Conference Me, Baby

Fall semester: day sixty-one

With nineteen days to go in the semester (it's always eighty days long), things are kicking into high gear. This morning, at 7AM -- which explains why I'm up so early on a fucking Monday -- I registered for classes for the spring semester. Or, really, for one class. Because that's all I have to take, and I don't even have to take that one, honestly.

Let me explain.

My course requirements -- every single credit hour necessary to graduate -- have already been fulfilled by the end of this semester. Technically, and on-the-books, I need nothing else, at all, but to fill out my plan of study and submit it to the graduate school. This is something I've been waiting on because there's not really a deadline for it until one's last semester, and once I completed all of the courses I needed, it is much, much easier to fill out and submit.

However, in order to remain a GTA, I must be enrolled in classes. In order to not have to start paying back my student loans now, I must remain enrolled in at least six credit hours (which constitutes full-time for a graduate student). I've mentioned this before. Being forced to start paying back student loans during my last semester of graduate school would be impossible -- I simply cannot do it yet, as I not only haven't graduated and don't have a job yet, but I need the money that said student loans will give me in January in order to pay bills and move the fuck out of this house once I graduate.

So, I found myself in a bit of a conundrum. It'll be my last semester, but I won't need any real classes. I'll already have three credit hours on the docket automatically -- that's the other half of my "thesis hours" that are applied to my degree track -- but I needed three more. One more class. One more class that I wasn't required to take, that I wouldn't need for anything, that wouldn't even count towards my degree, just to stop from having to pay those loans back now. However much it is to pay for an extra class is much, much less expensive than it is to start paying back the loans.

Sure, I could've signed up for any class, any class at all, and just not show up, or not care what grade I got in it (as I mentioned, I do not need the credit for it in the least, and it wouldn't affect my degree). However, with any class I'd be expected to do the work for it, and my strong sense of personal responsibility wouldn't let me slack off in it. As I do not have the time, patience, or need to buckle down and take another lit course or workshop (I'll be spending much of the next six months reading/studying for my comprehensive exams), I looked for something -- anything -- I could take that wouldn't require me to actually do any extraneous work. Some of you may find that lazy of me, but I'm pretty sure at this point you wouldn't blame me were you in my position. So, I found the "visiting writer" class.

English 881, the "Writer's Tutorial -- Poetry," as it's called, is a three-hour course. I've done it twice before -- it's required that you do it twice for your degree if you're a MFA poetry student. Every spring, we get a new visiting poet. Said poet comes to campus for one month total (this Spring, it's mid-February to mid-March). Students who enroll in the class meet with said poet one-on-one, an hour each time, once a week while he/she is here. In these meetings, we talk about our poetry (read: my poetry) that I've provided said poet beforehand. It's basically a one-on-one workshop session.

That's it. That's the entire class. Nobody fails it (unless they just don't go), everyone gets full credit for it, and when the month is over you have your three credit hours and no more responsibilities. So, this morning, I enrolled in that. I have no clue who the visiting poet is (this year, it's apparently a woman, but one I've never heard of), but it's an easy three hours that keeps me at full time and gets another set of critical eyes on my work. As I'm completing/overhauling my thesis, that's fairly important.

Tomorrow, conferences start with my students. I'm not sure I've gone into detail about what conferences actually are (read: they're a pain in the ass), but here's what I do: I go to campus and sit in my office for two days, splitting my students between those two days, and meet with them one-on-one, one-by-one, for ten minutes at a time. One after another. For most of the day. Tomorrow I'm giving conferences from 7:40 to 1:30, almost straight through. In each one, I'll have to tell my students basically the same things over and over: "This is your grade in the class, your annotated bib looks okay; how's your paper coming along?" etc. I definitely see the value in some conferences with some students, but for most of them it's just an easy way to get 30 points, as they don't need to conference with me. As I've said before, most of my students are intelligent and know what they're doing, making conferences (for most purposes) practically meaningless. Yet, it's required that I do them as I teach English 102, regardless of whether it's the Engineering version of not, and I can't get out of it. Also, it takes a week that I would otherwise be forced to lecture to them about articles they can't even use on their final papers, so...yeah. I don't mind it too much overall. I just mind the tedium.

