to:
graduate admissions
department of linguistics
university of california, berkeley

dear sirs and madams,

i am writing this letter on my own behalf, in support of my application for the doctoral program in linguistics. i find it necessary to inform you that i awoke this morning at 5am, the purpose of which was twofold: 1, to finish my phonology assignment (vowel space mapping) which is due this afternoon; 2, to bake gingersnaps for today's company potluck.

the former task i accomplished through employing several of the skills i've honed this semester: patient voice recording and re-recording, careful multi-pass spectrogram analysis, and fudging the data.

the latter task was unfortunately not so simple; it required a delicate and timeconsuming ballet of kitchenaid, ingredients, crystallized ginger hand-diced and mixed in, dough refrigerated and rolled into tiny balls, dipped in sugar, flattened lovingly onto a greased cookie sheet, and baked. project output includes twenty-four (24) delectable gingery cookies*.

so, to sum up: 1, gingersnaps; 2, gingersnaps; 3, gingersnaps. and i still arrived at work by 8.45a. can you not see that i am the superhuman?

i hope this will be instructive and helpful for you.

i remain as ever in your humble and gingery service,
amy x xxxxxxx

* in the interest of full disclosure, i must inform you that the original output count was twenty-five (25). however, i did not have time for breakfast today and, well, i'm sure you know how these things go.