Today I turned in my thesis.

There is nothing like holding a big ol' stack of 162 pages in your hand and thinking, "Dang, I wrote all that?" 162 pages, 11 stories, all about California in one way or another. I brought maps into my thesis. There is a map of all the counties in California in the table of contents, then next to the title of each story there is the piece of california the county makes up. It's like a puzzle. I liked the visual and thought it added nicely to the whole idea of people feeling confined in their place based on their role in the community.

Last night I finished typing it and took Jaime outside to pee before bed. I was waiting for him to finish and looked up in the sky. At that exact moment a HUGE ball of fire or a shooting star shot through the sky. It was huge, probably the biggest shooting star I have seen in my life. I smiled and thought, damn this better mean good things.

I walked to the front of my creative writing class and handed my thesis to my chair person. She looks at me and goes how does it feel? I tell her it feels like I need a long nap. Then all my classmates clap. It made me feel good. I love community and knowing you've got people supporting you.

Now I am going to Mendocino to take a weekend to rest. Then I need to start preparing for the defense which is in less than 2 weeks.

Thesis writing is coming to a close. It is due this Thursday. I now have a title for my book. It makes me feel like all the stories are coming together as a whole.

Picnic day yesterday. Fun party at the Chordas' house, of course. Saw old friends, new friends, and family. I drank for 14 hours straight and had a rough day today, but managed to revise a story.

In between writing and drinking I have conversations online with my mom. Most our conversations deal with big issues and topics. They are probably the most amusing thing in this world:


Melissa: jesus is judgmental

Tanya: you think?

Melissa: of course
thats why certain people make it to hell and some to heaven

Tanya: i think nature just recycles us no matter what and the spirit thing lives on in some people's minds like a ghost
what religion would it be

Melissa: mother earth

Tanya: oh that's a good religion
lets start a church: Chordas church
first oficial meeting: Indians Ca
we can be a cult

Melissa: who would be the leader

Tanya: sacrifice meat chickens at the indians
pop he can kill
I really like it, I have a religion now.

I've been bad...my thesis is due next week, this is why. My reading (last post) went well. I had three beers and half a margarita before hand, so my nerves were calm and I came across confident.
Now the thesis defense. I am freaked out. I suddenly am doubting my writing skills and worry about being failed. The last two days I feel like breaking down and crying at any given moment. I just have to stay calm. May 4th I defend and my degree is decided. I hate this pressure. Everytime I get in the car to drive I have the urge to just get on the freeway an not return. It is ironic that all the stories in my thesis/collection are about characters who want to escape and here I am faced with the same feeling. Maybe if I leave and then write a good paper to my committee explaining my reasoning and how it ties into my writing they will give me the degree.

Here is pretty much how I feel, a chat I had with my mom...

Melissa
I want to just take the car and pack it with food and drive
and see where I end up
without any plans
or maps

Tanya
no no car limits you to this continent, this continent is not best

Melissa
I know, but you can park the car and then fly
with the right amount of xanax

So I got busy and stopped writing. I spent the rest of March grading my students, dealing with students arguing grades, deciding teaching isn't worth the stress of grading, hiking, eating good food, getting chicks for my parents back yard, and revising my thesis. Oh and dealing with my own crashing computer, which means I need to get a new one. So yeah, I was busy. I edited about 50 pages of my 130-140 page thesis. I feel like I am getting closer, but don't want to graduate.

The new qrt., my last qrt, started this week. I taught my new class on Tuesday. Tomorrow I teach again. It is so much better and I feel a little bit more positive about teaching now. Tomorrow I also have my writing workshop, my last one with one of my all time favorite professors. And then tomorrow evening I am giving my first ever reading. I am terrified, petrified, and all together horrified. I don't like to read things I wrote, especially to a large crowd in an auditorium with a microphone. (I have a fear of microphone's and when there was the possibility of getting one for Katie's wedding I begged her not too). I hope I don't faint. My story, that I am reading, is 9 pages long. I will try to shorten it tonight, some how. Ahhh!!! Terrified. Also, to make matters worse, all the recruits for next year will be there...so it puts more pressure on me to represent the program. And it also means the professors will be there.
Here are some pictures from Spring Break:

Will post later...my computer crashes everytime I try posting one picture.

Yesterday was a shitty day. I had a student yell and belittle the whole class, calling them racists. It was one of those moments when I was caught off guard as a teacher, because the student perceived a comment from another student totally wrong. It flipped some personal switch for her and the ranting and raving came. Its one of those moments when I sat there silently wishing I didn't have to be a teacher. Then afterwards I felt incredible guilt, like I let the class down. It sucked. Big Time.

Then today I had a pop-reading quiz in my own class and realized I read the wrong stories so there went that.

I don't have time. I really don't, but I have been taking Sam and Jaime hiking everyday. I sit and let them swim in the creek and watch all the birds and enjoy the spring flowers. Yesterday I saw a Kite. Today I saw a red-tail hawk and an egret. I feel so alone out in nature by myself and it is one of the most rewarding experiences ever. It's very meditative and soothing to my mental well-being. It grounds me in my chaotic life.

