School Work

Continental Shift

~ Bon Steele ~ 5 Comments

Our age is retrospective. It builds the sepulchres of the fathers. It writes biographies, histories, and criticism. The foregoing generations beheld God and nature face to face; we, through their eyes. Why should not we also enjoy an original relation to the universe? Why should not we have a poetry and philosophy of insight and not of tradition, and a religion by revelation to us, and not the history of theirs? Embosomed for a season in nature, whose floods of life stream around and through us, and invite us by the powers they supply, to action proportioned to nature, why should we grope among the dry bones of the past, or put the living generation into masquerade out of its faded wardrobe? The sun shines to-day also. There is more wool and flax in the fields. There are new lands, new men, new thoughts. Let us demand our own works and laws and worship.
  -Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature

Big changes percolating, m’friends. There are whole continents shifting in my head about writing and learning and parenting and my body and my child and and and…

As I said, big changes.

Some of it is things that have been on the boil, albeit on a back burner, for years. Others are a more gradual shifting. Still others are a radical change in my thinking caused by the last few months of school. Most especially the last couple of weeks.

I suppose Emerson and Thoreau do that to people.

I further suppose that is one of the reasons they continue to be taught, year after year.

We all fall down, and while down in the dirt, despair. We find it more comfortable, and far easier to wallow than to get back up. Especially if this is your third, or thirteenth, or even thirtieth tumble.

Or higher.
*coughcough*  AHEM.

 

Still, I find myself looking back over my writings and seeing a progression. Seeing an upward and outward trend. It’s only when I stop writing that there is a stutter in that progression. And how easy a truth is that?

And how sad is it to think that I keep forgetting such an easy lesson?

How sad are the un-kept promises made to myself and my readers that I never get around to? How lucky I am that you keep coming back. Thank you. It means a lot to me.

If Stephen King’s magnum opus was right – and all the universe is but a continuous microcosm of author(s)’ brains, how many of my characters now flounder in Limbo? Who tremble under a pendulum that ever threatens? Or wait in the Red Desert with madness snapping at their heels?

Time, I think, to rescue them. To do the work I mean to. To no longer simply visit the piles of my previous words and wail. But to unravel the frayed and forgotten ends, to weave a more complete tapestry.

I am no Emerson. I am no Thoreau. Heck, I am not even a King.
(still not King.)

I am who I am, doing what I am supposed to be doing. Pretending or feeling otherwise is a slap in the face to the talent that I do have.

Continent shifting, indeed.

Rollercoaster of Love

~ Bon Steele ~ 3 Comments

(Say what?)

Sorry for the absence, my droogies. For the last week(ish), I have had an out-of-town guest staying with me. It has been lovely. And time-consuming1!

Of course, just as soon as she left, LifeTM vigorously reasserted itself. So much to do. So little time to get it setup. Sleep might well be a thing of the past. Further?  I suspect that I may never get caught up on either my email or the other bloggers I follow.
On the plus side, it does look like I get to go to both Summer I and Summer II. There really is no down side other than the knowledge that this summer is going to be crazy busy.
I have thirteen hours scheduled2, woohoo!  I am not insane; I promise. They are split two classes per section.

And HOLY MOTHER OF … well.  University (as opposed to community college) is expensive. Let’s just say that I’ve paid that much for a lousy car.
Between classes, my get-in-shape-for-a-cruise plan, The Girl’s schedule (camp and going to various grandparents), bi-weekly gaming sessions, writing my blog3 , writing my fiction, and hopefully(!) going to a convention or two – whoa. Yeah. Crazy.

I feel like I am standing at the very tippy-top of a rollercoaster, looking down the hill and wondering what I have gotten myself into. It’s exciting. It feels a bit dangerous. I love it.

Oh, baby! You know what I am talking about.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1 – In a good way. For instance, on at least two occasions, it was near dawn when we looked up and thought, “Hmm. Perhaps we should shut up long enough to go get some sleep.”
2 – For the curious: American Lit Before 1865, Ethics and Society, Psychology of Persuasion, and Spanish II.
3 – I also hoping to to do a couple of blog challenges – where I try to write every day.  I don’t know if I can pull it off. But, I seriously want to try.

That’s Nice….Now What?

~ Bon Steele ~ 7 Comments
A small post in which I let off some steam via ranting about a recent conversation.

Monday, all my Finals are belong to you.

And really? Thank goodness. I mean, if only from a clean-and-neat point of view I’d like my desk back.

My slovenliness. Let me show it to you.

 

I’d also like my brain, my fiction, my clean laundry as something other than an afterthought, and my sanity back.

Of course, that last one is unlikely. I do have a teenage daughter, after all.

WUT?

As I sat down to my1 desk this morning, I pondered the reasons that I am going through all of this. I mean – there has to be a good rationale behind my decision to pursue my degree at my semi-advanced age, right?
To wander a giant campus full of people2 that I don’t know?
To put myself through this sturm und drang?
As I’ve been recently asked, “What is the point of getting the degree? What are you going to do with it?”

Umm.
Display it on the wall? Be proud of myself for finishing something that I started? Round out my education and my knowledge? Discover new ways of thinking?

Apparently, those aren’t good reasons. No. There must be a fiscal explanation. A path that leads from classroom to bank, as it were.

I mean, really.
What are you going to do with the degree?
What are your Plans for the Future?
What are you going to DO WITH IT?

Man. That all sounds like lyrics from a terrible 80’s power ballad. Heh. Or a Prince song.  Think about the future!

Basically, you’re asking what I want to be when I grow up, right? Because that’s what the underlying message here is. I’m in school therefore technically I am not an adult. And why? Because I am not currently earning a living.

Not earning a living = Not an adult.

What an utter crock.

Here’s a quick overview of what I can do with my Bachelors of Arts, Professional Writing focus with a minor in Psychology, you pompous asshat.

I like my answer better, though.

 

1 – really, astonishingly messy – the picture does NOT do it justice
2 – The whole cartoon is fabulous. Do yourself a favor. Go watch.