Fall

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It is 6:05 am on September 22. I am sitting on my back deck listening to the closing bars of night's song. A few thousand miles and a few months changes so many things. The weather websites dare to say that it is 72 and feels like 79. Up north I can imagine freezing temperatures, barren trees, and faces beginning to reflect the shorter days. That is not to say that the days are not shrinking here as well, but how can I miss the sun when I can spend hours sitting on the back deck doing my homework, and getting a few rays. Here I am not locked inside my small apartment watching the world go by. here I am a bit awed by the climate, and that awe includes the sense of fear that was once associated with the word.

"The eye sees more than the heart knows." William Blake from the Visions of The Daughters of Albion. I was watching Gandhi, the movie, last night. There is a scene shortly after he returns to India as he is traveling in a luxurious motor car through a poor part of the city. He looks around and sees the poverty and suffering and that line from the beginning of Blake's poem rose in my mind. I like the term motor car, it conveys a different sense than just car. I am having a hard time reconciling Blake in my own mind. I think he was a brilliant visual artist, but his poetry is spotty. he was never fully able to escape the chains set up by Milton, the way Hart Crane managed near the end of his career to break free from Eliot. But I can admire Blake's creative insanity, and his attitude towards his society while at the same time feeling that he is a little petulant for not being accorded the respect he felt was his due. I suspect, without evidence, that he deliberately courted his status as an outsider to allow him to make judgments of his society. I was a bit shocked to hear in the Romantics class that people are not able to decipher Blake, and yet it is all so simple.

I am behind in my composition literature review. It is due in three weeks, and I have not made much progress. My topic is still fuzzy, my question keeps modifying itself, and I keep wondering what value there is in my inquiry. This class is my favorite class this term, even ahead of the poetry workshop. Because of Labor day and my nasty cold I have only attended two workshops, and no feeling of a group has arisen so far. That is not the groups fault, for I think they are nice people, and John is a good workshop leader. Not enough time has passed to create a sense of unity.

My schedule for the weekend is as follows: work on the comp lit review, work on my short paper (five pages) for the Romantics class, think about a longer research project for the Romantics class, read and respond to some of the poems handed out in class last week by my class mates, edit my poems, and work on bringing another one or two into some kind of shape that I can then pass around to the group. Some where in there I need to make a chili and take a long walk.

It is cloudy this morning. That is likely why it is so wonderfully warm here. Unfortunately it also lengthens the darkness. It is after six thirty, and I can just barely see the shape of the leaves. And there is another hour before the sun actually rises. I read in the paper this week that the leaves should begin their transformation this week or next. The drought may reduce the length and variety of color they express. It is still strange to walk around town and see flowers, to walk through the 'woods' and see flowers. I was sitting on the second floor balcony at the Talley Student Center yesterday before class looking north. There is a tree belt that shelters the train tracks from view about a block from where I was sitting that contains a fair number of pine trees. I was wondering as I watched the students move back and forth below me if that green strip will last into the winter.

Is this America?

I was very disappointed to hear that the Canadian dollar was equal to the American peso yesterday. On the upside, our postal service is still far better than the Canadian system. I suppose some day I should sit down and list the differences between Canada and America. That might make a poem.

I was right. I was coming down with a cold, and a nasty one it turned out to be. I went to bed Sunday night around six and pretty much slept right through to Tuesday morning. I am feeling much better today and I always think back to my smoking days and remember how I would have been having coughing fits still.

Because I was so sick Monday, I missed all of Monday's classes. I have felt like I am way behind because of the missed days, not just Monday, but the days of low activity around the major sickness. My tasks this weekend are to try and get a sense of being back in control of my work load. The major areas I have to focus on are my writing-which I have done nothing with since getting sick; deciding where I am going to go with my lit review for my comp course, and maybe even selecting a few articles; reading and responding to some of Blake's poetry, and so on. I find my mind is not willing to acknowledge the quantity of work I should be doing. Moments of panic overwhelm reason.

We had a nice rain storm last night. The weather place says between 1.8 and 1.9 inches. The streams are higher this morning, and the water was running over the spillway at lake Johnston (wish I knew how to spell) as the image above shows (along with the ones under the latest photo link). It is a beautiful morning, sunny, a bit chilly (only 70), smelling of rain and wet leaves. My maintenance company was cruel this week, they went into the empty lot and chopped down most of the sheltering shrubs under the pretense they were harboring rodents. Now there is a big patch of wood chips and I can look under the neighbors back deck. I think the real reason was to reduce the chance that the next tenants would not take advantage of the location and grow some more weed like the last batch were doing.

I suppose I should go get busy with my work. Today's high is 82, how will I ever adjust to the increasing cold?

