Yep, I might as well delete last week's posting about classes. Go ahead and VOID all that from your mind. This semester I have a new way to deal with graduate school: Attend a different class each week.
But first, a more general update from the novel Is It Bureaucracy or Is It Technology? You Decide (due out this Spring by SaveMe Press).
Thursday, I was unfrozen by the computer system because, woohoo, against all odds, bets and predictions to the contrary, the Human Subjects Protocol Full-On Committee approved my field research proposal. Depicted as ogres obsessed with minutiae who were going to demand I make 150 changes at least three times, their reputation for meddling was grossly over-exaggerated. They approved me on the first draft, asking that I make three tiny, logical changes.
No problem. Done.
Gig of joy. I could officially sign up for all the classes that I need to take, which of course are now all full and not going to letting me. And then, since Murphy's Law was created by my grad school, it appears:
On Friday, I was REfrozen by the computer system.
Why?
I need a thesis advisor.
Wait a second, didn't you have a thesis advisor?
Rosa. Amazing. Instant bonding. The only person in the whole department I remotely like or respect. Also just a lovely lovely person albeit seemingly flaky, though that could've been the circumstances, and all-around generally a kick-ass spit-fire of a human being. Beautiful soul. Wanted to work with me on my thesis. Wanted to make it PhD work (fuggetaboutit). On leave last semester. To return this semester. Every time I saw her, four hour philosophically based practical discussions and mutual hugging society all around. Adore her.
Turns out she DIED. (This is a great loss, not the least to the weirdly conservative Ed. Dept at this particular institution. R.I.P.)
Yes, so now I need to file paperwork to change advisors... because mine died. And the computer won't let me sign up for classes until I do.
Sigh. On more levels than one of those hampster playground sets, sigh.
So tonight I went back to auditioning for classes.
And attended not Options 1-4 from last Tuesday, but somehow ended up in Option 5, which turns out to be called Advanced Poetry Creation. Not that I have taken Rudimentary, Introductory, Mediocre, or Semi-Competent Poetry Creation classes, some of which I am sure are required. And this is the class, it appears, that all Creative Writing Poetry Grad Students take during their LAST semester before getting their MFA. CW 800,000. Lots of pre-requisites that I blew just left of. Grrrrrrreeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaat.
Which explains why I spent the whole night looking around like an alien in a guppy costume that found itself trying to look innocent to all the other fish while suspiciously looking in from OUTSIDE of the guppy tank.
Huh?
Yep, now you feel like me.
So this class?
It isn't full.
I love I mean love the poetry of the fella teaching this class.
The fellow teaching this class is a kickass poet, and when I greet him, his hands sweat on both sides, visibly.
He will let me add the class.
There are maybe 8 people in it. They have a lot of opinions though, and perhaps a few more egos, so really it operates like a class of 12-15.
And it went a little something like this:
Prof: Everyone who was here last week [Editor's Note: That means everyone except for me], please pull out the notebooks I gave you to write in.
Everyone pulls out these 1" x 1" Hello Kitty-esque spiral "notebooks." They have all been pregnantly ruffled and written in.
Prof: What was it like to write in these?
Student One: It induced within me different state of mind in my writing because it was so small and definitive.
[Students nod.]
Student Two: I was compelled to write less metaphors for lack of space.
[Students nod.]
Student Three: Constrained by the shape, I was forced to write sideways, despite the lines. This introduced new subject matter for my writing life.
[Students nod.]
Student Four: It freed me from my inner critic. It's diminutive stature opened me up to write anything for I understood that in this little box it would not be judged.
[Students nod.]
Student Five: The nature of this assignment drew my gaze to the details of my life. I found myself often thinking about my ankles as I walked to work.
[Students nod.]
Student Six: I hated it. I hated it. I drew little men in all the corners. I wrote all subsequent poems during this dark period of anger.
Prof: This reminds me of Some Famous Writer who would purposefully not eat for two days and then write while starving to bring about a change in perception in her writing.
[Students nod. I shake my head and think: You make me do that, I will freak the fuck out.]
Prof: Of course, I would not make you all starve for two days to change the vision of your writing. You are MFA students; you most likely don't have enough money to eat anyways, nor will you ever, if you seek to do this professionally. Let's move on to your proposals. You have been asked for this week to bring in your proposal for your final project and its working title. The final project will consist of at least 30 poems and be thematic. Who would like to start?
Student A: My final project proposes a juxtaposition between blah and blech, this and that, blah blah blah blah blah and green will always be indicative of the youth of character J while red will always announce the arrival of character Q, who will always be silent, in the collection. I have been working on this project for the past two years. As I am in my last semester of my MFA program, the project for this class is actually my Masters' Thesis.
[Students nod.]
Student B: My final project is austensibly about the relationship between love, death, politics, and hindsight, with a metaphorical undercurrent of blah blah blah blah blah. As I am in my last semester of my MFA program, the project for this class is actually my Masters' Thesis. The pieces that will be contained within it I have been working on since 2001, when I started this program.
[Students nod.]
Student C: While figuratively about blah blah blah yadda yadda yadda, on a more fundamental level this will utilize creative syntax and imagery to yadda yadda blah blah blah. As I am in my last semester of my MFA program, the project for this class is actually my Masters' Thesis. I have been writing these pieces since I was born.
[Students nod.]
[Students D - K... You get the point]
Professor: Oh, and we have a new student. Please introduce yourself. Any ideas on your Final Class Project? I am sure not, since you only just came here.
Me: Well, I am a teacher, so I am used to talking about things before they are actually formed in my head. Now, I don't know much about poetry, I never write the stuff really, and I am not writing anything related to a creative writing thesis unless you count my urge to make up all my Masters' Field Study research (that unfortunately I end up actually doing for real because I am ethical, sigh) but I am totally fuckin obsessed, I mean deeply, profoundly in love and in fascination, with folks on MUNI. So I guess I would write some pieces showing what I think goes on in the heads of various people on the 22 Fillmore. The folks on the 22? Crazy. Complete madness. I love the 22 Fillmore. Oh and the 19 and 49 Missions. Those buses are HOT. So that could be my project. I have been working on my Project for the last two minutes, when I jotted down this 3x3x3 poem:
The 22 Fillmore
I love I
Mean I looooooooove
The 22 Fillmore
Dramas rushing odorific
Adrenaline junky fixes
Everyone knows someone
Hills to flats
And back Traversing
Old time SF.
[Students stare. Students blink.]
Me: It needs some work.
Professor: Huh. OK, let's take a break.
Well said. Stay Tuned...
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