Update

It has been a long time since I last updated my blog. I would plead busyness, but I have not been busy. I have been killing time, writing, reading, and enjoying the warm weather. The last few weeks the temperature has been consistently above ninety degrees, and many days were above one hundred degrees. I should join the rest of the state in its call for rain, but I have been enjoying the warm weather. I have not even wandered around taking pictures lately.

Things changed Sunday though. I ran down to State's bookstore and picked up my texts for this term. I had bravely tried out a get booked early program in which I put in my student ID and the bookstore filled a box with my books. All I had to do was go down and show my id and pick them up. It took five minutes to run through the whole procedure and was quite painless.

Yesterday I attended a new TA orientation for the English department. I enjoyed the aftermath of that session. It was about an hour, and afterwards I met with some of my fellow mfaers and we went out to a local coffee shop and had a talk and a cup of coffee (organic and fair trade). In the afternoon there was a short orientation for the mfa types that lasted about another hour. I cam home feeling good about school and the program. When I arrived home I checked online and my loans had been paid out, so I have a few dollars to spend now on little things like rent and food.

Today I went down to the mandatory new graduate orientation. Talk about boring. In fact I am still there listening to some very boring speakers. Yes I am.

I have been spending my mornings sitting on the back deck listening to the crickets and frogs, watching the bunny rabbits hop around on the lawn and occasionally a possum sneaks past. One morning a few weeks ago a snake slithered off the lawn and into the brush near the creek. We are currently overrun with ants, and I wish I knew how to get rid of them. I do feel at home here and I am glad I left Edmonton and came here when I did. The feeling of strangeness/alienation that I had the first few weeks has faded. It still comes back occasionally, but overall I am enjoying North Carolina.

I will post more Friday, maybe, after I attend my two classes this week. First workshop for poetry is Monday, and I have already submitted my poems for that class.

Update: Day One

The sun is just beginning to rise in the east (to my left) and I am proud to be able to say I know which way to look when I think east, at least here at home. My chair on the deck faces south and I can watch the birds come steal food from the feeder. Two male cardinals cuss at me from a branch, they must be wanting breakfast and here I am hogging the whole deck for my pleasure. The sky is a perfectly clear blue.

The first class of my graduate experience is a course on English Romantic literature. The course will focus on the lesser known women writers of that period. I am looking forward to the course.

As this is the first day of classes I suspect the campus will be a mad house. Returning to school feels different this year. As a graduate student I feel less out of place than I did as an freshman undergrad. I am looking forward to this year with anticipation and excitement. I am a high school drop out/graduate student. There cannot be very many of us in the world.