How to Apply to Fulbright
This would be the perfect application for the ETA program in Malaysia. Assuming it will exist in 2010, you're more than welcome to use it to apply for the fellowship.
"I want to be an ETA in Malaysia because I am afraid of the world after college and would like an ambiguously defined job in a foreign country to barely keep me busy for the next seven months.
I am well-suited to a life abroad because I have proved time and time again that I am able to ignore many key components of reality to convince myself that I am happy when in fact I am barely hanging onto my shreds of sanity and dignity.
Furthermore, I enjoy being both mocked and loved solely because of the color of my skin. As a white man in America I do not have the opportunity to hear "you are so pretty today, sir" enough and I crave the attention desperately.
While I am unremarkable in my home country, I have the pressing need to amuse and astound the people of Malaysia by performing such laudable feats as eating rice, saying "hello" in Malay, and eating rice while saying hello. I truly believe this is what I was born to do.
Being raised in the liberal bastion of the San Francisco Bay Area, I was taught that if you make a sincere effort to understand others, you will quickly learn that, deep down, we are all the same. I want to go to Malaysia because it's time to shatter that fairy tale with some real irreconcilable differences.
I understand that teaching will take up few, if any, hours of my weekly schedule as an ETA and that I will be free to pursue outside projects, assuming that they also take place on school grounds and can be interrupted by teachers and students at any time. With this in mind, I propose to undertake a side project of finishing the Internet. Under normal circumstances I would agree that this is not a realistic project, but I will conveniently have my schedule arranged to have one class at the beginning of the day and one class at the end of the day giving me at least six hours in between to finish the Internet. That will be at least 30 hours a week. If I'm in Malaysia for seven months I will be on the Internet for nearly 1000 hours over the duration of the fellowship. If I am not able to finish the Internet, I will almost certainly be able to create a blog of my time in Malaysia and make meta-jokes referencing it.
Most importantly, I understand a great deal of waiting for nothing to happen will be involved in this fellowship and with all due modesty, I'm very good at waiting. I am skilled at watching TV shows on computers to pass the time, as well as acquiring more TV shows when I finish those. I have an iPod that I keep well-stocked with music and books on MP3 which will insulate me from the boredom ensuing from six hours of down-time for every one hour of actual work.
Moreover, since I am horrendously underqualified to teach, it is to the benefit of all that I speak too quickly for students to understand me. Additionally, as I lack work experience, I will most likely think that any amount of dysfunction in the work environment is normal. I also thrive on the absence of feedback. That way, I'm able to imagine what everyone around me thinks, which eliminates the need for conversation and frees up more time for finishing the Internet or Season 2 of Grey's Anatomy, whichever ends first.
I humbly thank the Fulbright Committee for considering my application.
P.S. Also, I have testicles and welcome the opportunity for people to give me preferential treatment because of them."
"I want to be an ETA in Malaysia because I am afraid of the world after college and would like an ambiguously defined job in a foreign country to barely keep me busy for the next seven months.
I am well-suited to a life abroad because I have proved time and time again that I am able to ignore many key components of reality to convince myself that I am happy when in fact I am barely hanging onto my shreds of sanity and dignity.
Furthermore, I enjoy being both mocked and loved solely because of the color of my skin. As a white man in America I do not have the opportunity to hear "you are so pretty today, sir" enough and I crave the attention desperately.
While I am unremarkable in my home country, I have the pressing need to amuse and astound the people of Malaysia by performing such laudable feats as eating rice, saying "hello" in Malay, and eating rice while saying hello. I truly believe this is what I was born to do.
Being raised in the liberal bastion of the San Francisco Bay Area, I was taught that if you make a sincere effort to understand others, you will quickly learn that, deep down, we are all the same. I want to go to Malaysia because it's time to shatter that fairy tale with some real irreconcilable differences.
I understand that teaching will take up few, if any, hours of my weekly schedule as an ETA and that I will be free to pursue outside projects, assuming that they also take place on school grounds and can be interrupted by teachers and students at any time. With this in mind, I propose to undertake a side project of finishing the Internet. Under normal circumstances I would agree that this is not a realistic project, but I will conveniently have my schedule arranged to have one class at the beginning of the day and one class at the end of the day giving me at least six hours in between to finish the Internet. That will be at least 30 hours a week. If I'm in Malaysia for seven months I will be on the Internet for nearly 1000 hours over the duration of the fellowship. If I am not able to finish the Internet, I will almost certainly be able to create a blog of my time in Malaysia and make meta-jokes referencing it.
Most importantly, I understand a great deal of waiting for nothing to happen will be involved in this fellowship and with all due modesty, I'm very good at waiting. I am skilled at watching TV shows on computers to pass the time, as well as acquiring more TV shows when I finish those. I have an iPod that I keep well-stocked with music and books on MP3 which will insulate me from the boredom ensuing from six hours of down-time for every one hour of actual work.
Moreover, since I am horrendously underqualified to teach, it is to the benefit of all that I speak too quickly for students to understand me. Additionally, as I lack work experience, I will most likely think that any amount of dysfunction in the work environment is normal. I also thrive on the absence of feedback. That way, I'm able to imagine what everyone around me thinks, which eliminates the need for conversation and frees up more time for finishing the Internet or Season 2 of Grey's Anatomy, whichever ends first.
I humbly thank the Fulbright Committee for considering my application.
P.S. Also, I have testicles and welcome the opportunity for people to give me preferential treatment because of them."
Comments
That's how I got into genealogy. I had to fill the time between 9 and 5 while I sat there and looked busy.
It's so much more fun, finding out... :)
I think good ole Bart would make an excellent ETA.
Also, I wish we had internet before you all left, mostly so that I could read your blog.
Did you, in fact, finish the internet?
http://www.shibumi.org/eoti.htm