Hello, Office Job

As of yesterday, I found myself working 8 hours a week at Get Lit!, one of the programs I'm interning with. And turns out it's 8 hours of sitting in front a computer. Which sometimes I love (after all, my grant writing job was the best I've had), and sometimes the minutes DRAAAAAG by. Right now all I'm doing is researching the bios of the authors who'll come to the big literary festival in the spring. Eventually it'll be blogging and writing press releases and articles for the program guide.

Classes are going well. The nonfiction class will not be my favorite of my two years in the program. It's focused on pre-20th century essays, and the ones we've read seem self-centered and pointless, not to mention tedious. The only reason I'm enjoying it at all is because I'm still a little in love with simply being back in school again...reading, thinking, reading, writing, reading....

Poetry workshop has been more comfortable and pleasant. Reading poetry and discussing each others' poetry. We "workshopped" for the first time last night, and everyone was SO nice, even about poems that weren't great. I hope people won't sugarcoat it when my stuff needs serious work.

It's so interesting being part of a secular school as opposed to the Christian college I went to. I can see the differences even in the philosophy of writing. So often I think, "What's the point?" Writing seems like a way for people to love their own voices, nothing more.

Theoretically, each credit is 3-4 hours of work per week. So that puts me between...42 and 56 hours. Oh, actually doesn't seem so bad when I add it all up.

Isaac and I are getting involved with a church we really like. It's called Vintage Faith (I know, right? Everything cool is "vintage" these days, so annoyingly trendy). They meet three times a month at a girls' scout building nearby and then have one week of "scattering," where the small groups (called community groups) go out and do stuff together in the community. We're part of one that meets in my neighborhood, and we've hung out with one of the couples--Aaron and Erica--from it once or twice. The heart of the church is SO solid... focused on doing life together rather than the unhealthy church model of only going on Sunday mornings. And so deeply Christ-centered, so real, grounded, actively helping people.

I wish I could get as involved as I want to in the things that are available. There are so many cool people to get to know and events to go to and new places to explore and student discounts to take advantage of...and...homework. Oh, yeah.