Hallelujah !

so i got this letter today

Terence—

Thank you for your interest in the SMFA/Tufts MFA program. I am writing you with some great news! You have been selected as a finalist for our MFA program. Our MFA program is highly selective and only a select few are chosen as finalists and invited to interview here at SMFA. We conduct all finalist interviews at a day we call “Graduate Interview Day”. This year, “Graduate Interview Day” will be held on Saturday, March 12th. You will be getting an official finalist letter as well as an information packet in the next week, but I wanted to let you know ASAP! If you are intending to interview at SMFA, please begin making your travel arrangements to Boston. You must plan to be available to interview at anytime between 9am and 5pm on Saturday, March 12th. You will not get your exact interview time until a week before the interviews. Due to the logistics of scheduling 75 interviews, I cannot accommodate time requests.

I understand that you are currently in South Africa and in are most likely unable to come to Boston. Please contact me by March 1st so that I can arrange a phone interview for you. If you could let me know the time change between here and South Africa, that would be of great help! We were very impressed with your work and look forward to talking with you in the future.

Should you have questions, please feel free to call 800-643-6078. Congratulations! Safe travels!

Sincerely,

Courtney Fanning
Graduate Admissions Coordinator
Assistant Director of Admissions
The School of the Museum of Fine Arts
230 The Fenway
Boston, MA 02115

+ and it felt really good to get this letter + cause i was starting to feel like no one had even recieved my applications + this is the first correspondance ive gotten from any school and all my applications have been in for A MINUTE! + so this news put me at ease...just a lil + cause when i went on a tour of SMFA they said they really don't admit students directly out of undergraduate and my chances were very slim + this lil bit of affirmation killed a butterfly or two that were in my stomach

+ one of my roomates came today + his name is John and he is from namibia + its very interesting how diverse capetown is + but this all of course depends on your idea of diversity + every other student i meet here is from an african country other than S.A. + and they all REP HARD + in fact they tried to get me to join the east african student organization +comprised of students from alot of countries in east africa + i asked if u had to be from E.A. to join + and they said... "how do u know you aren't?" + but yea anyway...diversity + so there its a real diverse place as far as nationality + but u also get the sense that although alot of these people are really culturally / different -phenotypically there is no way of knowing who is who + it seems tho in some situations people just found themselves on oppisite sides of colonization lines.+ funny thing to + i think black people in the US rep their city's - hoods - burroughs - etc. harder than these people rep their country.

anyway john seems like he'll be a dope roomate - we have alot in common + we both play guitar - and have joined the basketball club.

all the girls in my program seem a lil over obsessed with saftey + i think its a combination of that lone woman = victim stereotype (is it a stereotype? its somethin like that) and the scare tactics they tried to put on us when we got here + i mean they were tellin us about irrelevant crimes + like some 77 yr old lady got eatin by a shark + .... + but my program is like 90% female and they are always talkin about how "sketchy" places are + im sure things are different if u are a woman + but + i don't know but i don't feel unsafe at all here + i think the place ive felt the most unsafe was downtown newark, NJ real late at night (don't know why) but this is no comparison + actually at night... its almost deserted except for security gaurds... one girl told me that numbers are numbers and the higher the crime rate the worse the place...+ but i just don't buy that now + american's here are spooked for no reason + i saw this south african try and help an american guy put minutes on his cell phone and the american guy almost flipped out + the S.A. guy wasn't frazzeled and just showed him how to do it and walked away and the american guy looked ashamed for being obvious about typecasting the friendly s.african as a vagrant/criminal + it was weird

next episode + terence rides third class on the train (yes ppl -classes --- on the train...)