I’ve been on a reading streak lately. I haven’t had much else to do, because I’m not swamped with homework yet. There is a tv in my room, but I’ve never been big on tv. Plus, it’s Brittany’s, and it’s not visible in my parts of the room (I feel awkward just sitting on her bed and watching it, even though she keeps saying that I can). I could check out one of the numerous movies from the library and watch it on my computer, but I don’t have the urge to. So I read. I’ve read Persuasion, by Jane Austen, The Thirteenth Tale, by Diane Setterfield, Bloodsuckers, by Christopher Moore, and Slaughterhouse-Five, by Kurt Vonnegut. All of them were great books. Austen’s was sentimental, Setterfield’s was a mystery, Moore’s was hilarious, and Vonnegut’s was….well, hard to describe. So I had a nice range of emotions in my picks. I pulled On the Road, by Jack Kerouac, and The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, by Carson McCullers, out of the library. I’m hoping I can finish those two before there is too much work for me to do.

 The conference began on Thursday with a convocations session where Eleanor Wilner was the guest speaker. Later that night, we had a banquet as a welcoming dinner where Geoffrey Wolff delivered a monologue he had written. Brittany and I took pictures and made some new friends. We both wore dresses that were not appropriate for the 40 degree weather, but we were, fortunately, inside most of the time.

I read my paper Friday morning in front of a small audience of students. It wasn’t quite the excruciating 10 minutes that I made it out to be. Of course, I forgot to bring a bottle of water up with me, so my mouth was worse than dry, but other than that, the reading was fine. Unfortunately, Brittany and I were in different rooms at the same time, so we did not get to hear each other read. After our sessions, we ate breakfast and then went to hear a session where one of our new friends, David, read a story. It was an interesting satire on fantasy that he calls a mix between Harry Potter and Huckleberry Finn on crack. We mostly attended sessions that were poetry readings rather than research papers. It was definitely entertaining to listen to. They served us lunch (but ran out of vegetarian sandwiches, so I had to buy food) and Bret Anthony Johnston read the introduction of Naming the World. I have to say that he was the most entertaining of the three authors.

That night we attended a poetry reading and Brittany, of course, read two of her amazing poems. It was interesting to listen to students from around the country read their poetry, as well. The man in charge of the poetry reading said it was one of the best attended readings yet (though I have to say that it doesn’t compare to the poetry coffeehouses at Lynn; I just didn’t feel the same sense of closeness in the room).

Afterwards, we went bowling at a place called Fat Cats. Brittany had made us about 7 new friends from the conference, so there was a huge group of us. Four of them were a group of boys who had roadtripped all the way from Oregon and didn’t even have a place to stay for the night. We found out later that they slept in a park. Talk about dedication to literature!

On Saturday, we attended some more sessions. I think two of them were poetry and another one was with a couple of people with whom we had bowled. One girl read a paper about James Joyce’s Ulysses and T.S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.” She kind of gave me the urge to read Ulysses, though, in general, I’m not attracted to Joyce’s writing. Another student in the last sesssion read a paper about a graphic novel called Fun Home. I had never before considered graphic novels as literature, but I would have to agree that this one was. It was a memoir by, I think, someone named Bechdale, though I’m not sure.

After all of the sessions were over, there was a question and answer period for the authors who had attended. People asked about publishing and living off their writing (which all of the authors agreed is not likely to happen; most authors hold jobs other than just their writing careers).

The conference (and Utah) was an experience. Although I was sometimes bored, I definitely don’t regret coming. Meeting all of the people I met and the experience of actually attending the conference was amazing. Now we’re sitting at the hotel waiting for the time when we need to go to the airport to catch our plane. I should probably go and catch up on the homework I’ve missed while I’m waiting…

So I haven’t blogged about this, but I thought it was about time to get down to it since I’m leaving on Wednesday. Dr. Morgan submitted my research paper for American Literature I to the National Undergraduate Literary Conference at Weber University, and it was accepted. This is not something I expected to be doing, but it is an honor nonetheless. The conference lasts from April 2-6, and it is in Salt Lake City, Utah. Brittany B. was also accepted for her poetry, so we both get to go. We will fly out together (at 7:00 in the morning!), stay in a room together, and come back on the next Monday (at 5:30 in the morning!). And Lynn University is paying for everything, which I couldn’t be more grateful for. I would never have had this opportunity if it weren’t for that fact.

