Tuesday March 24

Spring does not come tippy-toeing in here. It marches in wearing army boots and a tutu. Every day is a little greener, every day a new plant puts up its celebratory flag. It would be hard to be indifferent to the beauty and the violence of a North Carolinian spring.

Five weeks of classes, and one week of grading are all that remain in my MFA program. I would skip the grading if I could, the same way my students would skip the writing. In yesterday's class, I noticed a fair amount of indifference to the work I had them do. As they were packing up to leave, I reminded them that five weeks remain in the term, and that they had to write 19 pages in those weeks. I don't know if they had made that connection, and I could see some panic appear in some faces. I don't like to terrify, but I need to motivate them (final month apathy settles in I do believe) and I am not able to inspire by enthusiasm (short-timer's fever eats my eagerness).

I don't have much of my own work to finish, one 20 page paper and a few poems. Neither are all that onerous, and that is a change in attitude from back in my undergrad years. Two weeks to do the paper, and three weeks for the poems, easy as dreaming.

I am looking forward to my walk to school this morning. Spring is here, excitement, enthusiasm, awe.