School has started...and I'm coming to Seattle for a visit.

School started last week and I finally have an idea of what life will be like for the next several years. When I registered for classes originally, I signed up for 3 classes, but after securing my job I was curious as to whether many students worked full time and went to school full time so at student orientation I asked about it. I was told that especially for my first semester it was a very bad idea. So, I dropped one of my classes. I am very thankful I did. My usual reading load is about 1 to 2 books a week, but now I'm going to have to double that and I still have to find time to write papers, prepare questions, and give presentations. Three classes would have been impossible while I am working.

Here is what my schedule looks like. I have class Monday from 3:30 to 5:30 and Tuesday from 5:30-7:30, and I work Monday through Friday from 9 until 5:30 or earlier on days that I have to get to class. On days that I have class I leave work early and take Metro North to campus because it is faster than the subway. On days I don't have class I take the subway to campus and study in the library until all hours of the night. Fordham has a community van that takes local students to their apartments around campus after hours. It runs from 10 pm to 5 am, and I've been taking it several times a week so I don't have to walk home alone late from the library.

The classes I'm taking are Modernists/Victorians and 20th Century African-American Literature: Black Women Writers. I just finished reading Wuthering Heights and I am read a novel called The Street by Ann Petry which takes place in Harlem in the '40s.

You might know that Virginia Woolf is pretty much my all time favorite author. And I'm happy to announce that her novel To the Lighthouse is on the reading list for my Modernists/ Victorians class, but I am even happier to have found out that next summer the Lincoln Center campus of Fordham will host the 19th annual Virginia Woolf conference with the theme Woolf in the City. I intend to write a paper and submit an abstract so that I might be able to present it at the conference. But, even if I don't get to present it would be wonderful just to attend, and it's so close.

I'm coming back to Seattle next week for a visit and I have some great plans. My boyfriend, Daniel, is a concierge at Pacific Place and one of the perks of his job is that various restaurants and organizations give him complementary passes and gift certificates to their venues. Well, he got seats to see Teatro Zinzanni. Check out their website at: www.teatrozinzanni.com. They are a circus group that performs a show under a circus tent while serving a 5 course meal by Tom Douglas. It is one of the best nights out you could even want to have. I've seen it several times before but the cast changes regularly and because it is live something different always happens.
Other things I plan on doing while in Seattle are: have dinner at Tango (a Spanish restaurant on Capitol Hill), see as many people as possible in the few days I am there, and go to stitching circle at Renaissance Yarns. I will be there on Saturday the 20th in the morning and I'm really looking forward to it.

Well, off to the library.