As the day approaches, I get more and more excited and more and more nervous.  I’m going to be reading a paper that I wrote to an audience of people that I’ve never met. If that’s not nerveracking, I don’t know what is. And I’m going to meet so many people! I’m not the most social person in the world. In addition to listening to other students from around the nation read their papers, there will be three published authors at the conference who will be guest speakers. They are Geoffrey Wolff, Eleanor Wilner, and Bret Anthony Johnston. I think this is a great opportunity that Lynn has provided me with and I am going to do everything I can to get as much out of it as possible.

OK, so I’ve finally done it. I’ve fallen in love with a fictional character. Lame, right? I’ve been seeing the Twilight Series (by Stephenie Meyer) for a few months now in the teen section at Barnes and Noble. The cover always looked interesting, but I decided not to read it, thinking it was going to be a lame teen romance. I was SOOO wrong. It kept popping up everywhere, so I decided to read a little bit about it, and it sounded interesting. Then I was talking to my cousin about it (she’s 13) and she simply raved about it. Couldn’t say enough. So I was like, okay, I HAVE to read this book.

When I went to work the first Monday back, I bought the first book, Twilight, with a gift card I got for Christmas. I stayed up until 2:30 in the morning reading it before I decided I really should get some sleep. I forced myself to go bed. The next day, I sat by myself at lunch (despite an invitation to join someone’s table) so I could read it. I even read during class (ideal student, right?). I finished sometime the next day, I think.

When I went to work again, Saturday, I borrowed the second book, New Moon, from Barnes and Noble. Came home, yanked it out of my bag, and continued reading the story….til 4:00 in the morning. I think I even skipped dinner because it was too much hassle to pause for even a few minutes. I didn’t finish it; I surprisingly decided to go to bed. I finished it before I went to work the next day.

Went to work Sunday. Returned that book and borrowed the last book so far, Eclipse. I didn’t read it while I worked because I was sure I would neglect my job if I did. The whole time, though, I couldn’t wait to start it. That night, finally got home around 9:00, and again collapsed on the bed to devour the book. I had about an hours interruption to hang out with some friends I felt a little obligated to hang out with (I didn’t want to neglect my social life completely in favor of a book).  So when I came back to my room around 12 or one or two or something, I picked it up again, intending to finish the very same night. I told Aly 2 hours: that’s exactly when I finished it. Again, 4:oo in the morning (there was no school the next day, so staying up late wasn’t a big deal). Mind you, this is 600+ page book that I finished in maybe 6 hours. That is how into it I was! 

So I finished the series. The next book is supposed to be published this fall and I will be at a bookstore the first day it’s out to buy it. I haven’t been this crazy over a book since the Harry Potter series. Stephenie Meyer has created her own little world with these books and nearly every teenage girl in the country wants to join it. I can’t help but gush. If you love light romance, these are absolutely amazing!! I have never in my life so wanted a character to be real. I do now….

I learned a new word today: ghazal. I’m reading The Clerk’s Tale, a volume of poetry by Spencer Reese, who’s coming to campus I believe on December 4, and one of the poems is called “Ghazals for Spring.” I considered just reading it without knowledge of the word, but I eventually felt like I was missing something, so I looked it up. It sounded so foreign and I even wondered whether or not it was a real word. It is. It’s a kind of Oriental lyric, and usually erotic, poem written in recurring rhymes. That definition doesn’t seem to fit the poem, though. It doesn’t have recurring rhymes and it definitely isn’t erotic (either that or my mind is so innocent that I’m just not seeing it). So I don’t know. There are other definitions of it that say it’s a kind of song; I prefer that. It works better.

Oh, and I feel like such a bad vice-president of the poetry club. I didn’t say anything about the poetry coffeehouse in my blog, either before or after it. It was on Thursday night and I think it was a pretty big success. A lot of people showed up and there were a lot of people who read, including some performers from an album called JuSill Street Poetry. A lot of the poetry was really inspirational. One professor read a series of poems about lint; they were hilarious. She wrote about the frustrations of having lint all in your laundry and on mats despite the lint catcher in the dryer. I can completely identify with it; I hate lint. We have a yellow mat in front of our sink that always has some wierd blue lint stuck in it after we wash it. I literally sit there and pick it out; it drives me nuts. But anyway, poetry coffeehouse: for the first time, I actually stayed and put the chairs away and cleaned up. Christina had to leave early. It’s good though because I’m going to have to get into the habit of doing it anyway. Our next coffeehouse is December 6th, and I hope it’s successful, as well, despite  the fact that it’s in the middle of exam time.

