So, this last week was the first week of school. It was as crazy as anything. Back to classes, back to papers, readings, buying books, waking up early…everything.
Fortunately, even though I’m taking six classes, three of them are only two credit hours, so the load is going to be somewhat lighter, freeing me up for time to do other things (clubs, blogging, writing, dating etc…inshallah), and several of the classes are actually fairly interesting. The poli sci 201 class in particular looks interesting–we’re reading all kinds of ancient texts (like Homer and Dante) and tying it in with Western political thought.
Unfortunately, a lot hasn’t been going very well this week either. Just lots and lots of hoops to jump through, payments to make, expenses and such. The little stuff really grates on me, especially when it doesn’t line up. Probably has to do with my ENTP personality type. The bigger stuff is harder to handle but I don’t flare up over it.
I don’t know where I’ll be working this semester, and that’s an issue. I had thought that I would just be rehired by the BYU Bookstore, but right now that’s looking unlikely, because due to my class schedule I can’t work M-F. It would be nice–REALLY nice–to get a TA job, but nothing has worked out so far. Or maybe I could go and work for that used bookstore downtown? THAT would be nice.
So, with all of these stresses and stuff, and just my general disorganization, I’m sad to admit that I haven’t really been doing much writing…but I have been working to get the quark writing group started up again, and I am starting to formulate some really awesome writing goals for this semester. More on that to come.
And I even if I haven’t actually put any words down in the new novel I plan on writing this year, I’ve been thinking about it A LOT.
This week, as I was walking home to the FLSR under the sunny blue sky, I saw a patch of grass on a hill and decided to lay down and relax for a bit. As I lay there, drifting in and out of consciousness, I just immersed myself in the world of this new story, working out all the details for the first scene. That led me to ask several questions about the characters (who are they? what are they feeling/thinking? what kind of a background do they have?) which got me to think through their back-stories, and the tribe they come from, and inter-family conflicts, and how I can tie all those into other characters and conflicts later on in the story. I fell asleep for a little bit, and when I woke up, it was like I was waking up to a new world, coming down from meditating on a mountaintop or something. Really sweet feeling. I love taking naps on the grass.
There is SO much I have to blog about! But it’s 1:58 am and I’d better get some sleep. Tusbah ‘ala al-kheer!
