On settling in

Have you ever noticed how you can fit a lot more of something when it's filled in the crevices and settled in? (I'm thinking something akin to Tetris here.)

Well, that's how I feel right now.

I've reached the end of my first full week of the semester and I think things are beginnning to settle in. Yes, I will be very busy this semester but I don't think it's an unheard of busy. Of course, I haven't started working on my papers yet but if I judge how much time will be used up by my papers based on the amount of "free" time I have today and the fact that I *shocker* let myself watch TV all Thursday and some last night (lol) then I think I won't have anything to worry about.

I feel like I should be working though. Heh.

I'm trying to make it so that Sundays really are a Sabbath for me, in the true sense of the word. I would love to be able to maintain throughout the semester the "policy" of no homework on Sundays. Of course there may be times somewhere in the middle of the semester where I'm forced to change that but I'm really looking forward tomorrow.

I've been working on my homework so much in order to get it away that I don't really have anything that I have to do tomorrow. (In addition I get a pretty long break between services because I don't have nursery duty tomorrow and I don't have to go to Vespers :D)

This creative writing class is going to be harder than I thought. I've never been graded on my writing ability before. Then there's the fact that I don't think I always agree with the teacher (I won't give the name because the teacher is a pretty well known author in the CBA market) on what is good writing.

Here's an example. On the first day of class she gave us a sheet of paper that had several pictures printed on it. In order to get a sample of our writing she told us to pick one and write what was inspired by that picture.

The next class period she read a couple of those in class. She happened to read one that used the same picture I did. Was it bad? No. Did it make me want to read more of the same? No.

The other example she read referenced a picture with three older ladies on the beach. The author took an interesting perspective but to me it seemed... I don't know. It just didn't jive as completely believeable.

Anyway. Our first graded writing assignment is coming up on Thursday. A character sketch. I used the picture for this week's vingette for mine. It took me forever to get going. A lot of times when I'm fleshing out a character I like to get into their head and figure out their thoughts. I couldn't do that in this assignment. She wanted us to give an objective portrayal of the character without giving too much exposition. *blows hair off forehead* :D

It took me forever to figure out what two traits I wanted to portray in her and the corresponding complexity and then how to go about portraying those limited to the space that I had. I suppose that it was a good exercise for me but... *le sigh*

We'll see how this semester goes. I just hope that she's not one of those teachers that likes the kind of writing that she uses but no other. You know what I mean. (I suppose it might be helpful for me to actually read one of her books. lol)