Today is Halloween, but I don’t have the Halloween spirit. I have a seniorita costume, but I don’t feel like wearing it; I have candy, but at 8:30 in the morning; I have something to do, but I’m going to be late for it because of work (I almost wonder if it’s not worth it?).

However, at work I do get to dress up. I think that’s the only part of the day I’m excited about. Since I work in the children’s section at Barnes and Noble, I think my costume is particularly apropos: a child. I’m going to wear pajamas, hopefully house shoes, carry around a little bunny rabbit, put my hair in pigtails, and draw freckles on my face. There is a costume contest for the employees and the employee with the best costume wins a $20 gift card. I would love to have it, but it’s not likely that I’ll win. One girl made an entire dress out of Barnes and Noble gift cards; I think my child costume is pretty likely out of the running.

It’s a shame that I’m too old for trick-or-treating and that I don’t like parties, because then I might have something to do. It looks like I might be spending my night with the most valiant knight-errant who ever lived, Don Quixote of La Mancha.

I finally got a chance to read! I’m actually reading three books right now. I’m reading The Memory Keeper’s Daughter, which is amazing! So far, it’s about a doctor who delivered his wife’s twins. The little girl had Down Syndrome, so he told the nurse to take her away and told his wife she had died. The little boy is perfectly healthy and they raise him. The nurse ends up raising the daughter herself and moving to another state. I can’t wait to finish reading it.

The other book I’m reading is The Little Prince. I read it once, and then I decided I had to read it again. It’s a children’s book, but it’s so philosophical and everything is a symbol of something else. I especially liked this quote from it: a little flower says “I have to put up with 2 or 3 caterpillars if I want to get to know the butterflies. I thought that was so relevant to every day life.

Finally, I’m reading A Little Princess on my breaks at Barnes and Noble. I saw the movie when I was young (I actually own it now) and I cry every time I watch it. It’s the most magically sad story. As I’m reading it, though, I’m finding that I prefer the movie to the book, which is uncommon. But honestly, if you ever see this movie in a video store or something, you have to see it. It’s amazing.

What is art coming to these days? Not just visual art, but poetry, literature, etc. We had a nice discussion in my poetry class about what is considered poetry today, and whether or not it should be considered such. The main question was: How far is too far in poetry? Holly used the example of a poem with one word: Dog. Someone could probably pass that off as a poem. I read a poem that was the same sentence repeated for about 10 lines. To me, that is not poetry. I wondered how it had even made its way into an anthology. It was just a sentence being repeated over and over. I know another recent form of poetry is the prose poetry. Maybe this is just me, but I’ve always perceived a poem as having some kind of structure to it to make it more meaningful. Prose poetry, to me, is just a beautiful piece of prose, nothing more.

 And with art, I use this example all the time: Someone can put a dot on a peice of paper and pass it off as high art. It’s not! It’s a dot on a peice of paper. How can something like that be put into an art show?

 All forms of art have lessened in quality in the past 50 years or so. I don’t think anyone could surpass Shakespeare and da Vinci, but a repeated line? A dot? Is that really necessary?

 Art should be something that takes talent, and not everyone has that talent. That’s not a bad thing, though, don’t get me wrong. I’m not trying to say that you’re talentless if you can’t produce some kind of art. But the quality of art should not be lessened simply so someone can say they’ve created it. It should be meaninful and worthwhile, not a repeated line and not a simple dot.

My life is sad right now. I have no time to read. Okay, so it’s not the crisis of the century, but it’s a big deal for me. I have so many books that I want to read and new books are always being recommended to me. Let’s see, there’s The Boleyn Girl series, Nineteen Minutes, The Memory Keeper’s Daughter, a couple of books I’ve seen in the children’s section at Barnes and Noble, A Thousand Splended Suns, and a million other books that I just want to reread. But I can’t because I have so much homework. I almost had a meltdown yesterday when I realized that I three tests and three papers due next week…by Wednesday.

 Plus: Poetry club is having problems with the poetry coffeehouse. Everything is being done late, so everything is naturally going wrong. We couldn’t print the flyers that Jean made for us because one: we have microsoft word; he has vista. We couldn’t open them on our computers. Two: Even if we could print them, it would end up being black and white when we want it to be in color. The coffeehouse is next week, mind you, so we want to get these flyers up, mmmm, I don’t know, yesterday? But it’s just not working for us. It doesn’t help that both Christina and I are swamped with other things to do (Christina’s the president of the poetry club).  

 With any luck, things will slow down, I’ll get a chance to read a book or two, and the poetry coffeehouse on October 2nd will be absolutely amazing. I hope that’s not wishful thinking…..