It's About That Time of Year Again... and I Feel the Need to Procrastinate

So, we are mid-way through September and the applications for next year's Master's programs have all come out. I should be pretty excited, seeing as how I miss going to class, researching literature and its criticisms, writing papers, all of it. But in reality, I'm really not. I haven't looked at the applications this year to the schools I am applying to (USC, UCLA -- both Comp. Lit., Cal State Long Beach and Fullerton -- both English and probably University of Hawai`i -- Hawaiian Studies) because of the fact that I didn't get into the schools I applied to last year.

I think I have been silently bummed out about not getting in since I received the fateful rejection letters last year, but I understand that I slacked off -- didn't write my writing sample until way late and didn't study for the GRE AT ALL -- and it was really my fault. That, in turn, makes me a lazy ass now, since I sort of question my own talent and intelligence. A real pussy, I know.

The writing sample for the Hawaiian Studies program is going to be on Hawaiian Myth and its similarities, I think, with Greek Myth. Maybe its too blase. I'm still working out the bugs on this one...

I am going to write the sample piece on Hemingway and Garcia-Marquez in relation to post-war literature, emphasizing cultural differences in how to deal with conflict. Since both writers have dealt with war in Latin America, it gives me a contact point from which to spring; Hemingway writes as a foreigner, Marquez as a National. How do these differ? It really isn't that elementary, but you get the point. I'd be using For Whom the Bell Tolls by Hemingway, and The General in His Labyrinth, by Marquez. I also thought about using Across the River and Into the Trees, also by Hemingway, since its a little less known and is also in a flashbacky past-tense, similar to Labyrinth. Please let me know what you guys think, especially if this idea is stupid and I am way off of my rocker.