<p>having it at a barnes and noble or starbucks or something would make everything a million times easier, imo.</p>
<p>You guys all sound really, really smart, involved, personable and ever so TASP-ish. Frankly, it's scary.</p>
<p>My interview is this coming Sunday. I'm worried for several reasons. First, my interviewer said on the phone that "we don't really touch the booklist", but it seems from what everyone else is saying that they do, just subtly (or insidiously, as the case may be). Because of that comment, I decided not to finish the book I put as "in progress" on my list, but now I'm worried. Should I? My out-of-school list only has about 10 books, which is comparatively VERY short. That's because I didn't list the crap books (hello, Princess Diaries?) and because I read ultra-methodically and that takes time. Should I tell them? Should I try to finish the book (which would involve like 100 pages of reading a day)? AHH.</p>
<p>I REALLY don't think I'm going to get in. If everyone is as good as you guys, I'm dead meat. </p>
<p>Pray for me!</p>
<p>dont worry about it, im sure youll be fine. i think the booklist only comes into play if the interviewer is familiar with the book. by the way, what book is it?</p>
<p>Don't kill yourself to finish the book. Odds are the interviewer won't ask about it unless it's a popular classic s/he happened to enjoy and still remembers well enough to discuss. Even if s/he does, simply admitting that you've been busy and are still working on it is fine. No one will think less of you, and I honestly can't see that being counted against you in the interview or overall review of your candidacy for TASP.</p>
<p>Did your interviewer ask you about themes and overall ideas in the books you listed?</p>
<p>Did your interviewer ask you any general questions?<br>
Ex: "Why do you want to go to TASP?", "What do you feel like you could learn from TASP?", etc</p>
<p>we really only talked about one book i had listed--pale fire--which was, as i mentioned, her favorite book. we went very into depth about nabokov and about his intentions, and about his language, and about what critics have said, and about what i got from the book. we had been talking earlier about connections, and about contracts, and in our conversation we ended up tying those two ideas together. i wasn't really asked any general questions about why i wanted to go to tasp, but i believe that i was able to convey my enthusiasm for the kind of program that tasp was, and the oppurtunity that tasp offered in the way i was responding. i think i demonstrated my appreciation for intellectual thought. at the end, however, i asked what the typical tasp day was like, etc, etc.</p>
<p>So, Ellen Baer got back to me about my interviewer having not contacted me yet to schedule anything, and she said that she would tell the interviewer and he would be contacting me soon. (This was a week ago.) </p>
<p>She also gave me the name of the interviewer, and said he was at a nearby university in the city. So, I looked him up, assuming he was a student, but it ends up he is actually the (Cornell/Oxford/Harvard educated) head of the Political Science department and as old as my father. I was hoping for someone a bit younger, because I would probably have a better chance of connecting with them culturally, but hey...</p>
<p>I'm so anxious to just have the interview scheduled because as time passes my schedule is closing up (crew practice every afternoon except monday, now regattas on the weekend). I'm sort of intimidated by the guy's credentials, and sort of wish I never looked him up. I feel like whatever I could have to say about current affairs/politics, he knows way more about, anyway...</p>
<p>Hopefully, he isn't pompous. Luckily, looking at the articles he has written, and the publications they are published in, it looks like we are on the same page ideologically, so that's a good thing, I guess. I'm just hoping he has been busy and isn't blowing me off!!</p>
<p>Anyone else still waiting for the call?</p>
<p>i dont think id be too worried about the interviewer being pompous or difficult to get in tune with--most of these people are former taspers or in some way affiliated with the spirit of tasp, which is all about being able to get along with other people. most of the people i know who are affiliated with tasp seem like pretty nice people...</p>
<p>claret quilty-I don't think that this forum is any way to tell how smart we are. (That's not an insult to anybody, but how are we supposed to tell? That's why Internet dating is so chancy!)</p>
