Friday, August 2, 2013

Back to School: Packing for PLU (at age 44!)

I have decided to re-activate my lit blog to document my exciting and upcoming experience at grad school. Facebook just won't fit the musings and findings I experience, so I thought a more organic diary documentation of this would be fitting on Blogger. Today, I am packing my bags to leave for college in the morning. I got two weeks off work (Nordstrom rocks). I will miss so many of the amazing women and new friends I have made in the Beauty division at the store, but I get to realize my dream and focus on my poems and give my entire heart to the love of my life: POETRY. I begin my Masters residency at PLU to get my MFA in Creative Writing/Poetry. I will only be gone at my residency for 2 weeks, then I will meet and partner with a professor/mentor and work on my writing one on one with them, in a low-residency fashion, by working at home in mail, emails and writing writing writing throughout the year. However, for this first meetup, I have to move into a dorm on campus in Harstad Hall and will be living there with all my other program peers who are flying in from around the world to attend the Rainier Writers Workshop program at PLU. We get food cards, to take our meals in the cafeteria, and have to pack all our things and bring them to campus by tomorrow! I never lived in a dorm EVER! I get my own little room, but I have to share a bathroom with other peeps on the floor, which sucks for too many reasons to list, but most of you don't need a lot of 'splainin' on that one. As I load up my suitcase and my car, I am bringing everything that I need for the duration. How telling it all is of my age as I load up on: BP meds, Pamprin, a portable fan, my beloved fur blanket, compression socks, my various wrinkle creams and tinctures and a solid supply of Starbucks Via....I haven't been in college since the 90s, so my list of stuff to bring has changed so greatly at this age, I find it comical. Its mostly all pharmaceutical! :/ doh!