[Izulde]

It was an interesting first year, with a lot of ups and downs. I'd say overall I've been happy here - the program is excellent, and although I'm still far more antisocial than I should be, my social life is improved immensely over Arkansas. The weather, of course, is a huge plus, something that's hit home even more clearly after having been back in Wisconsin for a week. I also had a pedagogy paper accepted at AWP, the major national writers and writing program conference, and finally got to see Junot Diaz give a reading and actually spend a couple minutes talking to him at a bar afterwards.

On the down side, I spent most of the year struggling to write, and even though the program is great, the faculty and my fellow students wonderful, I still suffered from chronic depression (which contradicts the overall happy, I know) and have never gotten over the fact that I never tried for Princeton and never went to a private school. The latter is especially eating away at me what with the budget crisis here and the asshole Republicans wanting to destroy education in Nevada. My program is still safe, as it's one of the highest ranked in the school, but.. yeah I'm not going to go on about it. Makes me angry all over again just thinking about it.

Love life is still nonexistant. Had a possibility of a thing developing with a Romanian girl, but before it could really get started, I got cold feet and vanished on her. Then again, Las Vegas is a terrible city to be a single intellectual, particularly for the women, which is why a good number of the relationships that form here are within the program. I just haven't really been attracted to anyone.

The worst part of this year was probably failing the MA exam at Arkansas a second time. That means no MA for me. I don't regret the two years I spent there, though - I learned a lot and wrote my MFA application manuscript there.

Second worst part was probably today, when I received word that one of the PTIs here, who graduated with his MFA last year, passed away suddenly. Big time shock.

I'm still not sure yet where I'll study abroad - part of me wants to go back to Europe, another part of me wants to go South America, and another part of me wants to go to Japan or Korea or somewhere around there.

I'm also not sure what I'll do once I graduate in 2013. Teaching would be easiest, but 1) the job market is horrible, 2) I don't really like teaching all that much, to be honest. I know I have to get some sort of day work, because I'm not going to be able to make money from writing right off the bat. I've considered getting a paralegal certificate (loved the law course I took as an undergraduate). I've also thought about trying to get into something sports related, but I don't have the connections to do that, unfortunately.

So we'll see what happens this second year. Fall of my third year I'll be studying abroad, and I'll have my schedule set up so that my final semester will be entirely thesis hours.