Today I feel like I got nothin’. Correction… nothing new. But that’s not new either. Life moves fast but amazingly it also moves slow, it’s like a strange trick of the mind. Nothing really changes much from one day to the next and then you wake up one day and realize everything has changed. That’s why the Time Lord is called Dr. Strange.

If you ask me I would say he was the most important character in the last two Avengers movies. I picked up on the clue the first time I watched Infinity War. He saw the future, or more accurately 14 million alternate futures, and knew what must have to happen to avoid the universe losing half of its inhabitants – permanently. That’s why he willingly gave up the time stone. Of course nothing would have happened to set the plot of Endgame in motion without the return of Ant Man. They never would have had the idea of traveling back in time to collect all the stones. I actually never saw any of the Ant Man movies but that’s one thing that Marvel does really well.. you didn’t have to watch dozens of movies that include characters and plots to enjoy any of the other movies. They all stand on their own merit. In my opinion anyway.

I guess this is what happens when my mind wanders along with no particular topic in mind. I start rambling about super hero’s and movies. 😜

Today I slept in until like 8am and that was glorious. I slept for a solid 8 hours according to my Fitbit and I feel great. My first meeting of the day isn’t until noon and that means I have plenty of time to get lots of stuff done before settling in for my work day.

I’ve got some follow ups to take care of and among those is searching for classes at UNO that I can register for this fall. I need to get that registration in ASAP and start gearing up for getting back to school. I had some communication last week with my program coordinator and director and I’m super stoked about this next term. I’m also already building my reading list and have some grand goals developing. I’ll probably take on too much, but I’d rather maximize opportunity than short change myself like I did last semester.

I had advice “it’s ok if things get messy.. let it happen” and “everyone fails and that’s how you grow”. To me those don’t feel like advice, they seem more like loopholes or excuses for not meeting your own expectations. My mentor last term was great, but too nice and “forgiving”. We were both too busy in our daily lives to put the right focus into the tasks at hand. She in the throws of divorce negotiations and moving and having a son go away to college for the first time, me just working too much and planning for moving and starting a new life with my fiance. I guess both beginnings and endings can make us too busy to focus on something that’s supposed to be important. We took turns exchanging apologies for being late on deadlines and she was extremely generous accepting some of my essays as “critical essays”. Half of them were more like just stream of consciousness pondering about the creative life, processes, and how exactly one gets in-tune with the “show instead of tell” mentality. I did try to critically evaluate that and several other poetic devices, such as Juxtaposition, Conceit (controlling metaphor), and Phanopoeia, but by and large my biggest leap forward was just getting a deeper understanding of the terminology. I definitely feel like I failed trying to apply what I was learning.

I thought, “if it’s ok to fail, let’s go with that”. One of my creative packets was comprised entirely of my failed attempts to try new things. I submitted it as a mini chapbook titled “Failed Expeditions and Other Tales of Woe”. It was terrible and wonderful all at the same time. It was liberating to just try a bunch of things and feel like it’s OK if it doesn’t magically turn out to be the best thing ever. However, no matter how good it felt to be able to do that, I still felt like that was a “one trick pony” and I could not keep doing the same thing. It sort of felt like I was cheating, which in a way it was – I was cheating myself. I’m paying a lot for this MFA so I want to make more out of it than just getting away with the minimum. It was during that third packet that I started to contemplate taking a semester off in order to focus on one thing at a time. I took on a new contract at work, which was another 20 hours a week on top of what I was already doing. I was planning to move after the holidays. I would then need to sell my house. I knew I could not do all of that AND read and write and attend classes.

All of that is done now (or nearly done) and, as I have said, I am very much looking forward to diving back into school – head first! I have no idea what to expect from my search of the UNO course catalogue. Guess there is no time like the present to find out!

HTYMP,

~Miss SugarCookie