The Performers

I was also intrigued by the Typealyzer, mentioned by Christie on Life at the Condo. It matches a Myers-Briggs Type based on the text of your blog. We got:

ESFP - The Performers
The entertaining and friendly type. They are especially attuned to pleasure and beauty and like to fill their surroundings with soft fabrics, bright colors and sweet smells. They live in the present moment and don´t like to plan ahead - they are always in risk of exhausting themselves.

The enjoy work that makes them able to help other people in a concrete and visible way. They tend to avoid conflicts and rarely initiate confrontation - qualities that can make it hard for them in management positions.

(Thanks Christie!)

Holy Circus Babies!

I don't know what else to say. I am both elated and relieved to announce that I have completed my internship with the MU English Department as managing editor and designer of the M Review, our online literary publication. Like all good and hard things that come to an end, I see on the live version that I have a bit more work to do. There are a few snags. Regardless, I am happy to post the link for your reading pleasure. Jay and I collected an unusual bit of material-poetry and fiction-with a tendency toward the surreal and poetic dramatizations of interior moments. (I.E. Quirky, folks.) I have learned much from this experience and I hope that I will find opportunities in the future to work with literary journals.

The fact that M is officially going live tomorrow has become a significant gesture, as we will be gathering together with our English department community of students and teachers to celebrate the life of Jackie Mosier, recent Marylhurst graduate, who lost her battle with breast cancer. At the last minute, I tried to delicately incorporate a dedication in her honor to our 2008 issue. What I came up with is the illustration above, of a dove and flowers. I hope that people realize it is a dove. Does it look like a dove? It's kind of chubby.

Jackie had a zest for reading and writing, really good interprative and analytical skills, and opened her home again and again to our community for celebrations and hosting visiting authors. She leaves behind two adorable dogs and a husband, as well as an inspiring work ethic and creativity.

The Light at the End of the Tunnel

I didn't make it to the library today until, um, 4? Because I slept in until, um, 2? I have such a generous husband. Because the library closes at 6 on Saturdays, I had to move to Starbucks, which enabled me to get in a mere four hours of writing for my rough draft on my senior thesis ("The Craft of Sound and Image in Denise Levertov's Poetry.") A whole other mistake was the consumption of two mocha lattes. This explains why I am awake at 2:30 a.m. Here I sit, at the laptop in the living room, with Hobbes asleep in my lap and the sound of Dan's snoring drifting down the hallway. The thump of the music at the neighbor's apartment has subsided and instead of working on my papers, I decided to redesign this blog. While I was digging through our image library for a new ::kiss:: photo, I found this shot taken during my first year at Marylhurst. It must have been spring, so that would have been just about three years ago. Wow. And now I am two weeks away from finishing. I can't help but feel nostalgic in addition to my excitement. How I have adored that campus! It's so beautiful and quiet. How I have learned so much and met wonderful people! I'm glad that I will be around next semester while I help with the literary journal, M Review. (No class or credits, just the experience of being student editor!) So far, it has only occupied me with busy work--organizing the hundreds of submissions and passing them onto staff members to review. In a few weeks I will begin reading and assessing what student work I would like to accept. In the meantime, I'm also working on a submission myself, for a Writer's Institute in New York. The English faculty at MU nominated me for a full scholarship to their 2-4 week summer program, so I'm giving it a go and applying. Dan has been helping me select material to submit, and I can't help but hope that I will get accepted! I guess this is what I have to get used to now that I'm graduating...The post-collegiate life of craft / submit / get denied / try again / craft / submit / etc. Of course, I already have my mind on many other projects that I am eager to get started on once I have more free time. FMS Nest has been progressing ever-so-slowly, and I'd like to devote more time to that this spring. What I have noticed as I began writing the blog is that at this point, it is limited to my experience with fibromyalgia. There is so much more I want write about in terms of my health, but what do I do? Start a blog for each of my conditions? Is there a way to combine writing about fibromyalgia, depression, pcos, et al., on this site? Or should I change the name of FMS Nest and incorporate all of my health issues, thoughts, and experiences on that? Does anyone have any ideas? Help! Well, I just heard the paper boy. I guess I better sign off and try to go to sleep before I get started on this project and stay up the rest of the night. Hope you enjoy the new design and features. There'll be more to come...! xoxo

I'm Addicted to School

This week I begin classes for the first term of my last year at Marylhurst. I am now officially 15 credits away from my degree in English Literature & Writing. (What do I plan to do with it when I am done? Write.)

To make things interesting, I have also begun the daunting, expensive, and tedious task of working on graduate school applications. and I will be sharing details about this process along the way. Oh yes. Graduate school. Because, apparently, I am NOT satisfied with already spending 10 years on schooling. I WANT MORE.

Applying really is a major undertaking, which is why I spread out my final credits at MU over two terms--so that I would have time for this. And serving as managing editor of M Review this year. (But that's another story.)

Anyway, here is the preliminary list of schools from which I have sought information and application packets, and let me know if you have any other suggestions because this is only 7 and I need between 8 and 10 to increase my chances!!!

Low Residency Schools (Only required to attend 10-12 days seminars on campus twice a year, while the rest of the work is done in correspondence with an adviser from home.)
Antioch University (L.A.)
Bennington College (Vermont)
Goddard College (Port Townshend, WA campus)
Naropa University (Colorado)
Spalding University (Louisville)
Warren Wilson College (North Carolina)

Full Residency (And this means we'd be packing our things and moving back across the country....)
University of Iowa (Iowa Writers' Workshop...Only the most prestigious program IN the country!)

Screenwriting 101

Last week I took Screenwriting at Marylhurst--my final writing elective--because I wanted to try something different. And it's TOTALLY different. It's all about plugging a plot into a formula, and peppering it with good dialogue. It's completely counter-intuitive to how I write poetry and short stories, which is usually based on a feeling, followed by descriptive prose and random playing with the music of language. Needless to say, I was off to a rough start because I have never been plot-oriented. My first storyboard received a resounding BORRRRIIIIINNNG. I had a protagonist with no real challenge to overcome, and a film that my teacher (screenwriter Cynthia Whitcomb) described as so boring that not only would nobody pay to see it, no studio in their right mind would pay millions to MAKE it. I was hurt because it was a coming-of-age story based on an experience I had traveling in high school. Apparently, the moments in my life that I thought were ripe for the screenwriting-picking are NOT that interesting. So Dan and I came up with a new storyboard, a psychological thriller full of suspense and challenge for the protagonist, creepy subplots, and a twist at the end. And AGAIN, Cynthia felt I had a long way to go: It just wasn't exciting enough. Now I've come up with another idea--a romantic comedy. Dan starts snoring every time I talk about it, but I think it has potential! I'm telling you all of this now so that when I sell my script, and pay off all of my student loans and the mortgage with the check, you will all be able to rejoice with me as I tell him "I Told You So!"