I have to speak at a workshop next week regarding MFA programs. I'm going to be the only student or non-faculty program coordinator on the panel, and I'm nervous. Because when they ask me about the program, I'm going to say:
"If you're in with the professors you can copy for free in the department. If your story's up for workshop that night you have to bring the snacks. We're particularly partial to cheddar Goldfish crackers, Harvest Cheddar Sun Chips, and baked goods. One time someone brought in ice cream and it was the best day. One time someone bought in olives and half the class was very happy and the other class was not happy at all. When someone doesn't bring in snacks, we all notice it, but don't say anything. When you agree with something, you knock on the table. When you disagree with something, you ghetto snap your fingers quietly under the table so that only your friend across the room can see them. You should always check your mailbox before workshop to see if there's a flyer or something you can pass notes on. Or draw pictures. Most of the time the snacks and the knocking and the note-passing help you to say really smart things. And if you don't say really smart things, someone else will. You have to take Literature classes. I try not to think of them. You have to go home and pay your bills. I try not to think of them either. Last semester people went to the Dancing Crab or the 4 P's a lot after workshop. This semester people went to the Brickskellar a lot. We tried going to Ruby Tuesday. It didn't take. When visiting writers come someone is always bound to ask inappropriate questions. And then we go get drinks again."
When they ask me about the administrative side of my job, I'm going to say:
"Each day I walk down the long hallway to my office while trying to avoid eye contact with as many people as possible. My walk in is the last few seconds of the day I get to listen to my iPod, when I still remember what my apartment looks like and I still have a warm cup of coffee in my hand. As soon as I step into my office I greet whoever is smiling that day, remove whatever piles of paperwork and folders have been kindly left right on my chair and keyboard, and settle in. I begin to answer a zillion emails. When they're from students and prospective students, I'm usually happy. When they have subjects like, "Oh no!" and "freaking out" and "!!!" and "I think we have a problem" and "DO THIS AS SOON AS YOU GET IN" I'm usually not. With any luck I've logged into my email the night before and have seen these titles and opened them and begun problem-solving in my head instead of ignoring them and waking up in a panic in the middle of the night. Halfway through responding to emails I check my voicemail. I return the ones with easy answers. I doodle all over the ones with hard questions. I finish responding to emails. I check the main line voicemail. I usually don't respond to many of these. Unless they have ridiculously easy answers or involve really fun problem solving. I then send out a zillion emails. Some people find them amusing, some people find them annoying. They're all important. Except for some. No one reads those some, because they have subjects like "Fw: Poetry reading somewhere you've never heard of in 30-miles-away, Virginia, some date you have class" and "Important information about registration, please read."
By this time I've either spoken to the director of the program or seen her. If I've seen her, I've sat in her office with a long legal pad list of things to ask her or tell her or make her do. Either way this leaves me with a lot of other things that havetobedonerightnow.
I go back to my desk and sort through the paperwork that had been there in the morning. By now it's past lunchtime and I still haven't eaten. I get some tea or eat a Luna Bar or both. After work is when the real feast begins, after work I get Subway or McDonald's. But now we're still in work and guess what, there's a bunch more emails for me to respond to. So, naturally, I check facebook and myspace and my private email, and post funny comments on my friends' walls. Then grumble about how I HAVE SO MUCH WORK TO DO NONE OF IT IS EVER GOING TO GET DONE. Then someone comes in and I get to talk with them and give them what they ask for and then talk with them some more, either trying to delay the conversation as long as possible or make them go away as quickly as possible, depending on what my work ethic is like that day. I go bug the assistant to the associate dean for the 100th time that day. (Most of the time I think she hates me.) With an hour left to go I start to scramble and get everything else done. With 15 minutes left to go I make a post-it of everything I couldn't do that day or the day before, or of everything I anticipate needing to be done the next day, and I stick it on my monitor. I rarely ever get to cross everything off that list."
And then I'll say something about "supportive environment" or "doors always open" or "fair mix of practicality and art" and "more social than I've heard a lot of other MFA programs are" and "kind of like a high school." And it's all true, and all good.
I need it to be summer.
