Crunch, Crunch time
I sent work to Atlantic Monthly's annual student writer's competition yesterday--the winner gets a grand and a subscription to the magazine. I mostly entered because getting shit into the Atlantic can jump-start a literary career--if I got one. Scott said his friend in Montana's MFA met a girl who got a fiction piece published in Harper's--after her piece ran she got a letter from the editor directing her to send future work to a different address--the one that guys like John Updike and Johnathan Franzen send to instead. Scott and I joked that maybe I can be that guy you see in a magazine like the Atlantic and say "that son of a bitch won? fuck it, man, that's bullshit."

Classes end this week though I'll be working on stuff into next week--mostly my pedagogy portfolio for my teaching theory class. I'm still not sure what my pedagogy is for teaching composition--a lot of my work is centered around teaching writing for non-academic "purposes"--not just to prepare the student for other writing classes, but help them critically analyze the world around them and to help them work outside of classes (resumes, letters, essays, artistic expression, etc.). I guess. I'm not sure.

The portfolio is the focus to get done, but I got a lot of other stuff going on--Wed. and Thur. I'm grading the WEPT, UMKC's writing proficiency test for undergrads, and presenting a collection of poems at a grad proposal event next Saturday--I'll also be grading my students' final project next week. Probably while Frisbie, Nikki, Aaron, and Loren are in town. I guess I'll figure it all out. Maybe.

I bought some new clothes today--I wear a lot of t-shirts and jeans, and the people around me (Lewis, Nicole, Zac, and Jennifer) dress a lot better I think--button up shirts, ties, etc. All I did was buy a couple of western shirts and a pair of khakis. So now, I at least look less like a computer programmer.

I'm trying to write but feel like I could do more, or better work. Friday, Zac and I drove over to Leawood, KS to US Toys, a toy store and teacher's supply place, so he could buy awards for his students. We talked a little bit about "wasting time"--just zoning out and watching TV or checking Facebook and Myspace pages. We could be reading or writing, etc. I think we both sort of felt the same about it.

I was back in Dayton for a week. It went alright. There was a lot of noise in the house, so I couldn't focus on any of thw work I had to get done. On Thanksgiving my dad and I drove to west Dayton, to the old neighborhood, and we also saw No Country for Old Men--it was all pretty great. Robin told me once about how her dad, in a mid-life crisis, took her along on a drive to Wichita, KS to find his childhood house.

"When we got there, we were only there for five minutes and then we turned around and drove back."
"Yeah? How far away is Wichita?"
"I don't know. We had a full tank of gas and we used all of it."