<p>At any rate, I'm a quiz bowl player, pretty advanced, and I have this incredible paranoia that, if a question occurs to me within three days of a match, and I don't answer it, that question will show up in the match. It never does. Never once! If you push yourself to finish this book, you'll end up hating it and associating it with work, and it won't come up during the interview.</p>
<p>As long as you've read some of it...you're perfectly entitled not to be done. (It took me six months to finish Count of Monte Cristo a few years ago b/c I had to keep reading other stuff for school, etc!)</p>
<p>Good luck.</p>
<p>I've just had my interview too, and we did not talk about the booklist as much as I thought we would. Thank goodness, because I didn't remember the fine details of many of the books. We did touch on a few, however: just the ones that the interviewers thought were interesting, or in some way remembered reading and really liked, etc.</p>
<p>now that the interview is over, i predict ill start getting antsy about the rejection/acceptance letter due in about a month.</p>
<p>Ah!!! BLURBLURBLUR!!! </p>
<p>You are a Nabokov fan too? Oh man...can you tell from my cc screenname that I am? Pale Fire is his best, everyone says, but I haven't read it because I am scared to without annotations. As I suppose you know, vlad's nets of allusion are very hairy indeed and I'm wayyyy too scared to address them without a bunch of erudition or a major crutch (annotations). </p>
<p>Anyway, blur, one last thing: can you remember any of the questions she asked you? Oh, and the book is/was/is Snow by Orhan Pamuk. Got great reviews, but is, at least in translation, a little too heavy on political/social commentary and light on literary and artistic GLORY. But maybe I haven't read far enough yet. </p>
<p>Inkling229 --you're right, of course, about the difficulty of discerning intelligence on the Internet. Nonetheless, it's pretty obvious when someone is articulate, and generally you can also tell whether people are nice or jerks. So maybe I'm wrong, but you all seem really articulate AND nice. Thus...I'm shaking in my shoes about these decisions. </p>
<p>I asked this way back when on this thread or another, but what seminars did you guys list as your first choices? Did anyone put UT-Austin? Although everything about this stage is WAY too up-in-the-air for comfort, wouldn't it be amazingly serendipitous/cool if some of us ended up meeting each other in person? At TASP, that is? Sure, it's as 'chancy' (in a different sense, maybe) as a marriage made online...but I think it would be just as amazing. Can you tell I want to go to tasp?</p>
<p>claret quilty-
UT-Austin and Cornell I were my top 2 choices. I'm a writer, but I love Greece way more than I love modern history. Long story. </p>
<p>Anyway, your reading lists are so much more advanced than mine. I have a few classics (including The Picture of Dorian Gray, which I love to death), but like half of my list is Terry Pratchett and John Grisham (gulp!). I'm a full-fledged diploma candidate (taking a course load that my advisors called crazy) and reading is like my form of sanity. Again, I'm a writer, and reading is kind of like seeing a movie for me. I read for the plot and the characters. I hope a less-than-erudite reading list won't kill me!</p>
<p>And yes. I can tell you want to go to TASP. Me, if you've read/watched LOTR, I want it as much as Gollum wanted that Ring! :)</p>
<p>My interview's on the tenth. It's in a dude's apartment, so my father won't let me go unless he can sit in the back. Ugh.</p>
<p>NO KIDDIN inkling!</p>
<p>If and only if everything goes right (that's the gargantuan and highly obese iff), we will meet each other! At UT Austin (provided that's your first choice)! Oh man, do you think if I use enough exclamation points, the computer will run out? Wouldn't it be utterly crazy to be talking face to face and then realize--WHOA--we know each other from the Internet? I think I am far too excited about this concept particularly given the extreme tenuousness of that actually happening. </p>
<p>But a girl can dream. And I'm wasting time now.</p>
<p>wow, i put ut austin and cornell (the truth in history one) as my top two also. i actually changed my mind between the essays and the interview and told them when i was there. and yeah, claret, i totally guessed about you being a nabokov fan. i love, love loved lolita, and nabokov also said that its the one closest to his heart. (get strong opinions--it has some wonderful interviews with him). and as for pale fire, my advice would be to just plunge in, forgetting about annotations and whatnot. its a good enough book that not understanding everything wont hurt too much. of course, going back and rereading it with a guide would probably be pretty interesting as well. </p>
