Early

I've been away. Which is to say that I've been working my $&/)\#!! off on midterms and papers. Results have been coming in. That's always intense: the heartbeat just as you open the exam book or click "my grades" online.

I've decided I won't be doing any more online courses. It's not that I don't have the discipline, it's that other things just seem to take precedence - things where it was a face and a name that told you what to do. The anonymous online instruction just seems to just stay in the background. Oh, the deadlines are still there, but you [read, "I"] always seem to hit to hit them running with the words "holy crap, that's due next week!" or a derivative thereof.

I've been thinking about this blog over the past week. It seems fairly easy to think of things to write for it, and I enjoy doing it. So why, I ask myself, couldn't I think of things to write over the past twenty years? It's exasperating. Was it work that shut me down? Insurance certainly is a creativity killer. Is it a coincidence that I started writing the moment I knew I was returning to school? I picture myself on my deathbed, rattling, gasping for air, looking up at the healthy face before me, hearing it ask if I have any regrets... And me slowly replying: "Yes, I do. I regret that I never found my voice."

So I have a memo due tomorrow; yes, a four-page memo - a proposal for the main project in my Professional and Technical Writing course. The online thing. I'm going to get it done and submit it today. I've figured out already that there is a lot of subjectivity in the way they mark these papers, so I'm just going to do the best I can.

Anyway, a round of scrabble before breakfast. I got here at 6:39 today. I'm such a keener.

J

Ps: constructive comments are welcome, below.