Semester Season Finale

I just returned from dropping off my five million page final paper for my pedagogy class, which details week-by-week how I brainwashed undergraduate creative writing students into switching their majors from chemistry and poly-sci to poetry. I'm very tired from all that proselytizing, so I hope I can find some poor quality viewing tonight either via Netflix or the Internet. Or I might just wrap myself in my newly purchased electric blanket and fall asleep. My short term goal is to engage in some hardcore sloth for at least 24 hours or until I can't stand the fact that I still haven't folded my laundry. Then I will emerge and get busy because over break I have to write new work in three different genres -- poetry, fiction and nonfiction. It will be a working vacation is the point, which means that I really am entitled to be a lazy slob for at least one day.

Wow, I'm already worn out from writing this. That's saying something, considering I don't hold myself to any real standards on this blog. I've reduced my online use of the term "bitchslap"since I became a TA, and I do attempt to spell correctly. Aside from that, however, it's a free-for-all. So, what I'm saying is that this is going to be short because I don't want to have to sit up right now. So, how about if I do a brief semester recap for those who haven't seen me since I left California and Oregon for the southern charm of Wilmington?

I still love my writing program. My writing is getting stronger and I have not come close to becoming an alcoholic. My low, low tolerance remains in tact, despite the fact that I am surrounded by folks who can throw back the booze like professionals. I am usually on the sidelines making my one glass of wine last three hours and trying to figure out how I can downplay that I am borderline drunk from it. However, the girl who barely drinks is always a popular party guest because she leaves plenty to drink for everybody else AND she might fall asleep in your arms like a cat if you wait long enough. It's working out is the point.

My classes were great this semester. I got graduate school credit for reading Jacqueline Susann's Valley of the Dolls and Stephen King's Carrie, for one thing. For another, I got to workshop with very talented classmates, some of whom I suspect I'll be trading work with for the rest of my life.

I read from my work at the graduate student holiday reading the other night. Since I had already read in front over a hundred undergraduates in lecture, I didn't think I would be nervous. So. Not. True. This crowd was composed of my peers and faculty members I haven't yet met. People who are talented enough to judge me. Nevertheless, the crowd was with me and every other writer who read that night. I felt like I was on an HBO special showcasing up-and-coming literary figures. It was totally fun. I also used a flat iron for the first time, which gave me hair power of the straight variety -- a new and still mostly untested level of fabulous that I plan to whip out more often.

There's more, of course, but that's enough for now. Like I said, the desire to marinate in my own end-of-the-semester success beckons, and I need to either take a nap or invite over some classmates. One way or the other, I'm celebrating, even if I do it in my sleep.