Quick update!

I'm so sorry I haven't been around much lately or responded to emails (for those of you who've sent me messages). Life has been so crazy since moving back to school! I just wanted to update you guys on my classes since this is a writing blog and ALL MY CLASSES are writing/English.

English Grammar and the Writing Process: Okay, so I know grammar sounds horrible, but it's actually going to be a pretty fun class, I think. My professor is super enthusiastic and knows that grammar itself isn't the most interesting thing in the world, so he tries to make it exciting. And we're not just learning rules of grammar. We're going to be working with dialects, debating about profanity, and other things besides learning the difference between there/they're/their.

Advanced Short Story: This class is going to raise my stress level, I know it. But it's so misleading because the classroom setting is so relaxed, just 14 of us and Gary Fincke (the head of the department) chatting about stories we've read. But we're each writing three stories this semester (a step up from the usual two), and I really want to impress Gary. Since it's advanced fiction, I'm putting pressure on myself to take my writing to the next level.

Living Writers: This is SU's contemporary writers class. We're reading pieces from pretty much every writing professor at SU, the visiting writers who will be here throughout the semester, and a couple others. The professors will come into class (Gary already visited yesterday to talk about his poetry) and we can ask them questions. It's pretty cool. There are a lot of quizzes, but we're allowed to use our books, which is nice. We're reading Tom Bailey's book of short stories next, so I'm really excited since I've read most of it before.

Travel Writing in South Africa: This is my Africa follow-up course. I'm nervous about writing my travel essay because everyone who's going to be reading it was on the trip with me (and is possibly a part of my essay). PRESSURE. I have to have a draft done by September 10, when I conference with Glen, but my workshop isn't until October 8, so I'll have some time to tweak it. All we're doing in class is workshopping everyone's stories, so that part shouldn't be too bad.

Senior Portfolio, my capstone course, won't start until the second half of the semester, so I'll tell you about that when it starts!

Just to remind you guys, I'm on a hiatus from blogging as of now. I might do the occasional update, but as you can see, I have a lot of schoolwork to focus on right now. Thanks for understanding!