The Literary Salon

A free salon wherein patrons and passers-by may view or contribute ideas on literary and generally intellectual matters. The blog will strive to maintain its commitment to wit, humour and perspicuous analysis.

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Location: Toronto, now Ottawa, Ont, Canada

Tuesday, January 24, 2006

Somnium Arbionis

Some of you may already know that I have been plagued with sleeping difficulties for quite some time now, and I won't bore those of you who don't know with details. Here's something odd though: I recently bought some Melatonin over the counter, a synthetic supplement of some kind that is supposed to aid sleep. The first time I took it nothing happened (if anything, it had adverse effects); the second and third time, however, something strange happened: I slept relatively early (i.e., 2 am), but I woke up at about 5 or 6 am. I would love to be able to get up at that time, but after 3-4 hours, that's not normal (right now I feel as if I've pulled an all-nighter. Sure does bring back memories). From what I've gathered, Melatonin may or may not work: most studies are either inconclusive or the data is statistically insignificant, but I've never come across anything like this.

Gotta go and send off the physical component of my application to Queen's, including my writing sample, statement of purpose and 2 (that's right, two) transcripts. I'll never know why they want two and most schools want only one (for those not in the know, a transcript costs about 10 dollars CDN, this in addition to the 70$ application fee and any other ancillary fees). So far I haven't heard anything, but it's far too early. FYI, despite what you may see on some message boards, English graduate programs are, for whatever reason, extremely competitive, and as such they take longer than most programs to get back to the applicants. BTW, I ended up choosing Queen's #2 paragraph below, with minor modifications. I omitted the very first sentence: my bestest buddy noticed it, and neither I nor any of my profs who looked at it noticed that it was an odd line.

As for the election last night, it turned out just as I predicted, except I didn't think the Liberals would do so well. All things considered, I think this was a good result: some fresh faces, a new party, but without the risks of a 4 year majority.

Bonus points for anyone who can identify the source of my parodic title (Dr. J, this doesn't include you, but given how few people actually read this, go nuts :)

3 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

hey, good luck with getting the last of your applications out! it can take forever to hear back from any grad program - so it sucks to hear that it's longer for english. i HATE waiting!

10:14 a.m.  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Source of parodic title = Cicero's Somnium Scipionis.

6:53 p.m.  
Blogger Pious Labours said...

Bravo
(You're not hiding are you Dr. J? :)

11:05 p.m.  

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