you know that AmNovel paper?
The one I had to write early so that I could use it for my MA application? I handed in to the grad coordinator what was essentially a next-to-final draft, because it was due the day after spring break was over and my prof wasn't able to look at it first (she had seen only a meaty outline). Luckily, the internets came to my rescue—no, I didn't plagiarize it or anything—I sent it to Mel to read over, since she's a prof [David, I would have sent it to you too, but you had just posted something about how very very very busy you were that week].
That was a pretty big deal for me, because I've known Mel for a zillion years, since I was a stupid undergrad (the first time) and she was some hotshot overachiever grad student. Not that she's not a hotshot overachiever now...but I digress. Anyway, the point was that I'd never let her read anything I'd written, because I figured once she saw my simplistic and immature blatherings on about literature, she wouldn't want to be my friend anymore. Seriously. I have issues with that. But I also knew that I needed someone to read my paper before it went into an envelope, so I sucked it up and sent it to her. Then I sat around all anxious and she called and I almost didn't pick up the phone. But I did, and the first words she said were
not "this sucks and you have no business studying literature" so it was cool.
I made a few edits, handed it in, then didn't look at it again until last week, when my paper conference was scheduled with my prof. While everyone else was coming to her with generic ideas and she was pointing them in the right direction, she sat there in my meeting and read through the entire thing and only made three edits and told me a few sentences I should throw in to make points stronger, etc. She said not to worry that the grad coordinator got the draft version, because "he doesn't know much about American anyway, and wouldn't know if these additional sentences needed to be added." Ha!
Yesterday I got an email from her, asking me to please make my edits ASAP and stick in it Senior AmLit Prof's mailbox, because she's nominating me for the AmLit prize. I've never been nominated for anything, so that's cool.
