA's and standardized tests--all my students meeting deadlines and waiting to hear back. It's not an easy thing: I remember checking the mail as soon as it came, especially while applying to Master's programs and, two years later, Ph.D.'s. I remember all the work that went into my personal statements and requests for recommends. I remember the joy of getting in--and the stinging pain of rejection. It felt personal, even though it wasn't. Much like writing rejections, except for worse, because I'd spent so much time imagining where I would move and what each program would be like. I don't spend the kind of time or money on agents, and I don't usually get the physical-kind of response from agents, either. Like the rejection letters I got from one Ph.D. program every day for a month.

Every. Day. For a month.

I know how much my students (well, most high school seniors) get caught up in the Stanford/Harvard/MIT/Berkeley race, and how much test scores and GPA and extracurricular stuff seems to matter. But I've known lots of friends and lots students who've faced rejection from high school onward, and the ones who do what they love--the ones who develop all those interests they've had from childhood on, the ones who work and play with equal passion--those are the ones who are happy. It doesn't matter what they scored, or where they got in. Smart people succeed no matter where they go.

I know nothing anyone writes can make the wait all better. I know those studies on success don't take the sting away. But even daily rejection doesn't hurt as much if you buy yourself a book (or a Darth Vader clock, or a Lego penguin, or whatever your thing is) with every letter! That was my strategy, at least. I should tell my students, but first I must find an illustration:

Lego penguins! I tried to find some eating a rejection letter, but apparently Google searches are only so good...

Goodbye, Christmas

I'm getting the decorations down! Birthdays are over, grading is slowing (is grading ever done?), rewriting is picking up for my second novel, and even though I love Christmas it will be nice to have a little bit less cluttering up our lives. In the interest of having less clutter, I'm going to return some books to the library, so I've put a bunch of fireworks on music on top to distract you from the fact that I've only written three sentences. Now four: yay!

Four!

My oldest son has officially destroyed his Angry Birds cake, opened his "Here Comes Science!" CD/DVD by They Might Be Giants and his Dinosaur Train set, and settled down in his room for a long winter's nap. And I know he's only four, but it's already bittersweet to look into a face that's changed from an infant's to a preschooler's and know that he's getting older. Soon enough he'll be in high school, then college, and I won't see the snuggles or the tantrums because they'll get all bottled up inside. So happy birthday to my son--there is no brighter, funnier child I'd rather spend time with, and I will always love you.

And I hope you are this happy (if not making this exact face) forever.

Apparently there's an Angry Birds board game...

...so our almost-four-year-old's cake will be easy! I'm not the best at decorating (my mom is--she's amazing with making frosting do what she wants). But give me toys to stick on top of a cake and I'm good! Last year his cake looked like this:

See? They're building a marshmallow tower! Uh...yay!

And this is what my boys looked like:

We'll see how it goes this year! But I can totally stick toys on top of cakes.  Just so you know.

Game Night!

We went to the Children's Museum in Salt Lake today. 'Twas fun, but busy. Between grading, beta-reading, trying to edit my own books, tickling children, cleaning up piles of baby-thrown floor food, making sure people eat, sleeping...well, is it any wonder that today all I want to do is post this picture?

This is a bit later than Christmas, but it's from our local Festival of Trees. Isn't the beard impressive?

Angry Birds Cake

My parents arrived last night, so, in the interest of playing games, I present to you the birthday cake my son wants for his fourth birthday:

Christmas

I love Christmas. We woke around 6:30 (courtesy of three-year-old--at least it wasn't sooner!), got dressed, ate breakfast, and looked at gifts from Santa. After a few minutes of putting together Lego Star Wars sets and Hungry Hungry Hippos, we went to an hour of church. When we came home, we opened the rest of the presents under the tree.  It was a wonderful year, even though I didn't spend anything on my husband and he didn't spend anything on me. We bought a new computer, you see, and it was expensive, so...we didn't buy extra presents.

Instead, my husband gave me a morning to sleep in and eight hours (!) of daddy-children time I can spend on anything from writing to baths to jaunts around local bookstores. I gave him some wrapped library books (tee hee!) that he can read quickly, and coupons for various things, including movie rentals (we haven't seen Super 8 yet!) and time I can watch the boys while he plays games (football, ping pong, Diablo III when it comes out...). Anyway. If you know someone, gifts don't have to cost anything.  Time, service, clever collections of The Far Side you check out, cookie dough--all sorts of ideas can make great presents without costing anything!

So. I loved our Christmas, and so did all my boys.  As for our pets...if you have cats, I would suggest giving them shrimp.

Nothing makes cats happier than a tasty Christmas shrimp.