medawyn (![[info]](http://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} medawyn) wrote,@ 2008-05-13 11:12:00 |
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The State of Me (and updates on the missing ![[info]](http://www.insanejournal.com/img/community.gif)
snarry_games reviews)
I am alive, and well. Very, very well, in fact.
I haven't felt this relieved and free in a long time. As of yesterday, I wrapped up a 12-hour semester of graduate school, leaving me only 15 hours to complete my Masters of English Lit. Wheee! In undergrad I would have scoffed at a12-hour semester; it nearly killed me in grad school. I had no idea how full my life was until *poof* the pressure disappeared. Now every single paper is in, every single exam is complete, and I am the proud recipient of three A's and one B+. Hallelujah.
Now I'm simply down to my summer job (plus the babysitting hours/tutoring I have been doing). This feels like nothing. I have time to READ... books that have nothing to do with Hardy or Naipaul or Milton or Edwardian vs Victorian literature or transatlantic women or... or... or.... Assigning books takes all the fun out of them. Of course, now I immediately want to head to the nearest bookstore and buy something to read, because the giant pile on the floor/bedstand/bookshelves of unread books is oddly unappealing. And the only books I have bookmarked at Amazon are yet to be released (two Robin McKinley's in 12 months? Wow!).
This also means that I can (finally) catch up on the Snarry Games reviews. I have hated watching the posts go up with all these talented authors, but I (wisely) refrained. My end-of-term results would not have been the same if I hadn't focused only on school, and I avoided a nervous breakdown. (The concept of actually working ahead and not procrastinating is an impossibility for me, I have decided. I knew all semester that four seminar papers were due in May; I just seem incapable of working without a deadline breathing down my neck.) I never want to read/write/edit another paper again, but fortunately I have all summer to regroup before the new semester starts. Coincidentally, this is also the first summer I won't be in school for the past three years. Yay!
What did I do to celebrate my new-found freedom yesterday? Stocked my freezer, of course! I made a triple batch of my marinara sauce (6 quarts), a double batch of my meat sauce (9 cups), 3 pans of manicotti (one for dinner, two for the freezer), 2 pans of lasagna (both for the freezer), and marinated the flank steak for tonight's fajitas. All told, this only took about 4.5 hours, and while I was pretty tired, I am very pleased with the happy freezer. I have not been cooking in recent weeks, so the meals around here were getting pretty odd. Finally I have (begun) to restock for the next lazy day/crazy week. If anyone wants me to post recipes, let me know.
I have big plans for the summer... I want to wallow in school free-ness, teach whatever courses are assigned to be (which they better tell me soon, because time is getting short), read books for fun, and write. I have been kicking a story around in my head for a long time, and I'm all torn about what I want to do with it. The concept makes a glorious Harry Potter fic (of course), but I could also adapt it to an original novel. I don't feel 100% confident about writing to launch into a novel just yet, but I am torn about whether I should go ahead and write my Harry story or save it for original work later. I could, perhaps, write both, so I guess I'm torn about that as well. Thoughts? Advice?
As for the Snarry Games reviews... they will be coming. I'll be writing them as I catch up, so don't be surprised to see the days all mixed up. I'll try to review them in the pairs they were posted in, but I'm behind enough that it just might not happen. We shall see. I'm determined to actually review them all this year, so look for some f-list spam!
I have to return to "training" now (read: conference calls and online "tests" and reading lots and lots and lots of information that will be meaningless until I actually get myself in a classroom and deal with the kids), but there shall be Snarry today!
P.S. Anyone in/going to be in the Chicago area from May 18-22? I'm supposed to be there for training, and, as far as I can figure, we are on our own most evenings.
Also, anyone in the Tulsa area?
snarry_games reviews)I am alive, and well. Very, very well, in fact.
I haven't felt this relieved and free in a long time. As of yesterday, I wrapped up a 12-hour semester of graduate school, leaving me only 15 hours to complete my Masters of English Lit. Wheee! In undergrad I would have scoffed at a12-hour semester; it nearly killed me in grad school. I had no idea how full my life was until *poof* the pressure disappeared. Now every single paper is in, every single exam is complete, and I am the proud recipient of three A's and one B+. Hallelujah.
Now I'm simply down to my summer job (plus the babysitting hours/tutoring I have been doing). This feels like nothing. I have time to READ... books that have nothing to do with Hardy or Naipaul or Milton or Edwardian vs Victorian literature or transatlantic women or... or... or.... Assigning books takes all the fun out of them. Of course, now I immediately want to head to the nearest bookstore and buy something to read, because the giant pile on the floor/bedstand/bookshelves of unread books is oddly unappealing. And the only books I have bookmarked at Amazon are yet to be released (two Robin McKinley's in 12 months? Wow!).
This also means that I can (finally) catch up on the Snarry Games reviews. I have hated watching the posts go up with all these talented authors, but I (wisely) refrained. My end-of-term results would not have been the same if I hadn't focused only on school, and I avoided a nervous breakdown. (The concept of actually working ahead and not procrastinating is an impossibility for me, I have decided. I knew all semester that four seminar papers were due in May; I just seem incapable of working without a deadline breathing down my neck.) I never want to read/write/edit another paper again, but fortunately I have all summer to regroup before the new semester starts. Coincidentally, this is also the first summer I won't be in school for the past three years. Yay!
What did I do to celebrate my new-found freedom yesterday? Stocked my freezer, of course! I made a triple batch of my marinara sauce (6 quarts), a double batch of my meat sauce (9 cups), 3 pans of manicotti (one for dinner, two for the freezer), 2 pans of lasagna (both for the freezer), and marinated the flank steak for tonight's fajitas. All told, this only took about 4.5 hours, and while I was pretty tired, I am very pleased with the happy freezer. I have not been cooking in recent weeks, so the meals around here were getting pretty odd. Finally I have (begun) to restock for the next lazy day/crazy week. If anyone wants me to post recipes, let me know.
I have big plans for the summer... I want to wallow in school free-ness, teach whatever courses are assigned to be (which they better tell me soon, because time is getting short), read books for fun, and write. I have been kicking a story around in my head for a long time, and I'm all torn about what I want to do with it. The concept makes a glorious Harry Potter fic (of course), but I could also adapt it to an original novel. I don't feel 100% confident about writing to launch into a novel just yet, but I am torn about whether I should go ahead and write my Harry story or save it for original work later. I could, perhaps, write both, so I guess I'm torn about that as well. Thoughts? Advice?
As for the Snarry Games reviews... they will be coming. I'll be writing them as I catch up, so don't be surprised to see the days all mixed up. I'll try to review them in the pairs they were posted in, but I'm behind enough that it just might not happen. We shall see. I'm determined to actually review them all this year, so look for some f-list spam!
I have to return to "training" now (read: conference calls and online "tests" and reading lots and lots and lots of information that will be meaningless until I actually get myself in a classroom and deal with the kids), but there shall be Snarry today!
P.S. Anyone in/going to be in the Chicago area from May 18-22? I'm supposed to be there for training, and, as far as I can figure, we are on our own most evenings.
Also, anyone in the Tulsa area?