Turn out the lights...the party's over...

Okay, so the first month was new to me: lots of reading, understanding new meanings and concepts, creating those files in my mind that have never been there due to lack of reading adult literature for so long, and a new friendship with dictionary.com. But I think the party's over, folks. I have just signed on to try and submit a chapter for a book that one of my professors is editing. Not a comic book; not a flip book; and not an elementary school chapter book, or even a picture book, for that matter...and, this isn't a year-long project, oh no; I've made it my final project for her class.

What, you ask? How could one write a chapter for a research book for a final project? That would mean it's due in December, right? Good questions, Sally. And Yes, you are correct. I will be submitting a chapter on student-centered classrooms to some book with the words "research and middle school" in the title. Have you inferred yet what I have to do in order to accomplish this task? No, Millsy in the back row, the title of the book does not say "What Hilary thinks about her classroom," so that would mean I have to research it first. This is what we in my new world would call an "extensive literature review." MY MASTERS PAPER WAS A LITERATURE REVIEW! MY WHOLE MASTERS DEPENDED ON WHAT I'M ABOUT TO DO FOR A FINAL PROJECT!

To those PhDs of you who are reading this and chuckling to yourselves, you just go right ahead. Because I have been too. I mean, I'm just cruisin' through the grocery store isles at nine at night (because that's when I get out of class), and I think of what I am about to have to do in the next two and a half months and it literally makes me laugh out loud. Not the, bend-over-b/c-you're-about-to-pee laughter, but the oh-my-god-who-lives-like-this? kind. There is a difference, you know.

Now, for those of you who usually call or email me after I write one of these dramatic vignettes, please remember who you're dealing with: she-who-could-be-an-actor-she's-so-full-of.....drama, fo sho! I'm just adding a bit of pain to make my "creative fiction" more interesting. Thank GOD I'm not doing it on Oprah or she'd fry me like she did James (pun intended). Good Lord, she ruined it for him, didn't she? I heard on NPR the other day that if you feel like you were manipulated by him and you bought his book, you can rip out a certain page number, mail it to him, and he'll refund your money. If ANY of you on this list are doing that, you will NOT be my friend any longer. Do you hear me, Jake? You can't do that for fun--it's just not funny... (well, kinda, it is)

SO, the book chapter is for one class. That will be, oh, what? 30 or 40 pages? No problemo! For the other two classes, I'll be doing some other kind of research project where I get to go out into the community, do really fabulous work with teachers and kids, and not be able to publish anything from it because I'm only a doc student--not a professor doing research. WHAT the H&*&*&F*&68*?

Other than the classes, the radio stations here are still baffling to me. You've got 35,000 kids packed into one town and you have one or two local radio stations. The rest come from the surrounding areas. But that's not the baffling part: they ALL are "Southern Rock" stations. I mean even the hip hop station plays an occasional Linard Skinard song. I've heard so many songs by the Eagles and Linard Skinard, I feel like I've been beamed back to the seventies. Oh, and R.E.M--don't even get me started. UGA had a benefit concert here last night where TEN local bands came and played REM cover all night to raise money for some club. You know Michael was probably there--I, unfortunately missed that one. And on the W-U-G-A-N-P-R station, every other morning I hear, "We'd like to thank one of our major supporters, Widespread Panic." You KNOW your town has it goin' on when Widespread is a major contributor to NPR!

A quick update on the weather: it's been a cool 75-85 degrees here in Athens, Ga, which makes a sista very happy.

I have to go. It's five o'clock here and I haven't done one piece of reading today. I think my brain is actually beginning to get the DTs because it hasn't come across anything I don't understand all day long. Well...you can't count watching the slightly obese college girls walk around in there horrible strapless, elastic-waisted shirts, because that kills me every day!

All of y'all take care. I think about you often. It's not lonely here, because I'm too busy to be lonely. It's just....not what I'm used to. I do love every minute of what I'm doing (except this horrid author with the last name of Crotty--if any of you know him, I'm glad he's not alive or I'd call him and tell him he's a horrible writer), and I miss everyone everywhere you are.

Love, love, love,

Hil