Always; In Perpetuum

Well, hopefully you're surrounded by family, meeting up with old high school friends, and/or drinking yourself into oblivious with the obligatory bloody mary. But whatever your poison, I figured I would shoot out an post to grumble, complain, yadda yadda, about the regular, run-'o-the-mill, "applications are the bane of my existence" sort of thing. If it's not two papers in the same weekend, it's a wrench thrown into an otherwise well oiled machine.

Everything was ready to roll. All I needed was an hour and a half and all my hard copy materials and online applications and fees would be completed for my first official school in GradApp'06 (catchy title? we'll give it a couple more test runs before this post is over).

Unfortunately, I stopped to check-in with all my letter writers, just to make sure they still had in mind to get my first recommendation sent off to Princeton by Dec. 1st. Well, in talking with Mylan, he pointed out a couple things I hadn't considered. Most importantly, my writing same, the paper I turned in for his Epistemology course last year, then presented at the MidSouth, the most time-tested and polished paper I have, might not be my best official writing sample. The issue breaks down thusly;

• The paper is on a '79 article, which was later revised (I just didn't have the revised copy when originally writing the piece...and an update would be very difficult and, hence, destroy the polished feel I've worked into it).
• The paper is on a coherence theory of justification, one of the least utilized methods of epistemic justification and, hence, not a "hot topic" paper.
• It is also an incredibly probability and statistically laden paper, which causes a bit of a hindrance in working through the examples for many people and may prevent an admissions board from actually giving my paper due consideration.
• Finally, it's the same paper I presented at the MidSouth Conference. If I send off the same paper as my writing sample, 1) it may appear I'm resting on the laurels of one decent paper and 2) it will discount putting the MidSouth conference on my CV.

Mylan was suggesting that I might try to revise and send off the paper I'm currently working on for his Contextualism course. It's responding to a 2004 paper, Contextualism is a very hot topic, it's on freedom, which is one my foci in a graduate school, and it contrasts nicely with my epistemic justification paper on my CV. The problem is that, although I presented this paper at the Contextualism conference this past weekend, it's nowhere near as polished as my previous work. I could do it, but it would take the next week's worth of heavy work to get it done by Dec. 1st. Luckily, everything for Princeton is online, letting me up-load the files for my personal statement, CV, and writing sample directly through their electronic application. So, it could take me a full 7 days, and I'd still be able to get GradApp'06 officially started before the first deadline (hrm...maybe it'd be best to use that title sparingly). On the flip-side, I've also got a paper for Metaphysics due and studying for the GRE (again) which is on the 11th. But, as it would be in my best interest to have this as my writing sample, we'll see if I can't do something more with it. Dangit...and I was really looking forward to having a couple days break, too.

Anyways, sorry, as this wasn't intended to be a rant. More of a "Let me clear my head and argue out in the world" sort of thing. Well, comments would be appreciated. As for me, I'm taking tonight off, at least. Peace.