My life is crazy. A few fragments:

I'm trying to learn time management. The problem is I'm good at managing my time -- I just don't have enough of it. I've found it helps to think of work in hours, rather than tasks to complete. I try to put in 10-12 hours a day (including class, homework, lesson planning, grading, etc.) on weekdays and 6-8 on Saturday and Sunday. Then at night I try to spend 2-3 hours writing. Some days I succeed; some days not. At any rate, I think I'm improving. This week I've still been emotionally and physically exhausted, but at least I'm sleeping enough.

The weather was getting chilly last week. We even had some light flurries one day. I have started to notice it being warmer at my cabin in the hills, which is nice. This week the forecast is 40's and 50's though, so I'll be out on the porch swing (where I am right now) as much as I can be.

This past weekend was Starvation Gulch, a celebration (if I remember right) of the founding of Fairbanks and the first winter here, during which many of the settlers starved to death. So Fairbanksans make teams to build structures out of scrap wood and burn them. I'm not quite sure what the point of this is, except that you get to look at really big fires and stand outside in the cold and not be cold.

I'm fairly certain John, Liz, and I (who are all 1st year TA's with cubicles near each other) are slowly going crazy together. I base this assertion on random singing, dancing, rapping, pride in one's hats, conversations about the existence of Tom Webster (my supposed cubicle-mate) and the like.

Last weekend I went with some friends to check out College Coffeehouse, which is just off campus. They had good chai, good music, a discount for college students, and overall, just made me feel at home. Now I just need to find money to spend on chai, and I could perhaps live there and be happy.

We workshopped one of my stories in prose workshop this week, and it went really well. People were engaged and had very helpful comments, so I'm looking forward to revising it more. I'm loving being in this community of writers still. The theme this week seemed to be publishing. At a meeting of MFA students and faculty, people shared where they were going to have work coming out, and yesterday we had Anthony Varallo, writer and editor of Crazy Horse, here for the visiting writers series, so there's been lots of talk about the subject in general. It has definitely motivated me to set goals for myself in getting more of my work out there.

Most helpful advice I have received (from John): "If you get scared, just keep teaching!"