Wheeeeee!

So, I turned my thesis/manuscript in a little while ago. I am all but finished with my MFA. I essentially just have to get one last assignment to finish--a 15-20 page essay on the Objectivist poets--not to be confused with anything Ayn Rand related. Anyway, I have to get this paper written, teach six more classes, two of which will be just the students turning in papers then I am pretty much done. Other than that, I have graduation and our manifest reading, and that's about it. Then I will be busy having fun. We are going to the Damien Rice show Monday the 14th, see Spiderman 3 on the IMAX at some point that weekend, and the Cubs/Sox games at Wrigley the next weekend.

And Finally: Three weeks from right now I will be boarding a cruise ship in Miami to explore the Western Carribean for a few days. I am so excited I just made a paper chain to count down the days. Not just any paper chain, this paper chain is made from 24 lb, acid free, 100% cotton paper. No construction paper for this MFAer.

Countdown to thesis due date: 7 days

This story was so much funnier before last week when my computer decided to self distruct. My things just can't take the poetry program anymore. A month ago my water bottle with the Gumby sticker kept disappearing until it finally vanished into thin air. I bought that bottle my first day here in Chicago at the Columbia bookstore. My backpack's zippers no longer work, they keep ripping themselves open in hopes of me losing my books and writing. Now, every time my laptop comes unplugged it doesn't just go to sleep when it is out of power it completely shuts down and loses everything I am working on. Come on things, we're almost done.

fourth grade invasion!

So, this morning I helped out with a program in the writing center at school where they hosted about 60 fourth graders from a local school. They brought all of these kids here to work in small groups with consultants on stories they were writing and to work in groups on poetry. I had two groups of 6-11 kids and they were great. I am not the best at handling kids, I tend to be an enabler when it comes to inappropriate behavior. But I found in the large group environment I did pretty well.

Being a lover of word-play I thought a great exercise would be experimenting with Abecedarian poems. I gave them some examples of older alphabet poems for kids and then some contemporary examples by Lisa Fishman and Harryette Mullen. A lot of them wrote word lists and list poems of people's names. One did a list of animal names. I talked to them about how they could work from their initial lists to create a more complex poem. The most creative was a narrative poem about Mario. The boy who wrote it was really shy and didn't want to share, but he finally came around. It was great. I then talked about how they could do a variation with their names, an acrostic poem. Some of them had done that before and one girl, Mackenzie wrote hers down for me to keep. During lunch she brought one to me that she had just composed for me:

Artistic
Magnificent
A crazy person
Nice
Dauntless
Amazing

It's a little disconcerting that she picked up on the crazy bit after only being around me for half an hour, but it was sweet nonetheless.

I really hope I get into the Hands on Stanzas program next year. This was so much fun.

the funnies

Sean sent this to me this morning. It made me laugh.

goodness sakes alive!

If I have to explain the structure of a resource review to one more student in the next week I will have an aneurism. I spent an entire 3 hours per section explaining it in the first place! 2/3 of them got it right, so I know it's not me. Garrrr. I am about to give up on the other eight students.
And by the way, I really can't afford to have an aneurism since I just had to haggle with a billing representative (who asked me if I spoke spanish and let out an exasperated gasp when I said "no") about paying off my last MRI.
Blar.

halfway around the world in 30 days

I was thinking about driving from Chicago to Paris but step 20 is going to be a bitch.

Make the homies say "Ho!" and the girlies wanna scream

Number one in the 'hood G!

One word meme

So, this is my last "day off" for a while. Don't feel too sorry for me yet though. I will have about 90 days in a row off come May 13. What better way to spend my valuable free time than to do a meme?

01. Where is your cell phone? somewhere
02. Describe your boyfriend/girlfriend/husband/wife/lover? wonderful
03. Your hair? long
04. Your mother? sweet
05. Your father? strong
06. Your favorite item? blanket
07. Your dream last night? watery
08. Your favourite drink? water
09. Your dream car? Frank
10. The room you are in? light
11. Your ex? none
12. Your fear? weight
13. What do you want to be in 10 years? home
14. Who did you hang out with last night? nobody
15. What you're not? mean
19. The last thing you did? veg
20. What are you wearing? ATHF
21. Your favourite book? inviting
22. The last thing you ate? steak
24. Your mood? mellow
25. Your friends? few
26. What are you thinking about right now? poetry
27. Your car? Frank!
28. What are you doing at the moment? meme
29. Your summer? relaxing
30. Your relationship status? bestestever

God Bless You, Mr. Vonnegut

This news was the first thing I heard this morning. Not a happy day. Rest in peace Kurt.

It's Opening Day!

Being from Rogers Park, I'm curious to know too . . .
"What exactly is a parking space?"

There are tons of helpful tips available here
if you're planning a trip to the southside. I know I am looking forward to my first visit of the season. I can taste the seared meat now. mmmmmm kosher dogs.

Sean is going this afternoon, I hope he doesn't have any trouble with the currency conversion.