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I’ve been back from Europe for almost three weeks now and I’ve finally decided to break my blogging hiatus. Mostly I’ve just been taking it easy here—and looking for jobs of course. My mom had knee surgery a few days before I got home, so I’ve been taking care of her as well.

In the meantime, I’ve completed quite a few of my Day Zero goals in the last month and I thought it was time for an update. Here are a few of the random ones I’ve gone through; I’ll do a post later on the Europe-related ones. Those will have more pictures.

Me and the other MFAers before graduation

1. Get my MFA!

I successfully defended my thesis and got my diploma. I am now a master. I can’t believe it’s over, and I already miss it. I am, however, taking a lengthy break from my writing, although I’m starting to get that itch back. I want to return to it with fervor, not exhaustion. I’ve got work to do on my novel, of course, but I also want to get back to some short story writing. And editing. In some ways, I miss my work with Willow Springs more than anything else.

37. Get ten massages

I started getting massages in October, and they’ve done so much to help with my headaches—more than any medicine I’ve ever taken. I got my tenth one not too long before graduation, but, unfortunately, I can’t afford any more since I don’t have a job. Consequently, the headaches are back as bad as ever. Can’t wait until I’m gainfully employed again.

73. Learn my blood type

My mom came to the rescue on this one. I am B+, as is my sister. My parents are AB+ and O+. I feel like I should have known this a long time ago.

84. Shoot under par at a putt putt course

I did this only a few days ago at the Funtyme in Okemos (it’s practically walking distance from my house). After a rocky start I managed to finish one under par. I’ve never done this before in my life. It was very exciting, made more so by the fact that I beat my putt putt partner by nine strokes (he’ll rename nameless for his pride). Of course, he and his partner did later that evening destroy me and my partner 30-8 in three games of Euchre.

I’ll be out of the country for the next two weeks, so I won’t be posting regularly. I’ll try for the occasional look-what-I-did-today post, but don’t count on it. Happy end-of-July everyone!

Kathryn

I leave Spokane tomorrow, and though I have a party to go to tonight for my program, I’ve already said goodbye to quite a few people I would like to consider friends. They are people that I hope to stay in contact with, people I’d love to come and visit, but I know the base of friendship we have is weak, due to such a short period of time we’ve known each other.

I went to the mall this morning, prior to the World Cup game (which is TIED due to the craziest fluke goal I’ve ever seen at this stage), and as I was walking around, I found myself thinking about what would happen if my life were a movie. It would have happened like this: I would have been walking around, frustrated because I couldn’t find what I wanted, and when I turned around (because that’s always how it happens), I would have found myself face-to-face with one of these people (probably a male, partly because I prefer men to women, but mostly because this is a heteronormative society), and we would have had an intense bonding moment over coffee (even though I don’t drink coffee).

Sometimes it’s depressing that live isn’t more like the movies.

But then that brought me back to writing. In a book (a book of literary fiction), this would have happened instead: I’d have finished my shopping, buying sub-par gifts, not run into anyone I know, and then I’d have gone home. This is what actually happened.

Because in writing, I think it’s important that we put pressure on our characters, and pressure often means not giving them what they want. Maybe instead of running into someone I’d like to see, or not seeing anyone, the literary fiction version of me would run into someone she didn’t like, someone who made her uncomfortable or angry. Because these are the moments when we see someone’s vulnerability, and that’s more interesting than watching someone who gets what she wants.

Well, no one can say it hasn’t been a hectic week. On a personal level, we put down my cat, I had my last day of work, defended my thesis, said goodbye to one of my best friends here, done tons of packing, and tomorrow I’ll graduate. Then, I get on Twitter this morning to find out that college sports decided to explode today. Izzo is considering taking the job in Cleveland, USC is getting reprimanded the way they should have been years ago, and The Big 12 is close to imploding. Of course, the Izzo story is the most near and dear to my heart, and I’ve been following it all day, but everything still seems to be rumor and conjecture at this point. Then, my parents were supposed to get here at 3:30 (you may notice I’m writing this at 5:30), but their flight was delayed, resulting in a missed connection and a seven-hour delay. So now they’re hanging out in Minnesota while I obsessively check the radar because, to top it all off, we’re supposed to have thunderstorms on and off all evening. Yippee!

