I am so done!

My last essay is written, printed, and ready to be turned in. I will walk into school this morning, slip it into the professor's mail box, and say

I am so F*****g done.

Course I will have to wait around a few hours, see some students, teach my final comp class at NCSU (won't say ever cause I might some day do so again).

Already I can feel the what do I do nows creeping up. But I think packing and preparing for the move to TX will help delay them. Who has time to worry about what to do if one is busy boxing things.

Tomorrow I am going to get up early and slide down to the arboretum and do some holidaying. I am looking forward to being able to do this without feeling guilty for putting off something important.

I am an MFAer now.

Mike
MFA
How cool is that?

Wednesday April good lord

We have a home in Denton. Bit scary, but exciting as well.









Today is the start of NCSU Libraries annual Friends book sale. Bags of books go for 5 bucks each. I will be leaving soon to see if I can come home with some new shelf stabilizers.

Two classes left to take in this Masters, and two more to teach! I am more excited abut completing this program than I was about finishing my BA. It is great to be able to say I have a masters. Not bad for a high school drop out.

post reading

One begins by saying, play the video in the post below, as it plays, and you read this post, all will become clear.

Last night was reading night, the final, official semi-informal event for my MFA. At 8 last evening, I was sitting in Brueggers (a poor imitation of Timmie's)nervously clutching in my sweat damp hands the few poems I would read. There were nine of us leaving the program last night, and I was to read number five. Fortunately, I was able to enjoy the few poets (fiction does not agree with me) who preceded me. My reading was short, sweet, and from the word around here, not too bad.

The MFA feels finished now. I can settle in and enjoy my status as a high school drop out/graduate student/poet. How strange to sit here this morning and know I have achieved a dream. I am savoring the moment, and (knock on wood) I am happy.

I took some wisteria photos yesterday, soon as I get the chance, I will post one if it came out ok.

Now, about the video. Carol got the job in Denton Texas, so we will be going to Texas next month (tentative move date June 1). Texas. It tastes funny still, but if I repeat it often enough, maybe it won't sound so strange.

Everyone is invited to my place for Christmas, we can drive to the Gulf and spend the day on the beach.

Texas.

Nope, still feels weird.

Texas

What?

I said Texas.

Tuesday

I walked to school yesterday. Google maps says it is 2.5 miles. I felt a bit caved in the afternoon, so I walked home as well. Later, I walked around the block for a grand total of 5.5 miles (approx.). The weather was wonderful, and the green. Most of the trees have decided it is time to put out baby leaves. I was thinking, during my stroll home, that there is as much color in spring as fall, but it is in many cases subtler. Rather than the huge masses of red and yellow, there are smaller batches of white, red, yellow, blue, etc. etc. Maybe subtler is not the right word as it is a quantity issue. I walked past a forsythia bush that was so yellow it looked like it was on fire, that is not subtle, but it was the only patch of such bright color on that block.

Short timer's fever has settled in. I find I no longer care much about school or finishing my projects, while knowing I have to do so, and that I need to do as good a job as possible. I am enjoying my class, the one I am teaching, and I am relaxing into the role of teacher. The workshop is down to a who cares, I am going to play segment. Experiments with sound and form. At least this week.

April begins tomorrow, and I will have 24 days left in the program.

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.