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.

Day 10

Good morning. The photo above shows how I look when I think about school starting in ten days. That photo was taken around 6:30 this morning, half a mile into the Upper Walnut Creek trail here in Raleigh. It was cold this morning, only 69 when we set out on the trail. It is still only 75 outside, and I find that to be a bit chilly after the last few warm days.

Friday I went down to Wake County and got my last needle before starting school. This one cost me 75 dollars for 5 minutes and a little pain. I have nothing more to do in preparation for school now. On the 20th the year begins, but the first official day of classes is Wednesday the 22. My first class of the term is a course on English Romanticism. We will be reading Frankenstein among other texts, likely to include some of Wordsworth and Coleridge's poetry.

My loans for the year received approval last week, so I should be ok financially this year. I won't be able to buy my dream house, but I will be able to pay my bills and eat. Speaking of bills, I looked around to see how to tell Edulinx and the Canada student loans that I have changed address and how to keep my loans in stasis while attending grad school in NC. They do not make it easy to find the information, nor to help one to make those changes. Even a note sent through the contact me link was unproductive. The only thing I can do is send out a snail mail letter and hope to get a response before November when the loans become active.

I am not sure what I am going to do this week, but I feel I should do something as this is the last week before school takes control of my life. If I had a car I would drive down to the ocean and let the crabs bite my toes.

Fortnight

If pride comes before a fall, I need to buy a parachute. I am extremely proud of my Bachelor of Arts degree, for a high school drop out it is the evidence of a dream achieved. I have less ego invested in the poetry prize, but only in comparison to the degree. I have invested three and a half years, full time, in to the degree, and almost 30 years of dreaming. The poetry prize allows me to have a little confidence as I begin the MFA program that I might have some potential in the art I love. I have yet to frame anything. A frame and mat that will fit the degree is going to cost me 100 dollars. I could frame the other things I have to frame for much less, I suppose, but appearance is also important.

There is a weather action advisory in place today. We should reach the high 90's, and the ozone levels will be near dangerous levels. I am excited by this news, extreme heat is a novelty that I hope soon grows old. I look forward to the day when I can complain like long term residents about the horrid heat. But I am still wrapped up in feeling the ache of winter easing out of my memory. 40 below does not seem so real when it is 100 above. It is now 9:20 and the temperature is 80.

The level of excited anticipation is rising in this house. In only two weeks the next stage of my education begins. I first began dreaming of obtaining an MFA in 2002, right after attending the Dodge Poetry Festival in New Jersey. As I enter State this fall I will begin working on completing that goal. Five years to get here from where I was no longer seems so long. Not only am I in a totally different physical location, but emotionally, intellectually, and socially. Life changes are often so gradual as we live them that it can be hard to recognize we have made great changes. At this moment, I am very much aware of how far I have come. There is a long way to go, but there will always be a long way to go. Bit clichéd , but the road ahead twists and turns, and I am excited by what hides around the next bend.

I once thought I would never say this, but I am. I am happy with my life. Chasing a dream, whether I achieve it or not, is reward enough. As Milosz said, only the moment is eternal. I am enjoying this moment.

July ends

I received an email from the MFA director at State yesterday. He was notifying all MFA students of a meet and greet on the 21^st, which was latter rescheduled for the 20^th due to conflicts with scheduling. Along with the notice, he included a few files that had reading lists and requirements for students to fulfill before graduation. Most of it is just intimidating, but the book list for the MFA exam in a year and a half is scary. They have 15 books that I have to read, some rather large ones, plus I have to choose another 10. Then one Friday at noon I will pick up the question, take it home, and have to have a 15-20 page essay ready by noon Monday. I do have some of the books already, but I will have to get at least another 8. Here is the required reading list for the poetry section:

M.F.A. REQUIRED READING LIST IN POETRY

1. Helen Gardner, ed. The Metaphysical Poets

2. M.H. Abrams, ed., Norton Anthology of English Literature: The Romantic Period

3. Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass

4. Emily Dickinson, Collected Poems

5. William Butler Yeats, The Collected Poems of W.B. Yeats

6. T.S. Eliot, Collected Poems

7. Langston Hughes, Selected Poems

8. William Carlos Williams, Collected Earlier & Later Poems

9. Wallace Stevens, The Palm at the End of the Mind

10. W.H. Auden, Selected Poems

11. Robert Lowell, Selected Poems

12. Elizabeth Bishop, Collected Poems

13. Anne Sexton, The Complete Poems

14. Sylvia Plath, Ariel

15. Seamus Heaney, Selected Poems

A limited number of substitutions of other books by the same authors are possible, with the consultation of your advisor. In addition, you must supply a list of ten books of your own choosing in consultation with your advisor, for a total of 25 titles. This list must be given to the graduate secretary no later than the first week of your final semester.

I went down to the library on campus yesterday morning. For the first time I went to the top floor, the ninth floor, to get a book. There are some windows all around the outside of the floor, and I found myself feeling a little displaced again. The trees are so thick through much of the city that the city is hidden. From the library I looked south toward where my home is, and all I could see was a mass of green with a few tall buildings, towers, and power lines sticking out here and there. I have a continuing sense of being at home and not being at home as I walk around Raleigh. And walk I did. I left the library heading north, made a right, and after half an hour when I had not reached Cameron Village (a strip mall with a Harris Teeter), I realized the road must have twisted a bit, and I was still walking north. I had to make two more rights to get to the mall. I learned from this experience to always carry my compass with me. I am becoming quite comfortable with traveling on the buses, and can get to where I want quite easily. Riding the bus always takes a lot longer than going by car does, and even a short trip turns into a half day excursion.

I have 21 days until school starts. The summer was too short. Panic rises, and I considering running away. There must be some warm Caribbean island that would love to have me.