My college graduation ceremony is this weekend, and I'm looking forward to it. I actually graduated after the Fall '07 semester, thanks to cramming in 20 units and earning 6 more units of competency exams before Xmas, but I wanted to "walk" in the actual ceremony, and that's what's going down Saturday. Dad and mom/stepdad are coming up to see, and Malaya and the IG will be in attendance as well, so that should be interesting. My parents haven't seen Malaya since we broke up 1.5 years ago, and she and the IG have never met, and my mom and dad have been divorced for nearly 30 years and though they're not fighting, they only see each other about twice a year (during my Xmas visits, usually) despite living just a few miles apart. I might be the only student there with 5 guests sitting in 4 different places?
Adding fuel to the fire (almost literally) is the crazy weather. It hadn't been over 80 here more than a few days all year, despite being a very sunny and dry spring. Suddenly, just in time for graduation and this mini-family reunion, El Sol has erupted directly overhead, and it's supposed to be (fucking) 97 today. The
average high for May in San Rafael? 73. The all time record for May is 100, so with some "luck" we might break that this afternoon. I'd be perfectly happy to never feel weather over 70 at any point during the rest of my life, so you can imagine my happiness at this development.
It's supposed to be cooler (as the frying pan is to the fire) over the weekend, with the
mercury plummeting to 92 by Saturday. At least I won't be standing around for hours in the sun in a long black robe and hat. Oh wait...
The last time it was this hot was the summer of 2006, when weeks of a humid heat wave eventually drove Malaya and me to spend
the best $349 ever. (That $349 has been sitting, unused, on her back patio ever since that summer ended, but I still say it was worth it. I'd bring it over here to replace the puny a/c unit in my apt, but the hole in my apt wall is way too small, and I don't plan on living here so much longer that I'm willing to go home carpentry style and thereby entirely give up my $1200 damage deposit.)
It's far from that miserably-hot now, and it's only supposed to be this hot for a few days, but here's the irony. Around the time it was so super hot in 2006 was just before Malaya's graduation. She was getting her PhD then, so she's still a couple of degrees ahead of me, but my parents were impressed enough to want to come see the festivities. So the last time they were up here was 2 years ago, for a college graduation, and it was hella hot. Now they're returning, for a college graduation... and it's hella hot. That's almost enough to put me off of my thoughts of grad school.
Speaking of grad school, that won't be starting any time soon. If at all. Like about 90% of the applicants, I was not accepted to the writing program I applied to. No idea why not, they don't explain their decisions, but since I never seriously expected to be accepted, I wasn't surprised. I was disappointed, but not terribly, and one benefit of them taking so long to notify me is that I've largely forgotten why I wanted to go. When I applied I was just finished with my 18 month return to college, and thought more of it, in a school that was actually challenging, would be fun. I'd improve my writing craft, I'd make connections in the publishing industry, I'd gain education in areas I'm interested in, and I might even meet some intelligent young women who shared my interest in the written word.
I still think that would be kind of cool, but is it worth delaying the start of my real career another two years? At $22k a year? Not so sure. I could, in theory, manage the graduate writing program course load while also working on my novels and outside writing at the same time, but in reality I think it would lead to brain burn out. There's only so much time I can spend reading, writing, and writing about what I'm reading without needing to spend some time and some brain cycles on non-literary pursuits. I could write novels at night while attending business or law school (I'd probably
need to to clear my head of the technical stuff), but I'm not sure the streams wouldn't get hopelessly crossed and snarled if I were trying that while working my way through a "2 novels a week" writing program.
So sure, working on and publishing fantasy novels while doing a writing grad program focused on non-fiction, great books, classics, the publishing industry, etc, is possible, but likely? I've got some time to think it over now, at least, and I'm planning to spend this summer getting really serious about editing my fantasy novel and contacting literary agents while I start working on the sequel. Come the fall, depending on how that's going, I'll decide if I'm still interested in graduate writing programs.
The deadline for applying to most schools is around January 1st. Since I didn't think seriously about grad writing programs until Xmas, I missed the cutoff for several programs that sounded good. If they still appeal to me in 6 months I might try my luck again, but by applying to several this time, instead of just one very selective one in my immediate vicinity. Perhaps I'll have something more impressive to put on my resume by then?
(Though honestly, I have no idea if published mainstream fiction is a good thing on a grad writing program resume. The prestigious grad school writing programs have a reputation as being fiercely and defiantly artsy-fartsy, which is why I never really thought I had a chance. My stated goal was to write high quality work, but high quality commercial fantasy/horror novels -- not nuanced poetry that will never be read by more than fifty people, a dozen of whom might actually understand it. Poetry is a noble goal, but it's not my goal, since 1) I don't get it, and 2) I'd like to do this for a living.)
Labels: college, weather, writing
