Greetings everyone. It's getting late, just past 11:30 now, and I am going to try to make this as brief as possible. I know I promised several people to let them know when I got down to Roanoke and all settled in, but it seemed that from the moment I got here, I was consumed with the hustle and bustle of college life right away, and have been busy with my classes already. I knew this was going to be a demanding year, and after (not even a full) week of classes, I can already confirm that yes, this is going to be a very demanding year for me.
Since it's 11:30, naturally I am in Lucas Hall, the foreign language building, doing homework. I have about 100 pages of reading left to do, and two poems to write, all before 9:40 am. (guess that whole procrastinating thing didn't take too long—no, in my defense I lost all of Saturday due to an orientation seminar I had to attend for my job at the writing center)
ANYWAY. Quick update on my classes:
Monday:
9:40-10:40 — Gender in Early World Literature
This is a course that I was looking forward to all summer, and have been slightly let down in the first two meetings, which probably isn't fair. The subject still seems interesting enough, but I was unaware that it was "Early World" literature, and as fascinating as gender issues in 500BC India may be..... I'd rather focus on contemporary gender issues around the world. Because I mean, have you read the news lately there's a TON of stuff going on that affects gender everywhere!
Anyway, we study India, "Near East" (unit on Genesis/Middle East), China, Greece, Medieval England and Medieval Japan. Our "most modern" text is from the year 1200, so we're definitely pulling on that "Early World" part of the course title. Oh well, let's hope the cultural elements spice up the rest of it...
2:20-3:50 — Intro to Poetry
I am looking forward to this course, despite the fact that poetry is not something I write often (hah. like i've written much of anything lately...). Sure, I won Roanoke's poetry award last year, but all that seemed to do was add an immense load of pressure on me because it was a stroke of luck. Poetry is something I only write in a very spur-of-the-moment kind of way, so having a class on it where I'm going to be expected to crank out a poem every two or three days might be a very daunting task at first...but i'm definitely up for the challenge, and hope it makes that half of my writing even stronger. Who knows....
TUESDAY
8:30-10:00 — Writing Across the Curriculum
This is my required class for my job in the Writing Center. I'm going to be taking it PASS/FAIL because it literally has no effect on my major or anything. I just need to pass the course to work in the writing center, so why risk hurting my GPA with a B in a course that I don't need for my degrees? That sounds pretentious but oh well :b I'm not really looking forward to this course because it's at 8:30 in the morning, and it's like "hey, this is how you teach people to write" and I already took a course last semester that really dove into the theories of writing pedagogy, so I feel like this might just be beating a dead horse..... while being exhausted. Hopefully I'm wrong there, too!
10:10-11:40 — Advanced Fiction Writing
Easily my favorite course of the semester. My professor is my idol and role model for why I'm studying this major, I have had class with him both semesters last year, and he pushes me to work harder, while giving me the encouragement and confidence I need as a writer, which is insanely difficult at some times. The course is structured almost identically to the intro course, which makes me thin he's going to grade our work 235456443524 times harder, but that just means I need to focus on what we learned last year and perfect the craft even more. I'm ready. I'm excited.
2:50-4:00(?) — 16th Century France
This is a course that I took as a last-second decision because my French professor, and friend, Dr. Scaer suggested I look into it. Again, it's more of an elective course, but it looks at medieval texts and history from 1500-1599 in France. There's a TON of cool stuff that happened during that time, not only in France, but in Europe in general (ie: the Reformation and the birth of the Renaissance?) So I'm looking forward to it, but it just might be a conflict with my work schedule in the writing center because I work Tuesdays at 4, so we'll see how that goes this week.
WEDNESDAY and THURSDAY are the same as MONDAY, TUESDAY respectively, and FRIDAY is just my Gender Literature class, which is nice because it means when I have breaks that start after classes (Fall Break in October!) I am done with class at 10:40 and can hit the road early, so I'm totally looking forward to that!
In other news, I'm working in the Writing Center, as I've mentioned before, which is a good opportunity to get experience working with students at a college-level. If I end up going into teaching after school/grad school, I'm going to be teaching in a college level environment, so it would be really great to have experience working with students from all different disciplines and get an understanding of the kinds of issues students have with writing, and how to approach them.
I'm also working on the staff of On Concept's Edge which is the school's Literary Magazine. I'll be blunt and say the leading drive behind me joining the staff is to try and prevent mistakes form happening like what happened to me with my entry last year (the wrong name....) But I also think this is another good experience to be involved with student literature, as well as the process of compiling and editing a written publication, on a school-level.
Finally, I was approached by my Fiction Writing professor just before the semester started, inquiring about whether or not I would be interested in helping out on the staff of the Roanoke Review. This is a national literary publication that showcases various kinds of fiction from individuals all over the country. It is a phenomenal opportunity to gain experience on the publishing-side of things. Plus, it's another opportunity to network with my professor and his contacts in the field, which is never a bad thing in today's world.
I'm really starting to build up my resume and as long as I can keep my GPA above a 3.5 with all of these additional extra curriculars, I should be well on my way to working towards whatever it is that comes next. As of right now, I'm definitely pushing for my Masters, but that's still a year and a half out, really.
So much for this being short and brief.... I'll hopefully be updating more frequently, keeping you all in the loop with my jobs and writings and whatnot—maybe even posting some if it here, who knows—so I apologize if I just sort of jetting down the coast and left you hanging!
So glad to be back at Roanoke. It was strange to return to a school for once, rather than starting new as a transfer. I'm looking forward to the year ahead, and will be back up North in October, so I hope to see ya then!
Sorry if this is all over the place, very distracted this evening, but wanted to get this out before I forgot!
Hope all is well, and I hope to hear from y'all soon.
Best,
N.
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