I hope all of my loyal blog readers (all six or you or so, heh) are having less crazy weeks!

I defended my thesis this morning—successfully, I might add—which means no more thesis updates. From here on out they will all be book updates, the working title of which I’m still too embarrassed to admit. If you want to know, you’ll have to stalk me through the EWU library system and sneak a look at my soon-to-be-bound thesis.

The defense itself went very well. I never got nervous, which I think actually helped a lot. I felt they asked me good, smart questions, and that I learned as much as I explained. I’ve got a real good idea of where to take the book next, and I feel energized. I graduate on Friday, and then my Master’s degree will be official.

There are two things* that I’m not that good at: socializing and being productive consistently over long periods of time. As my grad school experience comes to an end, however, I’ve really amped up both, and now I’m having to balance the two activities (work and play) and not use one to avoid the other. And yes, I really do use work as an excuse to not do social things that make me nervous**.

I defend my thesis in seven days, graduate in nine, and move in eleven. I’m running out of time, and it only recently hit me that I could have done a lot more with my two years. Only in April did I start a strict six-days-per-week writing schedule (that I’ve kept to save for post-thesis relaxation and rejuvenation) and only about three weeks ago did I start being social on a regular basis (all these friends that I waited a year to meet!). I’m glad I got there in the end, but I can’t help wondering at all the time I missed out on.

I turned in my thesis last week, and since then I’ve gotten another story ready for publishing. I’ve also been out dancing a handful of times. And in between all that, I’ve been reading like mad off my thesis list, packed up well over half the apartment, and even found some time to relax. I don’t know what it is, but once I started balancing better, my days seemed to be longer.

*I’m obviously “not that good” at more than two things
**Nervous as in “meeting new people scares me and is a lot of work” not “I might be making poor life decisions if I’m social tonight”

I started this last year, and I thought the series finale mandated a repeat. If you’re so inclined, download the 2010 Favorite Character bracket. If you fill it out (I might do one pre-finale and another post-finale), post your finale four and ultimate winner here. Also available is a brand new death match bracket, asking the question Who would win in a fight between…?

Enjoy! And happy finale watching!

*EDIT* I only just realized that I should have made a typeable PDF, but I didn’t, so you’ll have to print. I put these together in about ten minutes total, so they don’t showcase my PW design skills, sadly.

I love Third Eye Blind, and after a long hiatus, they released a new album, Ursa Major, in August of 2009. It’s not my favorite of their albums–I’d say that’s a toss up between Blue and Out of the Vein–but it does have one of my favorite songs of theirs: Don’t Believe a Word (which, incidentally, has a kick ass video of black and white stop motion photography).

I’ve got a habit of listening to songs on repeat until I know all the words, and I’ve probably listened to this song a hundred times (and I still can’t get all the words!), including yesterday in my car on the way home from work. And there’s this one line in the song that I just love–but that I feel sort of wrong for loving. Read more…

Well it’s been a crazy month-and-a-half since I last posted. Joel moved back to Michigan, I spent two-and-a-half weeks at home, then came back to WA for my next-to-last quarter at EWU. And it was straight back to work with thesis meetings, a new class (nonfiction workshop), and lots of Willow Springs work.

Sophie trying to escape my clutches in November 2008.

Being home was fantastic. I made friends with Sophie (!). She still barked at me every morning when I came upstairs, but by mid-afternoon she was jumping up on the couch with me. Other than my dog befriending activities, I spent a lot of time relaxing. I think I did five 1,000 piece jigsaw puzzles. I also got hooked on Dollhouse. For Christmas I got so many books I couldn’t bring them all back to WA. And a sweet digital camera that I can’t wait to start using.

Back in Washington, the end is looming. My thesis looks way closer this side of Christmas. In nonfiction workshop I’m facing my fear of writing essays meant to be read by other people. For Willow Springs, we launched our new blog, and it took way more work to have ready than I’d expected, but it’s going fantastically well so far. I post on Mondays, so you should all go check those out. This week I talk about Amazon’s decision to pull all Macmillan books from its site. You can still buy the books, but only through third party sellers.

This isn’t a basketball blog by any means, but I pretty much have to say something right now.

Michigan State is Final Four bound! We’re going to Detroit to take on the UConn Huskies! And every four-year player for Tom Izzo has gone to a final four! Go State!