November 2013

Greetings and Happy Thanksgiving to you!

While we count our blessings and eat ridiculous amounts of food, I am especially thankful that I will graduate from college after one more semester! Woo hoo!

I am thankful that I do not have to register ever again. I am thankful that I have two more weeks of poetry left. I am thankful that I am almost finished paying out the wazoo for school. And not so thankful that I will have to start paying that off. And last but not least, I am thankful that I will get my evenings, weekends,and holidays back so that I can be totally mentally present again. Well, I’ve probably never been totally mentally present, but as present as I can be.

Poetry has been challenging, to say the least. Rest assured, Nikki Giovanni, I am not a threat. (Yep, only contemporary poet I know.) I guess this is the semester that my Burn Out really blossomed. Senioritis has set in, I’ve been blowing off steam going to all kind of keggers on campus, my sorority commitments are overwhelming, and my boyfriend cheated on me with my BFF. 🙂 Actually, my real drama is much less interesting but managing my household and children’s activities and social lives is crazy busy and half the time, I’m too tired to have a social life. I actually could use a kegger about now, but would rather it be a winer. Hey, if the Oxford English Dictionary can make “selfie” the word of the year, I can make “winer.”

Things I’m Looking Forward To After I Graduate:

1. A Paycheck. I’m so done working my a$$ off for grades. I’m ready to work less for cash, and I will do just about anything in the English/writing world that will pay me. Hey, remind me I said this when I’m cursing the job hunt!

2. Less Take-Out. You know it’s bad when you justify getting Chinese again by telling your kids it’s a cultural experience.

3. Hobbies. I used to have them. I have taken up one new hobby: running. Never woulda thought, but stress makes you do strange things. The hub made it look good, physically and mentally. Even got the kids into it.

4. Writing for Fun. Huh? What’s that?

5. Joining My Two Lives Into One. Really, it’s so weird. I go from mom life, drive 40 minutes and talk about political, religious, and sexual repression in the 1790s, Modernism and words like “metonymy” and “liminality.” Words and topics that absolutely do not come up in my other life, after I’ve driven the 40 minutes home. I am in a liminal space, for sure. A middle-aged college student is a bizarre thing; kind of a hybrid with a body of a 42 year-old and head of a 22 year-old. Wearing pseudo-professional clothing, and carrying a notebook and glass of wine.

6. Burning Up the Road. Next semester, 4 times/week. 😦 Up side: last semester, baby!!!

7. Not Being a Bitch All The Time. If you are my friends or family, you’re probably ready for this one, too.

So, don’t talk to me right now if you’re thinking about being a Middle-Aged College Student. Talk to someone who has just started, and loves it so much. Talk to someone who is not in year 3 of what was supposed to be two years.

The good news? I must, of course, leave you with good news after this bleak, grim post. (Adjectives used often in poetry class.) Next semester, last semester, I will have the most wonderful class ever: Food and Literature! That class will be my reward for surviving this burn-out semester. I am already saving ideas for potential papers. What a fantastic class to go out on.