Providence

I never could've imagined this last week, but it seems like the pattern of rejection letters from grad schools has proven rather fortuitous for me.

Sure, it'd be nice to have at least been accepted to one of the top-notch, elite, prestigious schools I applied to. Who wouldn't want to have that ego boost?

But as I learn more about Washington's resources -- at least as they pertain to my interest in modern Czechoslovakia -- the more it seems like this is a good fit for me.

I e-mailed Professor Felak about that last night, and his response this evening was very encouraging. He said he's found the libraries quite excellent for the field, and noted that no less a personage than the chair of the Department of Slavic Language and Literature at Charles University in Prague, the best university in the Czech Republic and the oldest institution of higher learning in Central Europe, concluded that:

"I think the University of Washington Library is probably the best one all over the world for the contemporary Czech literature. I don't know e.g. the Library of Congress, but anyway your collection is really great."

I'd say that's a pretty impressive endorsement.

Also in his e-mail, Professor Felak said he'd know by next week whether I got funding, and that he felt "optimistic" about it. This is very good.

At this point I'd have to get an extremely attractive offer from Columbia to make me lean elsewhere, and that presumes that I even get accepted to Columbia, which I feel isn't terribly likely at this point. Though I've proven time and again that I have no knack for predicting these things.