Recluse

1. one who lives a secluded, solitary life

2. me

I've been cranky and anti-social all weekend...probably because I'm freaking out about going back to school, but who knows. At least my room is clean and with all the old poem drafts I went through last night, I'll never, ever run out of scrap paper. But I have to snap out of this soon, since next week is going to be super busy and then *poof* I'm chest-deep in my final semester of my MFA. Yikes.

I'm probably the only person who can go to school full time and still need 3 and a half years to finish a masters degree, but for some reason, I feel like it's coming too soon. I seem to have the opposite of senioritis. I just don't want it to end. (Hence the frantic search for PhD programs.)

I talked to one of my old bosses the other day and she essentially offered me a job when I graduate. (She's the one who told me it was okay to quit my day job so I could be a full time student. She's also the one who said it's easier to get back into corporate after a few years away than it is to get back into academia. Easier than I imagned, now!) At any rate, this is exactly the kind of thing I'm afraid of. Even though I don't like the lifestyle of a 9-5er, I did enjoy the work I did--it was very analytical and a little creative and allowed me to do my second favorite thing after writing: making spreadsheets. I know, I'm weird. But all that color coding and sorting and making tabs...it's fun!

Here's the thing. I have a tendency to make choices based on practicality rather than passion, and taking that job offer is way more practical. But I'm sure that I would hate myself in a couple years because I know that corporate life takes too much energy for me to continue writing with any kind of vigor. So, I told her that I would be interested in independent contracting work between programs, but nothing full time or permanent. That way, if for some reason no PhD program wants me, I won't be stuck waiting tables later on. But I'm crossing my fingers that I don't have to go there.

In other news, I'm dying to cut my hair. Most of my life I've been a short hair kinda girl, see:

This picture was taken at a wedding just before I started grad school. So, that means I've been growing it out for about 3 years. And talking myself out of cutting it again for about 2 and a half. I told myself I would let it get long enough to donate to locks of love, but I'm still 2 or 3 inches away and am soo ready to chop this stuff off.

All right, I know no one cares about my hair. Sorry.

Time to go work on that syllabus.