The "Ivory Purgatory"

I suppose some explanation of this blog's title may be in order. I puzzled for awhile over various possible euphemisms for Grad School: ghetto of the Ivory Tower; less-fashionable suburb with lengthy, torturous commute to the Ivory Tower; "the snooze button of life" (as PhD comics so aptly describes it). Ivory Purgatory, while lacking in originality and clarity, held the all-important appeal of brevity - so there.  I also suppose that some explanation of my own background may be in order: I'm a first year Master's student in English Lit at Penn State University and, contrary to the snarkiness of my blog title, I actually love it here (though I do feel forever in "limbo," neither fully "knighted" scholar nor mere student). I've begun this blog for a few different reasons (some more suspect than others): (1) Facebook was not wasting enough of my time; (2) I feared that my Facebook friends might be tiring of my overly serious, rambling "notes" that called out for their own separate forum; (3) I figured that a space where I could talk/type out some ideas that were still in their infancy (or, in some cases, still gestating) might prove of use. Nothing is worse than when one ought to be working on a seminar paper but has instead concieved of an awesome, field-changing topic that has not the first thing to do with the paper at hand (and, sadly, is rarely awesome and never field-changing). So, here is my space to store those ideas - both the ill-concieved ones that are fueled by energy drink-addiction and sleep deprivation and those that perhaps do show some promise - feel free to browse, read, and critique to your heart's content.