On Saturday, I ventured southward to campus to see the play we were forced to attend by our Playwriting class. It wasn't bad. Really depressing, though. It played out like a Greek Tragedy by the end (which I wrote about in my response paper on said play). It wasn't a play I would've chosen to see on my own, but I still liked it well enough. I made sure to point out all of its flaws in the response paper to prove that yes, I was actually there. Also, yes, I do things like that -- if I'm going to be forced to sacrifice a Saturday afternoon spending money on tickets to a play and then spending hours on campus actually seeing said play, you can be damned sure if I'm also forced to write a paper about it, I'm going to write about everything I noticed was wrong with it. I have that class this afternoon; it's the only reason that I'm awake now instead of going back to bed after registration this morning.

The venue in which we saw the play is also where we will perform our "reader's theatre" plays on Friday night. It's a nice little room with a floor-level stage and stadium-like seating. I don't know how many people will show up aside from members of our class, but it will probably be fairly fun regardless. Daisy is coming down on Thursday and will be staying through Sunday.

The rest of the weekend was filled mostly with work. I came home from the play Saturday night, and on the way, broke my watch band. My four-year-old, wonderful calculator watch is now unwearable, which saddens me. I stopped at Walmart on the way home and purchased a new watch (for $12) that is not a calculator watch -- the first time in about fifteen years or so that I have not worn a calculator watch. The new watch is bigger and bulkier on my wrist, which will drive me crazy until my wrist/arm gets used to it, but it is pretty.

I also picked up The Amazing Spider-Man, which I didn't get the chance to watch (because of my work) until last night. It's a fantastic film. I didn't have high hopes for it, really, as it was a reboot, but I do have to say that I highly enjoyed it. I liked it more than The Avengers, which was good but left me saying "ehhhh, that's it? That's what everyone's been so excited about all summer?" But, honestly, they've done a great job with the new Spider-Man film. I venture to say that I liked it more than the Raimi movies, even, and those were really well-done. Well, the first two were, anyway. Then again, I may be a bit biased because Spider-Man has always been my favorite Marvel character. Still, it was much better than I'd heard, and much better than I was expecting.

Other than that, my weekend consisted of grading, calculating students' grades up to this point, and rewriting my entire play. The latter I did on Friday for about nine hours straight, beginning to finish. I found out that the original draft of my play was about 90 pages. Yep. 90 pages. The revised draft, which has been edited down considerably and pulled together a bit more for better flow, is 75 pages exactly. My printer is crying at me, but it's done, and not a moment too soon. With that and my second play viewing/response paper for the course finished, I have finished the actual work in said course that I am responsible for. I have been encouraged to send said play in for some annual Kennedy Center-sponsored playwriting contest, with the winning play actually picked for production at Flat State University during the next season. I am strongly considering doing this, just to see what happens. No, my play isn't spectacular by any means, but my professor (and several of the students in our class, almost all of whom are actors/actresses) really enjoyed it, so it's worth a shot. I don't know if any money is involved, either for the submission or if it wins the contest, but regardless, it would be something great to put on a resume when applying for jobs in the spring.

Rae once told me that this is my calling, that playwriting was what I was born to do. I wouldn't go that far, but it does give me hope. I did enjoy writing the play quite a bit.

As I told my mother this morning, this is another really long week. Class today, conferences tomorrow and Thursday, and my normally long Wednesday, during which I'll be giving a presentation in my Surrealism class. By the time I get home on Thursday afternoon, Daisy should be here (or should be arriving shortly after I do) and I will finally be able to relax and get some time with her as a hard-earned reward for a week of running around and being busy. I must remind myself that there are only three weeks to go, really, with one of those weeks being Thanksgiving week.

More on that, and everything else, in my next post here.