A Break

The summer semester ended yesterday and I feel like I've been run over by a truck. A truck full of knowledgy stuff! I took 9 hours this summer and in retrospect, it was a little ambitious. I did survive, however, and I think I kept my GPA more or less intact.

Analysis of Literature is probably one of the hardest classes I've ever taken. We covered Milton, Wordsworth, Dickinson, Elizabeth Bishop, some Proust, and on and on, plus we studied the entire text of Blood Meridian, Richard II, and Polynomials and Pollen - a somewhat pretentious poetry book that fortunately included some really good poetry along with the obscure and relatively meaningless stuff. Blood Meridian made me hate my life for a few weeks. It is unrelentingly black and violent. No three-dimensional female characters, and a slew of child murders, told in gory detail.

I loved Dante in Translation. We didn't make it through much of Purgatorio or Paradisio, but we did a thorough examination of Inferno. It made me realize how quickly I forget my Italian when I'm not speaking it. Italian Lit this fall should improve that situation.

The real surprise was Professional and Technical Writing. I love it. The teacher was really fun, and I learned to do a lot of things with Word. I also met with the head of the department and he gave me some good news about the potential for an actual job when I graduate.

I have three weeks to catch up on housework, the yoga book that I'm working on with Andy Baron, and my own writing and illustration projects. I'm also going to take a trip with Charles (my new beau) to Durango. He's never been to Mesa Verde. There is also a horseback trek to see runins that we might do. We're planning a trip to San Jon to do some archaeology too.

Griffin is huge, well over 90 pounds at 10 months. Kitties are fine. Maeve starred in a commercial. I haven't seen her in way too long. Will probably head over there on Monday to watch Orrie give her her lesson.

Tonight, going to the Duke City Shootout Gala with Tree and Rick. I worked art department on one of the films, The Treehouse. It's been a movie summer: Tree and Rick put together a 48 Hours team and I co-wrote our movie, acted as production designer and costumer. It was a blast. I'll post a link here when it's available. The movie is called Past Perfect.

I guess that's all for now. I hope to blog more frequently about school and art in the coming months, but I can't promise anything...