Happy Halloween Everyone!

Happy Halloween Everyone!

Entry #673875

If I have any faithful readers left at all, Happy Halloween to you. And to the rest of the WDC community as well. My ticker on this site tells me it's been 43 days since my last blog on here. It's amazing how quickly things can change in that time.

I'm recovered completely from my surgery and start working out next week, with the help of a personal trainer so I don't re-injure myself or overdo it.

Classes are going great - hectic as we've passed the halfway mark. I have a LOT to do this weekend - three quizzes, an exam, and I need to work on several papers which are due in the next two weeks.

Libby and I are doing wonderful. Everything is going along pretty much as it should be - a few bumps in the road here and there but nothing unmanageable.

I got a job this semester in the writing center on my college campus and am really enjoying it. I also was made the liaison for the writing group that meets there which is pretty awesome. I'm also team leader for a conference proposal that happens this spring. We won't start really working on it until February but the proposal is due tomorrow so we've been working on that.

I've also been heavily involved in my critical research paper for my Literature course this term. I'm doing it on Edgar Allen Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart" and am writing about mental illness and motive. I will most likely post it on WDC after it's completed, for some basic feedback from anyone who might be interested. I'm hoping it'll be a good conversational piece at least.

I am playing with the idea of working with one of my instructors and trying to get it published. I think the theories I'm proposing have a lot of strength and may be a fresh perspective on the piece. It's ironic because I'm not usually one for literary criticism but I seem to be developing a real taste for it now, largely as a result of my studies.

Last term I took a different literature course and I noticed, in comparison to my classmates, I was picking up on things they weren't seeing. I was able to effectively argue my points even when other students disagreed. My professor wrote a glowing recommendation letter for me and in it he declared me a leader amidst the students of the class and that I made it more enjoyable. It's one of the few areas where politely declaring my opinion, regardless of how radical it might be, doesn't cause me to get crucified but instead, I find myself respected, both amongst my peers but even more surprising, among my professors. I don't know how that happens but it's the same in my current literature class.

I had to do a library research project prior to working on my critical research paper and got the grade back yesterday. It was an A, which I suspected it would be but her comments blew me away - "Perceptive, insightful, I am looking forward to reading the critical paper!" From a literature professor with over 30 years of experience, who has probably seen more theories and analysis of literature in that time than I ever could have, that's high praise! I mean, I can't imagine what this woman has seen. She's getting a grant for Spring term in order to study Mark Twain! I mean, I really respect this woman - her insights and interpretations are amazing.

She and I talked yesterday about my midterm results which were really good - an A+, an A-, two B+'s, and a B- (each question got it's own grade, there were 5 questions). That's pretty consistent (albeit generous in my opinion) and we talked about how this course helped me realize some of my weak areas of analysis and how it was largely due to a lack of interest. I have zero interest in Puritan literature (with the exception of Hawthorne's "Young Goodman Brown"), Native American literature, or Thoreau and Emerson. Those authors just don't do anything for me. However, with Poe and the authors that come after him - those pieces fascinate me. Not every author of course, but there are a number of them.

In any case, I'm very engrossed in my college courses. There's something to be said for having the maturity of a 30 year old and returning to school. I take it all so much more seriously now. Not to mention, I'm enjoying myself whereas when I was younger I was going to school simply to get a better job. I don't know how people survive it if they're not pursuing something they are passionate about.

Next term I'll be taking my first creative writing course with my instructor. In it we're required to create and submit a portfolio of work, which has me both nervous and excited. I've never tried to creatively write amidst the stress of college but it's high time I learned. I'm taking a 20th century literature course with a professor I admire in the hopes it will help provide me with inspiration for my creative writing course. I'm learning that courses can feed each other.

This term I'm taking a Geology course, a history course, and a literature course. A lot of the time frames being covered overlap a bit. In my geology class I had to write about how the age of the earth affected my world view and I tied a lot of what I learned in history and literature into that paper. My literature course also covers material that's relevant to my history course and vice versa so it worked out well. I hope to continue that pattern in the future.

In any case, things are great. I'm off to work on my literature paper since I have a meeting at 1:30 for some peer tutoring about it. I'm hoping to have a rough draft mostly done today.

Til next time, keep writing!

Shelly