I came home and got my review from the class observation last week...

"I thought your ENL 5F class on 3/5 went fairly well. I'd reviewed your syllabus prior to my visit and thought it quite sound, and I was pleased with your overall performance the first time you're doing the class. I was especially impressed with your presence in the classroom, and leading questions such as "What's at stake for the character?" prompted some serious class attention and good response."

The suggestion for my teaching was try to find a way to get the whole class to talk. I had 8 students or so doing most the talking and then the quiet ones. I don't know how to get them to talk. It's hard for me to think of ways besides calling on them which is so elementary school. They're adults. I told them if they don't talk their grade will suffer...The way I see it: they make their own choices. I mean I am open to getting everyone to talk, but I don't know how else to do it.

I keep on seeing/hearing this word "Presence" when I teach. I wonder what it means and how this reflects me as a person. I would never have guessed that I would have such a presence. I feel like I am a quiet person.

Thank god I was not observed yesterday during the whole debacle.

We celebrate time passing for new years...so why don't we celebrate the change- loss or addition- of time for Daylight Savings? I think we should.

This last week was my most stressful week of the quarter. I didn't realize how stressed out I was until Thursday night when I came home and crashed out and slept through my alarm that was going off for an hour straight without my knowledge. Really even though I was stressed, I didn't have time to worry about it because I was so busy.

I turned in 5 stories for my thesis collection. 2 of them were new stories.

I went and watched a oral thesis defense to see how these things go since I will be defending mine in May. It freaked me out more to see it. It made it more real and less of a denial thing.

Then for the first time in my life I lectured to a lecture hall. I had to take a crumble of a xanax for that one. I mean I would have preferred a drink, but 9am was too early to kick back the bottle. It went well though. The whole lecture was 50 minutes and it went by so fast. The TA in the class, a fellow grad student, told me I was "Fierce." Then Yiyun Li, the professor of the class who was gone the day I lectured, told me a student came to see her in office hours and was "gushing" about the lecture.

Then on Thursday my class was observed by the department. I felt good about it. Of course my students went a little off topic at one point...debating if marijuana makes you feel "chill" or "paranoid." I had to get them back on track....but the observer was laughing. Which is a good thing. It was a moment when everyone was laughing. So I think he saw how comfortable I run my classroom. I do like my students and have two more classes to teach. I will miss them. As the quarter has gone on I really have grown attached to them.

This past weekend was so nice. Having a three day weekend. I graded a lot. I prepped for my classes. And I even wrote 8 pages of a new story that takes place in Hopland and plays with the theme of a gossipy small community. They gossip about a Russian immigrant that comes to town by accident- as hitchhiking north to escape her family...and she befriends, possibly falls in love, with a local native american boy. As the reader watches scenes develop between the two in the private of the russian's home there is a constant switch to scenes that take place in the Hopland Bar and the reader experiences the community's gossips, ideas about the "russian and pomo boy." I've grown to like my characters and hope an ending comes soon. I want to visit Hopland Brewery, sit listen to the people, and have an ending come to me. I'm tempted to ditch school on a weekday and drive just to sit in the bar and then come home.

The best part of last weekend was that I felt relaxed and ready for the week.

But oh boy. What a week I had waiting for me. On Tuesday was the second workshop of my class. They started to workshop their own stories. It has been good, but they have been really nervous about it since this is the first time they are sharing. One of the authors whose story was workshopped left in the middle three different times to go throw-up (I think anxiety induced). So after making one of my students barf....

I went to sophias to play the regular trivia night and we were not so hot last night. Our name rocked though (part of the fun is thinking up of a name that usually combines current events with sexually implicit things.) The name I thought of was...
"Get me a turkey baster...I want some Octuplets." Sigh. We didn't win best name though. Of course the majority of them were about Lance's bike getting stolen. Something along the terms of...who has one ball to steal Lance's bike.
I thought ours was good.

I also went to the dentist to find out about filling my front tooth that was chipped while in costa rica. The dentist said it didn't chip enough to hit the nerve and it sanded itself quite nicely so there is no worry about it constantly slicing my tongue. At this point he would fill it for cosmetic purposes which insurance would not cover. After being reassured it wouldnt chip more over time, I opted out. He said good choice at least you have a good story to tell with the chip. I smiled and thought boy costa rica. There are tons of stories to tell. Then I embraced my chipped tooth and decided it gives me character. Plus, I can stick a piece of hay between my front teeth and embrace my country side. And my front tooth can act like a canine. It's got edge.

Tonight I make my homemade lasagna (my signature dish), drink two beers and hope tomorrow is better.

While making Lasagna I had the idea to open a Lasagna shop. I'll call it "Strictly Lasagna." I will make all kinds of Lasagna- cheese, veggie, meat, dessert. I let my imagination run wild...I'm sure it won't find a place in my real life, but it will show up in a story at some point.