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Summer, the extended version

My sister Barbara asked me the other day if it was still green here. So I went around the last few days taking some photos of green. In fact, it remains very warm and very dry. The drought conditions remain high. Water restrictions have been imposed, lawn watering is limited, and car washing is only allowed on the weekends. Though for that last one I would not mind if it were banned outright. Dirty cars are not a big worry for most at the moment I would not think.

My week has been busy, and the weekend is supposed to be busy. I should be doing some research, but I am looking around for ways to avoid working. I do have a moderately valid excuse this morning: I feel like I am coming down with a cold. I will blame all the sick kids at school.

I spent part of the week putting up shelves and staining a door (which I will turn into a desk, all I need now is a piece of glass to cover it). My abilities as a carpenter/cabinet maker are quite pathetic, but I managed to do these small tasks without being too incompetent.

Do you suppose it is too early for a nap?

Week Three begins

I do not think it is right that this is week three already. Really, week one was only three days long, so it should not count as a week. Last week should have been week one, making this week two. The reason I am engaging in this sophistry is to avoid having to make a final decision on a literature review. I have to let the comp prof know what I am going to do by the end of this week, and there are so many choices. Ahh well, I suppose I still have one and a half days before classes start again.

Carol and I went off to Home Depot yesterday and picked up some material to make shelves to hold books. It is crazy expensive to build, but it is cheaper than trying to buy pre-built shelves. I also bought some cheap document frames while there, so I can hang my diplomas and degrees. It still feels strange to say/write/read that and to think of myself as a grad student. If you had said I would be here 15 years ago I would have asked you to share the dope, for it must be some pretty good shit.

My plans for the rest of the weekend are simple. Read a large number of articles, figure out how to lead a class discussion on Tuesday, figure out what I want to focus my lit review on, figure out what I want to do a large research paper on for Romantic literature class, and...

I am also in the process of trying to find an old door which I can convert into a desk. I need a larger desk. I have not even been working for two weeks and things are already falling off and crashing to the ground.

My classes were fun last week. The poetry workshop was great, and the other class have teachers who are excited and love what they are doing. Things feel different as a grad student, but some of that may come from my own attitude. Since the Wednesday I missed class I have had a perfect attendance record.

The weather has cooled down a bit. I had to warp up in a blanket to drink my coffee outside this morning. It has been a beautiful morning, clear, calm, and feeling like early fall though I have hopes that the temperatures will remain warm for another few weeks.

week one done

Look closely at the image and you might see a turtle hiding on the bottom of the stream. If not in this image you could try others that I have posted to my photo album at this address. Yes, we did go for a nice two mile walk along the trail towards the lake. It is a humid morning, every time I would stop to admire some item of remarkable beauty, my glasses would fog over and I would whine a little. I must admit I do love the humidity. It feels great on my skin.

Wednesday was a disappointing day for me. I dressed up fancy to look pretty for my first day of class in a new school. I left early to visit the library, and I arrived in the right building and on the right floor for my first class. Unfortunately I had the wrong room. So, I missed my first class as a graduate student. I was bummed, but when I returned home I sent a note to the prof and I was able to get the syllabus and list of readings for Friday's class. Fortunately, it is a class on English Romantic writers (mostly the big six poets: Wordsworth, Coleridge, Blake, Keats, Shelley, and Byron), so I did not miss more than a little history lesson. Friday I arrived in the right class and I am sure I will enjoy the course. The prof is English, her accent still lingers though now there is a tinge of south in her words, and she is very passionate about the passionate poets.

Thursday's class was the theory of teaching college composition course that I had high hopes for. The reading list provided in the syllabus includes articles that I have already hunted down and read out of my own interest. Even better, I am able to include these readings in my schedule and not feel guilty about ignoring other materials I should be working on. I like it when interests coincide with requirements. The prof for this course appears knowledgeable and enthusiastic, and I am hoping that I will continue to be excited by the material in a few months when I am being squeezed for time.

I also spent some time sitting in my wee cubicle doing some reading. That is not a space I feel comfortable in at the moment. I did wander around on campus this week looking for a space I can write in, but I have not found anything yet. I am thinking I may make use of a small fair trade cafe, or at least try it out. They do have a vegan hummus dish that I could consume, at least it is on their menu.

The property manager sent over an exterminator Wednesday. Carol said he said that we were surrounded by fire ants. That is why we were over run, and why Daph has been suffering from bites. Since he sprayed the number of ants visible has decreased significantly though a few still wander in places I would rather not see them. Ants outside are cool. Ants inside are offensive.

I have a huge pile of homework for this weekend so it must be official--I am a grad student.

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.