Speaking in generalities...

...I'm kind of tired of my job already, four months into it. The people are great - I couldn't ask for nicer bosses and co-workers (mostly) and the workload is beyond manageable. But, it's not my career. It is, however, a great place to pay off debt and tuck money away for rainier days.

So, I'm starting to look ahead, a little. We went hiking on Mt. Tam with our friend, Sarah, who just finished up her master's degree this spring. She's flirting with the idea of pursuing her PhD, which automatically got my own wheels spinning. I have to admit, I'm in the perfect position to start down that path (and a long, slow path it will be). This job demands little of me, so I have energy and time leftover to study; it's also a college campus - a damn fine one - with limitless resources available to me. For example, if I run short on references, I can take a class here for free. I've even gone so far as to lay out a plan in my head. There are the GRE's: both the regular ones (my last set of score expired this year, I think) and the subject test in Literature (which means priming myself on Western Literature, as a whole). And I'll need to polish up a paper to submit. Gleaming, it must gleam and blind oncoming traffic.

And then there's the whole where to apply thing. I'm picky about where I'll live - red states, land-locked states, southern states... all out of the question. And I plan to study Modern American Lit, so studying abroad is downright silly.

Decisions, decisions. So, I'm facing a lot of work (the test prep alone is quite daunting), but I'm in the perfect position to be doing so - I have the time and the funding (two things that are not easily happened upon simultaneously). To truly feel comfortable embarking on the application process, I'll want to bone up on my critical theory, reconnect with British Literature and then practice taking that dastardly general exam (algebra, ahoy).

I think I need a nap.

Frank goes prime time?

I guess if people do not find Frank O'Hara via other poets, bookstores or the academy, the TV Machine isn't a terrible alternative...

from Freakonomics: http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com
July 28, 2008, 10:37 am

Publishers: Get Your Books in Don Draper’s Hands

By Stephen J. Dubner

Last night was the second-season premiere of the TV series Mad Men. I watched the series devoutly last year; this year, it has gotten such a huge press buildup that I was almost sick of it before it aired.

Last night’s episode didn’t push the storylines forward too much, since it needed to reacclimate viewers to where the characters stand. But there was one significant theme: Don Draper, at 36, is feeling older. He seems prepped, mentally and physically, for a midlife crisis. So when he’s having lunch in a bar and sees the fellow next to him reading Meditations in an Emergency, a collection of Frank O’Hara’s poems, it makes an impression. Later in the show we see a beauty shot of the book’s cover as Draper himself reads it intently.

I clicked over to Amazon to check the book’s sales rank a few minutes after Draper read the book. A rather mediocre No. 15,565. This morning, at 8:30 a.m., the book was ranked No. 161. That probably represents only 50 or 100 copies sold, but it’s a pretty fantastic leap for a 50-year-old book of poems. Since Mad Men is set in the early 1960’s, publishers are obviously limited in their product-placement opportunities. But I’m sure all of you can think of some good books to get in the hands of some current TV characters.