Sunday, March 25, 2007

yes indeed

I am sick. Full on coughing and fever staved off by Advil, but as soon as it wears off I'm shivering with chills beneath the covers. Maybe it's the stress. Maybe it's the weather. I should have know it was coming given my lack of sleep this week because of work--my body's clock all wonky wanting to go to bed at one and needing to be up before seven, and then dealing with all the attendant aggravation of commuting at rush hour. By Friday I was majorly run down.

Today, at least it smells like spring outside, which helps immensely. Winter runs me ragged, but summer comes and I'm usually pretty healthy. Today I opened up most of the windows and let the fresh air in. Finally unpacked all those press supplies in boxes, a new paper cutter, more envelopes for the Cornell Project, paper for Robyn's chap project (it's not really a book but sheath of pages). Am gearing up to finish edits on Sugaring.

Since I got way too much good work for the spring Wicked Alice (submitters should be hearing from me soon) I've decided to split what I want to take between the Spring and Summer issues. Cutting the issues to about half their former size has been a bitch, but a necessary bitch with so many chaps on the board and last semester busyness. Come summer I'll be a much freer woman with more time, so we'll see.. I'm also currently rounding up the rest of the work for a special dancing girl issue of foursqare, which Jessica was kind enough to ask me to do.

Other than that..ugh papers.. coming due in both classes. And worse, the sort of papers where we've been given topics, not even a choice, which reminds me of fucking highschool and makes what is usually an unpleasant task absolutely excrutiating. I'm not sure what's with all the goddamned handholding this semester...I rarely want to actually write the paper I actually dreamed up and have an interest in, let alone the one you've given me. I've been pretty lucky that my past instructors, from undergrad on, have been rather open and free form about things. Typically, I start thinking about the things that interest me early on, making notes, plans etc. Not so this semester. Not only hand-holding, but spoon feeding.

But the thesis is done except for some tweaking..of course it won't be DONE till it's published I guess, but I've finished all the pieces I planned for it, and determined an order good enough for now at least. I'll no doubt start changing things as I begin sending it out, but I'm calling it done for school purposes. And so I can move onto the next thing...the rest of the Cornell pieces.

2 comments:

Jessica Smith said...

"Other than that..ugh papers.. coming due in both classes. And worse, the sort of papers where we've been given topics, not even a choice, which reminds me of fucking highschool and makes what is usually an unpleasant task absolutely excrutiating. I'm not sure what's with all the goddamned handholding this semester...I rarely want to actually write the paper I actually dreamed up and have an interest in, let alone the one you've given me. I've been pretty lucky that my past instructors, from undergrad on, have been rather open and free form about things. Typically, I start thinking about the things that interest me early on, making notes, plans etc. Not so this semester. Not only hand-holding, but spoon feeding."

Sounds like UVA. Yup.

hey, i'm sorry you're sick. but i'm glad you have an awesome new paper cutter and that you're making progress on the april 4SQ. thanks!

marybid said...

Feel better soon, Kristy!

I'm glad to hear your thoughts on papers. My assignments for MFA classes are like: write a six page paper about something relevant to poetry of the body; or, survey current litmags and report your findings regarding new poetry of the body.

It's nice to know that open-ended can be good. That's the kind of paper I always liked, personally.