<p>ummm, as for specific questions, theyll differ based on what you talk about, obviously, but if you just wanted an example of the type of question you'll be getting--we had been talking about the cultural differences between america and asia, and she wanted me to elaborate when i said that i believed that in asia order is maintained by the creation of contracts between people, whereas in america, order is maintained by strict adherence to the clock. the conversation flows from one question to another--its a long chain of elaboration, until you are in the deepest part of the issue. about pale fire, we discussed what various critics had said, and how i felt. she also asked me what i thought about a specific quote by the character gradus at the end.</p>
<p>I really really really want to go to Cornell II (war and terror: ethical, legal, and historical perspectives --- I remembered the name, that's sad..); it's by far my first choice. Hopefully I'll be able to express that during my interview ----- IF MY GUY EVER CALLS!!!!!!!!!!! (sorry for complaining so much about that, guys, can't help it)</p>
<p>I'm ****ed, as a bibliophile, about not being able to join in on the Nabokov discussion (I'm ashamed to admit I actually bought Lolita, but never got around to reading it as I buy more and more books to read first). Hmm, anybody into Marquez, Kafka, Coupland, Bukowski, or Calvino (they are my favorite authors!!) </p>
<p>Also, what kind of music do you guys like? My current favorite bands are Belle & Sebastian, Red House Painters, the Decemberists, Iron & Wine, and the Mountain Goats. I also like some classics like Dylan, the Velvet Underground, the Cure, Nick Drake, and Bowie. I have really ecclectic tastes.</p>
<p>Did anyone have more than one interviewer? It seems everyone just had one. I'm not sure whether I'd rather have one or more than one, hmm... They might tag-team and make me cry...</p>
<p>Also, I, for one, welcome claret quilty's flattery and do not question her generalization that we are all smart. =) I hope we are all accepted and get a chance to experience the "intellectual nirvana" that is TASP.</p>
<p>My entire comment on this conversation is: AAAAAAAAAAAH! >.< </p>
<p>I wrote essays of which I am extremely proud... But usually, when people meet me, they are shocked to find out the sort of things I write. In person, I don't match up with the image my writing portrays. Although I only wrote about subjects in which I am conversant, I'm afraid that I'll be something of a disappointment for my interviewer. </p>
<p>To those who have gone through the interview already, any tips on confidence for us?</p>
<p>READ LOLITA IMMEDIATELY!</p>
<p>that being said...i love marquez, kafka and calvino, though ive never been that into bukowski...im more a neruda, raymond carver, mary oliver, seamus heaney type girl. i also like phillip roth and el doctorow.</p>
<p>i like aimee mann, ben folds, radiohead, blur, damien rice, flaming lips, interpol, juanes, keane, oasis, rufus wainwright, travis, spice girls, wilco, brazilian jazz, movie soundtracks (lotr, harry potter, star wars), broadway (rent, phantom of the opera, les mis, wicked, avenue q, etc)</p>
<p>favorite movies- lotr, eternal sunshine, amelie, much ado about nothing, dark passage, star wars, the big sleep, cinema paradiso, crouching tiger hidden dragon, gone with the wind, my friend totoro</p>
<p>im also currently on a shakespeare kick and i have this great book called "will in the world" im starting on. also, eva hoffman's memoir, lost in translation (no relation to movie)</p>
<p>velvet cloak--feel no fear. honestly, despite the fact (as you say) that you dont match up exactly to the essays, youre still capable of the thought you produced in the essays, and thats what theyll be asking you about. dont get too scared-theyre not out to get you. approach it as you would a long conversation with interesting company.</p>
<p>blurblurblur:</p>
<p>I will try to read Lolita soon!! I'm right in the middle of "A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide" - a little spring break light reading. =) It's really delightful to know there are juniors out there enjoying authors like Calvino and Marquez (my one friend from my town that's into contemporary, international authors is a senior, so....)</p>
<p>By the way, do you have a AIM screen name? </p>
<p>Actually, anyone who feels like talking about the process in "real-time" list their AIM screen name. I'll make a little "TASP Interviewees" group!</p>