Worst Blogger in the World

I  must be the worst blogger in the world. Last post was back in February this year and look where we are now - 6th December. My only excuse is that I've been ... busy. Busy with work and uni and life as a fifty-something single woman.

So, uni this year has had its ups and downs. Last year was all good, all the way. This year started off very well. I was registered for two papers: a compulsory English paper for all English Lit majors and a Film paper. Both were good - interesting, intense, stimulating although I did come to realize that my first preference will always be English! The film paper was cool but not as thrilling as the paper last year. So, completed both and scored another two A grades!

Midway through the first semester, I did something which has had a major impact on my uni studies: I bought a house. This is something I'd been looking at for about a year or more--paying rent always feels like throwing money away. So when I found and fell in love with a beautiful place overlooking Lyall Bay and the Cook Strait, and when the bank finally approved my mortgage, I went ahead and did it. No regrets at all, except for the fact that the mortgage payment is a LOT more than my rent used to be, so my part time income started taking strain. The house is also a lot further away from my work place so I was spending a lot of time on the road and a lot of money on petrol just to get to work--which also affected the budget adversely. I started thinking seriously about working more ....

At the start of semester two, I dropped one of the papers I'd registered for and stuck with just one: a kind of filler paper called Writing for Print Media. It looked very interesting but its big plus was the fact that the class only met once a week for three hours which made it easier to build work around than a class with three or four lectures spread out across a week, plus tutorial. Unfortunately, I can now say that this class is the one I've enjoyed the least so far. It wasn't well taught, the other students were very slack--not showing up, not completing the assignments, the lecturer, while a sweetie, was very not dynamic and she gave everyone huge amounts of leeway in terms of handing things in. The workshops ended up being really boring, with us 'working' on our own while she talked one-on-one with various students. So I was glad when it was over and done with. My portfolio got me another A, so that was good at any rate.

It's now summer semester (although to hear the wind and rain gusting about outside, you wouldn't think it so). I'm doing a Summer paper: a 200 level Religious Studies paper called "Jesus, the Gospels and the Coming of God." It is very intense as it is compressed into four weeks and three days, but it is very very illuminating and interesting and I'm totally enjoying it. First essay done and handed in, second one just getting underway (due in ten days time) and then a final, two-hour exam and we'll be done.

Sadly, though, work as been getting in the way of studies. In August, I picked up a part time position which was closer to home and now do 20-25 hours a week for them, while still doing my 16 hours a week at the hospital which is a long drive away from home. So that equates to almost full time work .. and both jobs have been full on busy lately so I am kind of running on empty at the moment. But the income is very satisfactory, and the second part time job does give me a lot of autonomy which means I can work in uni stuff around it! :-)

Next year is looming. There is an outside chance that things might change very dramatically for me, in terms of study and life, but I'll write more about that once I get a yes or no reply about something. :-)

Second Year

Just finished registering for my second year at Uni and it's looking good. I've signed up for another six papers which, if I'm able to do them all, will give me a full second year course load - 120 credits.

First semester will be Film History and an English Lit paper called Sea Passages, which explores a series of novels sharing the common focus on journeys by sea. These include Wide Sargasso Sea, Wulf, The Waste Land, Star Waka, Jane Eyre and a few others. Second semester I've chosen Modern Poetry, Film in Aotearoa and Writing for Print Media. Third trimester I'll do Writing for Business.

Whether I'll actually be able to do all six, I'm not sure. These are all 200-level courses and require a bit more effort than last year and I'm still working 0.7 of full time. I'm also thinking I might drop the Film as a major and just keep it as a minor. I realize while I love learning and writing about film, I'm not going to be working in this area later and the 300-level courses on offer are very limited, especially now that they're not offering Screenwriting and Documentary any more. :-( However, if these two courses become available again next year, it might be a different story, as they both look great.

Now, it's back to finishing my student critiques for the second-to-last writing workshop coming up on Tuesday. I'm also due to get critiqued on my second submission which was all-new writing for me. It was hard work and I struggled quite a bit with it. My first submission was an older story, reworked for this class and I was very happy with it (and the tutor said it had the potential to become a breakthrough story, so yay!!) This one I'm not so sure - but we'll see what Tuesday brings. The course has gone so fast, I'm astounded, but it's been brilliant. Our tutor is a bottomless well of writing wit and wisdom and we've all benefitted enormously from her input!

2012 - Summer Trimester

Yesterday was the first day of my summer trimester course. I had a big whoopee moment in early December when I got a call informing me I'd been accepted into the Iowa Prose Workshop - a limited entry course which runs over six weeks from early Jan to end Feb.

We met yesterday for three hours and it looks like it's going to be fun. The faciliatator is a graduate of the real Iowa Writer's Workshop and she's a red-headed, entertaining, knowledgeable and inspiriational woman of 65. Met ten new classmates - the eleventh is apparently stuck in Colombo and will be arriving sooner or later. We're a group of six men and six women, and I suspect I'm the oldest although not by all that much! We're reading a lot of contemporary short stories and novels and each session we'll be workshipping two student submissions. I have to hand in on Tues 31st Jan for workshopping on Thurs 2nd Feb. At this moment, I have no idea what I'm going to be writing but I think I will be guided by this:

 "Look closely at what causes you pleasure. Look even more closely at what causes you pain." Collette.

 Off to clean  house, hang laundry, make dinner - and maybe write!