Well, I didn't fall off the face of the Earth, but I might as well have been on another planet with as disconnected as I became from everyone. I was overloaded with school--more than normal, possibly more than ever. I'm so worn out, burnt out, and drained. I've cranked out so many term papers, short essays, portfolios, presentations, and speeches in the past three weeks that I feel like I earned my summer in that short time. However, when summer gets here, I always feel a sense of guilt for not doing anything. Probably because people who are working get jealous and make snotty comments about me trying to relax and center a bit before I have to start work. I love that I have a month off before work starts.
I feel like I should think out these entries more. They don't showcase my much improved creative writing skills at all. I just put creative energy into other things, and treat this as a debriefing type of thing.
I was feeling really good about my writing lately. I had a good conference with my writing professor; I successfully applied some of her ideas for techniques and was really pleased with the results. I started thinking about her memoir coming out and all of her cool connections (her old advisor was former poet Laureate, Ted Kooser.) I was certain that with her help, I could definitely get into grad school, and develop all of these cool connections. Today, she told me she is leaving. There will be no non-fiction specialist here at school next year. I was devastated. She gave me some great connections for next year, though, and gave me her e-mail address to stay in touch. I had the same thing happen with my English professor last year. I still keep in contact with her, too.
I'm sure everything will work itself out. For some reason, I felt both a lot of empathy and empowerment when she told me she was leaving to be able to write more, and be in an environment more creatively inspiring for an essayist; and she doesn't know where she is going yet. Leaving like that is such a bold decision. It's empowering to think one can do that, but it has to be scary as hell. It sucks, because I felt like she really understood my writing style and the direction I wanted to go. Now, I worry about how other professors will respond to my writing. I've had very good English professors here, though, so I'm sure it will be fine. It just made me think, "Oh my god, this is the lifestyle I'm choosing." It's so risky and unconventional. Most people don't get it or support it. I think that's why I felt empathy about her decision, not because I can relate to making such a bold decision, but because I can understood being misunderstood, and creatively stunted by that. To make matters worse, it's not just the isolation that comes along with being a writer that essayists deal with, but it's isolation from inside the writing community. Everyone is into poetry or fiction. Writers don't really get creative non-fiction. There's a big demand for it in the bookstores, though. People like reality wrapped up and served pretty. That's what I love about non-fiction, even if it's about something really depressing, there is always something beautiful in it. People need someone to help them see beauty in real life situations. Writers are great at that.
I got a job at our writing center on campus. I wanted to get a job there since I realized it was even a possibility. I was going to say since the first time i went there, but the first time I went there, I didn't know I could excel at English on a collegiate level, so I didn't even dream about it. I don't know when I actually thought, "hey, maybe I could do that," but I know it's something I've really wanted for a while. It's exciting to achieve goals. I should establish some good writing connections there.
I'm exhausted, and even though I don't technically have class in the morning, there is a review session for my Shakespeare class. It's at the same time as class would be, so I, basically, have class at 9:30 in the morning. It's not mandatory, but that class never was. Just another day of getting up to listen about Shakespeare.
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