Archive | September 2007

Coming Out of the Closet about College

I am nervous making this post, might as well get that out of the way from the very beginning.

As I’ve talked about in previous blogs, I’m planning on returning to school next fall to finish my undergrad degree. I’m looking at some WA state schools, and also, as described in I Can’t Seem to Stop Stretching, widening my circles of where I’m looking. I’m not sure I want to stay in WA. I am sure it would be easier, especially financially, and that if I go somewhere else, everything will depend on financial aid. Still, that hasn’t stopped me from looking. I dream big, always. And I’m determined as shit, so if I want to make something happen that’s more of a stretch, I’ll find a way. Of that, I have no doubt.

On a different note, up until April, I was living with this guy. He doesn’t want to be written about (and almost definitely hasn’t seen my blog), and I want to respect that, but also be able to give bare bones background stuff when necessary, so I’m going to call him…Adrian (lol it doesn’t fit him at all but I have my reasons). You can pretty much assume that any names I use in this blog for people in my real life (aside from other writers who I want to link you to and such) are changed.

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My Artist Statement

Sep11

(The artist statement is something I had to write for a grant I applied for. I railed against it, mainly by way of procrastination, but here’s how it eventually, perhaps a bit too passionately, came out.)

ARTIST STATEMENT

Like most people I know, my childhood was regularly awful. I am albino, which means that my skin, hair and eyes are paler than pale and I’m legally blind. This condition complicated social matters, but with a messy home life, I often felt more different and alienated on the inside than I was in outward appearance. I survived my difficult times by reading books. Books entertained and deepened me. Reading took me to other worlds, which paradoxically helped me understand my own life and illuminated what it meant to be human in a more universal way.

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A Mishmosh of Other Notes

Sep7

So, after further investigating UW’s English department, I realized they really don’t offer the array of writing classes I want. I’d spend most of my time there taking literature classes, which isn’t necessarily terrible, but I want to be writing, and not just analytical, critical essays. I have three semesters left if all my credits transfer, and I don’t want to have to put writing on hold for that long while I get my degree. What irks me to no end is that UW offers these “extension” programs aimed at the working adult, and they have extension classes in everything I want to take – memoir, creative non-fiction (as in articles and essays), screenwriting, genre fiction, literary fiction. Such a delectable selection! But of course, when I asked the English department, I found out that in no way can any of the extension classes be taken for credit.

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I Can’t Seem to Stop Stretching

Sep1

This always happens.

It always seems that whenever I have an idea, a plan, something expansive, I put that in motion, and as soon as that’s taken care of, more ideas for more expansive things come to mind. During the last semester that I attended college, instead of flying into Phoenix (I went to school in Flagstaff), I wanted to go to LA to spend time with my good friend Caren before going to school. In my house, it didn’t matter that I was 21, I had to get this plan approved by my parents. The way I got any plan approved by my parents was to put it in writing.

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