I know, I know...been a long time

There's a lot to talk about and not much at all to talk about.

I am about a week away from being done with coursework. Huz-fucking-zah. Although this excites me to no end (not having to go to class, not having to deal with irritable classmates, not having to do papers on a deadline), I am also a little nervous, just because that'll mean that I'll have to do some serious self-disciplining. I've also never been a student and not gone to classes.

It is also making the PhD seem more real. I mean, coursework was a reality, but a comprehensive exam and then a dissertation? I get really nervous thinking about it. But I guess like all things, eventually it will come to an end, mostly because it has to.

I also still feel like a fraud now and then. And that some of my fellow students seem more serious about it than I am. But these feelings are few and far between and occasionally I feel as though I have a lot to contribute to this field. And that is rewarding.

I am not going to work this summer. It will probably be my last summer to really take off and enjoy and I have plenty in savings so it's swingable. Not that it will really be a summer off. I plan on getting organized for my comps in the fall. I plan on updating my online portfolio and actually getting it online. I am going to finish up design work on an online literary journal that a couple of my friends started. I am going to be in Michigan for a few weeks. I am finally going to go to Santa Fe. I am thinking of going to the gym for a couple of hours a day (one of those hours is going to be yoga...remember when I used to be really, really into yoga? Yeah, not so much anymore). I am going to move to another part of town where most of my friends live and where my favorite bar is. And if all goes well, I'll get to teach a class of my own design in the fall that I am calling "The Rhetoric of Going Green" and I'll have to do a lot of planning for that.

Ummm, and that's about it for me for now. Have a couple of conference proposals to work on, but all in all, by the end of May, I'll be seriously without school. Yay!