I am officially done with this quarter. I finished grading a big stack of finals today and yesterday I had my last creative writing workshop. After workshop Yiyun Li took us out to a bar and bought us all drinks. It was epic. This is the professor who told us we are in grad school not to party. Somehow it was a good ending to hard working writing quarter.

Plus after yesterdays workshop I feel like I am never going to be good enough to be a published writer. I go through phases and I guess I am in the discouraged phase at the moment. Maybe I should be a teacher. I really did like teaching this quarter. But then I think- no my heart isn't in teaching, its in giving advice and being there for the students. I like talking to people and I like talking plans. Regardless. Plans about studying for the final, plans about future classes, plans about traveling? You name it. Perhaps my life goal is professional planner of all marvelous things. I can make my own business card.

This was my last week working at the Davis Humanities institute. Everyone there surprised me with a pizza party and delicious cake. I felt really appreciated and loved. It made me sad leaving. There are some amazing people working there that really have been a HUGE part in making grad school survivable. These next two qrts. it will be tough without their daily guidance and support.

Tomorrow I drive to pick-up Palina and bring her back home. I was looking up directions on google maps and forgot to type in the city and state. Somehow the directions landed me in Japan. So I was curious and wondered how google maps would tell you to get to Japan. I wondered to myself before scrolling down the page and imagined directions to the air port and directions to board a plane. But oh no- google maps tells me to: "Kayak across the Pacific Ocean, Entering Japan 3,879 miles"

Perhaps this is a coded meaningful message to me: about my future life. But how the heck would someone kayak over 3000 miles...is this even possible?

So this week is finals week and I have been grading and grading and grading. The professor assigned my students this silly reflection paper. They had to pretty much write what was meaningful for them this quarter and why. I disagree with the assignment, especially for a huge lecture english lit. class. And grading them is a nightmare- how can you put a grade on a reflection????? This paper might make more sense for a small small writing class or workshop class, but not for a lecture class. I mean all you are going to get is a bunch of BS papers were students don't care and are just sugar-coating things that they think the professor wants to hear. This is exactly what happened. Except for one paper. This is part of the paper that I actually appreciated:

"As for my prose, I am an arrogant child, who, just out of puberty, is finally learning how to shave. I use too much fluff. Frankly, I just enjoyed reading my own writing. I also enjoyed looking at myself in shiny objects. I maybe exaggerating. The point is, I really noticed improvement from my first essay to my second, and I think I owe a lot of that to the discussion section. My TA was instrumental in gently suggesting that I stop bullshitting as much as I did (I do), especially when it mattered. Great Advice.
As to this reflective essay: it was cathartic, after writing seriously for a quarter. I am not sure what you expected to get out of college students when presented with a purely opinion-based essay, but I tried to give, as candidly as I very possibly could, my answers to your questions."

So I guess my first quarter teaching (TA'ing for two discussion sections) is complete. I enjoyed my students and liked helping them, even it all I taught them was when is the right time to bullshit.

The Thanksgiving holiday sped by. I had all these plans to write my syllabus for next qrt., work on my thesis, work on my CV for job applications. Really I needed the time to relax and spend time with family, who doesn't? I didn't want to feel completely slacker like so I did do the syllabus, well most of it. But everything else was left unattended. It was so much fun to see Palina. This has been the longest I have gone without seeing her so we hung out pretty much everyday. We watched movies, drank, played video games, ate tons of sushi, and went shopping. Palina was extremely sick this weekend, in her own words- "This is the worst sickness I have had for years." We didn't let it get in the way of our fun though and now I pay the price. These last two days I have had the worst sickness I have had for years. My body aches and my collarbones too. It sucks. Especially since this is the last week of the quarter. I had my last discussion section last night and I had to drag myself to teach. It was terrible. And on top of it all my students had to write evaluations of me- while I sat there dying and being a very unresponsive teacher.





This weekend I also spent tons of time letting Jaime and Sam run wild in nature. On Sunday Jaime busted his leg open on something- glass, barb-wire, who knows. I have been treating it these last few days but it isn't healing and was still bleeding today. Thoughts of infection and him loosing his leg scared me so I took him to the vet. $100 dollars later he now has four stitches, no infection, and a cone head:

So...this last week Jaime has been acting up. Aggressively. Today he was at my parents house and I guess he started his aggressive streak that includes stalking and growling Kuma the akita. My mom puts Jaime in his place, flips him over and yells at him. He is so scared by her dominance that he pees. Right after she disciplines him he follows her around and respects her to no end.

