Saturday, January 24, 2009

This Title Could Be So Much Cooler

My parents are kind of brilliant when it comes to unexpected gifts for the holidays. This year I received a refurbished laptop and a digital camera! A very techie Christmas. This is wonderful because now I can take my laptop wherever and write instead of being tied to my monstrously large desktop (which I am still rather fond of).

New Year's was amazing as well. I went to visit my brother and friends for four days and the festivities were quite enjoyable. We played poker and celebrated for near twelve hours. Similar festivities should be taking place sometime in February in celebration of my birthday, though the details are still getting hashed out. More on that when it becomes more relevant.

Alright, so I'm back at school and rather glad for it. Six weeks of holiday is really too much, especially when there isn't much to do in the general area. I'm helping out with the college's literary magazine this term, still involved with my sorority colony (as the historian), and still working with the lovely ladies in the alumni relations office.

I'm taking Beginning Poetry Writing, American Literature II, and Hispanic Literature 1700-Present this term. I am really enjoying the first two classes though unfortunately a little confused with the third. Hispanic Lit is taught entirely in Spanish, which is fine, except that the prof has a rather haphazard way of teaching and organizing and I prefer structure in classes taught in foreign languages. I can talk about the themes of the literature in Spanish just fine, but I swear the other day we ended up talking about the French Revolution--I know the prof mentioned Napoleon. Furthermore, the prof sent out some emails telling us to prepare more for the classes and subsequently I've become a tad nervous. You see, tone is hard enough to interpret in text anyway, but then when you add the factor of the email being in a different language one suddenly finds oneself wondering if the prof is just exasperated or in fact rather perturbed. This weekend will be spent catching up on some of my Spanish work, that's for sure.

Moving on, American Lit II is interesting. Fact about me: the English department has basically swallowed me whole. When I first came here to school Am Lit was one of my least favorite subjects to study. Then, during my first year, I took Am Lit I by default and found it rather interesting. We're stating after the Civil War and the other day we read a few short stories by Kate Chopin. let me tell you, reading The Storm while those around you are carrying about and chatting is an odd yet entertaining experience. I felt compelled to share a few passages. It added to the humorous atmosphere of the night, that's for sure.

On to poetry writing. I am no poet. This is not some poetic lie that I am trying to use to impress you. Honestly. I am no poet. I have no idea what I'm doing. At all. But it is a lot of fun and class is very interesting. I took this class as a challenge to myself, as a way to force myself out of my comfort zone and therefore profit from the experience. A lot of my stuff, just like my fiction, has humorous undertones to it. It has yet to be determine whether, like my prose, I (unintentionally) write my poetry in a British voice. Occasionally I will randomly read off a poem to some of my friends. They seem to like them, though in reality this only makes me more skeptical as to whether or not these faux-poems are really poems at all. This is probably the class I am enjoying and will be enjoying the most this term.

As I am on the subject of school--mine has a twisted sense of humor. The other day our area had temperatures in the record breaking lows with the windchill making it seem near -40 degrees F. We received an email from the school in which they told us that temperatures such as these can lead to frostbite, hypothermia, and death. To which their suggestion was something along the lines of so bundle up guys! Our college will cancel class for nothing--not even potential deaths!!!

Again, along the lines of school, I have been WikiFire-d. Go to the site, type in my name, and there I am. Apparently my friends created the entry and sporadically update it.

That is all for the moment, because I am off to spend some time with my housemates.

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