SUNRISE ORIENTATION (3.0)

SUNRISE (3.0) ASSIGNMENT ONE:
ORIENTATION/BIO

(The first lesson is your participation in orientation. The first assignment requires all of us to introduce ourselves to each other.)
Write us a short bio including
--the name you prefer we call you when receiving responses in the forums
--why you signed up for the class
--your future plans & your writing goals
--your favorite reading and writing genres
--your writing strengths and weaknesses if you have any
Optional
--Your geographical location
--education level and major
--age and gender

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WHO I AM, WHERE I CAME FROM, HOW I GOT HERE, WHERE I WANT TO GO

I am jennyj; my full name is Jennifer A. Jenson (my married name is Jennifer J. Cartwright). I will answer to any and alll of the above! I am 50 years old and smiling about it! I signed up for this class originally because I haven't taken a Creative Writing class since 1981. At that time, I was majoring in history. I later graduated from law school, but all the writing in law school doesn't qualify as creative writing. (Law school tries to breed any and all creativity out of the law students; I feel lucky to have escaped with my soul.) (This is my third and final try at the class; sanity and other related real-life considerations required me to drop it the last two times.) I practiced law from 1984 until 2003, when my MS made me too physically disabled to practice. While my MS has been in remission for severa years, I am in a wheelchair and am progressing at learning to walk again. (There is a very good reason why most humans don't wait until adulthood to learn to walk. The average beginning walker falls alot; I am now 6 feet tall and learning to walk again is a trip! No falls, though, for a very long time, thankfully, and I'm being extra cautious now!) After you don't stand up for awhile, you literally lose your balance. As is, I can't stand up without balancing against something like a bed or wall or walker. But I am very pleasesd with my progress--I am doing self-directed P.T and can now stand myself up at my kitchen sink and am trying to stay up for longer periods of time each day..

I currently write poetry daily and average 1-2 poems each day. . Right now, my husband and I are living with his sister and her grown son, our nephew, at their home in Chattanooga, Tennessee.; the household joke is still that all I do all day is eat and write poetry, although I do manage to fit in cookking the family suppers and looking for freelance writing jobs in my spare time.. All I can say is "I'hank God for WDC." I am new in town, feel lost, and right now, my writing is my lifeline. I am actively pursuing freelance writing jobs; I have been in this living situation for nearly twelve months but am still working the basic bugs out of my life--it is not going as fast as I would like, but my philosophy is: progress is incremental! My longterm goal is to publish poetry collections and be the poet laureate of the U.S.! I intend to write more prose in 2010, in addition to freelancing for profit! I have recently gotten access to all of my pre-move writing and am continuing to organize it into a useable mess; it is proving to be a long process! But you can't be very happy in a wheelchair unless you are patient and innovative. For me, life is the journey as much as the destination!.

I like to write poetry and non-fiction. I like to read poetry, non-fiction, science fiction, memoir and inspirational writings.

I think that one of my biggest weaknesses in my writing process is my computer inexperience. I also tend to ramble, as you can tell--sorry!. I think a strength is my easy conversational style, and my love to do research and synthesize my findings into useful material!
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