I go to pick him up in the afternoon and he only has eyes for my mom, I guess he likes control. I go into the front yard with him. My mom gets in her car to go back to work and I go to get my bike to bike home. Jaime freaks out that he can't go with my mom in her car. She backs up and leaves the drive-way. I figure he will stay with me, like he always does. But no. Now that we have established my mom as the boss he turns and chases her car. She doesn't hear me screaming after him (he doesnt hear me either) nor does she see him chasing her car. She turns onto 8th street and starts driving. Jaime is running, glued to her bumper, at close to 30 mph. I get on my bike and chase the two of them. Cars pass and stare and point...there is a dog in the right lane running the speed of a car. There is a car behind him, leaving him room, just like any car would. He continues to run for a few blocks in the lane, at the speed of the other cars. Sam who is sitting in the back of my mom's car stares out the window and watches Jaime the whole time. My mom realizes he is staring and looks out her window to see what he is staring at- a blur of fur. She pulls over and sure enough Jaime tries to jump in her car with a huge smile on his face.

The pound lied. My dog is no Australian Shepard mix. He is some sort of Greyhound.

I've been bad about posting. For multiple reasons. First off...this quarter my thesis adviser told me to write a story/ten pages a week until November 8th. I found that blogging was a great way to get into the "writing" mode and it was a good form of procrastination. So as you can see I almost posted weekly during the time I was supposed to be writing a story. I did complete the ten pages-a story a week- for five weeks straight. I was so tired and never in my life would have thought I could have written that much. I have written 60 pages in 6 weeks. That's a lot. I want to keep writing, but it seems without the deadlines it is hard to do. Also- my other course work has been piling up. I have been grading student papers up the wazoo. Every time I grade a bunch I get a huge headache. I really do like my students though. It makes me happy to see a student improve (this is essay #2) based on the feedback I gave them. It makes me happy to be able to get them to talk in discussion section when they won't say a peep for the first ten or so minutes. Once I drop an exercise/activity on them they turn it into a productive and insightful conversation. Yesterday it was about immigration and literature. One of my favorite topics.
This last weekend I went to a really fun party/open mic. I didn't read of course, but it was fun to bond with the first year creative writing graduate students. So life is moving along, but is busy.

I am sooo ready for the holidays.

Here are some pictures from my Birthday trip to Chico:






This one was a birthday wish come true.

I've been holding off writing, because I knew it would be just an angry ranting post.
Actually- I typed a response to the election a few times and deleted it. It was liberating to just watch the words disappear while holding down the backspace button.

Don't get me wrong. I was overjoyed and extremely happy that Obama was elected president. I almost can't believe it is all over and this educated, young, motivated, democrat is our president.

Although my obama high was killed the next morning when I found out California decided to rape same sex couples of their legal civil rights. Pretty much the words that ran through my head in my disappointed state were: "WHAT THE HELL?" "HYPOCRITES" and "CALIFORNIA? Come,on."

But I have sat on it for over 24 hours and even though I still think those things I also think optimistic thoughts. Such as change being an incredibly slow thing. I mean good things happen, eventually. It is crazy to think segregation of african americans happened in our parents and grandparents lifetime. You just have to be patient, but it is sometimes so hard for me to wrap my head around the idea of equality being an issue. I still don't understand how same-sex marriage will affect a marriage between a man and a woman. Or how we should prevent same-sex marriage because it will be taught in schools. Since when was marriage ever taught in schools?

It is just so silly and hard for me to try and imagine the other side. Passing proposition eight is not preventing homosexual relationships or families. They're still gonna happen. People are going to continue to love whomever they want- regardless or sex, race, religion. A state's vote isn't going to stop anyone from sharing love and even a life with children, shared bank accounts, and a house together (all these things that married hetrosexual couples have and share, but with the legal rights).

Its all so ridiculous.

Really.

I mean who cares if your same-sex neighbors have a marriage license to their name? A marriage license that you will never see, nor will it ever affect you?

It doesn't matter. And it shouldn't be an issue. It's just not fair. Think about all those people that are affected. People that are just like the rest of us. People that might bag your groceries for you, teach your child at school, live next door to you, and even be a part of your own family. All these people are now second-class citizens in the State of California.

I'll think positive though. I'll end positive: Obama. I'm proud of you. You've got quite a mess of a country on your hands, but I can already perceive positive outcomes.

I promise you...these pictures were not a "set-up".
I put two pumpkins on the ground, ready to carve...and this is what happens (It was hilariously too funny to pass up a photo-opt)