Firsts

I thought I'd go ahead and give an update on a few "firsts" I experienced these past few days. 

First Bike Ride:

I went for a solid 8+ mile bike ride on Monday before class. I took the Spring Creek Trail behind my condo to where it meets up with the Poudre Trail (which isn't far at all). I discovered that, while you could ride the paved trails along one side of the river, you could also go around and get to the less-traveled dirt trails on the other side of the river. I loved these trails because they were quiet and I saw very few people. They were also fairly easy to ride on, so I didn't run into a bunch of extreme mountain bikers. In fact, I was the only one on a bike - the rest were walking. 

The dirt trail eventually met up again with the paved one, and from there I decided to see how I could get to downtown by taking the trails. It was pretty lengthy, but not too strenuous. I wouldn't do it if I was wanting to go out with friends because I'd arrive looking pretty sweaty, but I did do a little bit of shopping. Although, I was self-conscious of the fact that I was wearing a backpack and thought the shop owners might suspect it was for the purpose of stealing something. There was a lot of pretty scenery along the way. Unfortunately, from my understanding, these are not areas where you can fish :/

My other outdoor adventure happened this evening at Horsetooth Reservoir. It is the first time I have actually walked around Horsetooth and I loved it! Last night was my first fiction workshop (more about that later). Per tradition, the workshop reconvened afterward for drinks, and  I got to talking to another first-year in the program, Mandi, who also likes to hike and moved here from far away. We decided to check out Horsetooth this evening, but our plan to hike the actual mountain was ill-conceived: we figured if we just drove up into the reservoir it would be obvious where the trailhead was. Not so much. It's about a half-hour drive to the actual mountain, so we decided to save that for Friday when we could start earlier and be more prepared. Tonight, we just hiked along the dirt trails in the hills and then walked down to the beach. 

We took off our shoes and found that the sand kind of ends and there is this really thick mud, possibly clay. It sinks like quicksand if you try to wade into the water. Although it looks gross, it feels amazing - like really soft cookie dough. We did not pass by any people where we were. It was very quiet and peaceful listening to the water and watching the sun set. 

I have concluded that I need to really sit down and figure out the settings on my camera, because from the way my pictures turned out it was obvious that I'm not getting the most out of my camera. On the walk back to the car, we passed by some people fishing, and I later saw some nice bike trails and another lake. A lot of people were arriving when we left -- mostly bikers and some kayakers. We were very jealous of the kayaks and might look into renting some on Friday or going swimming. It was nice to have some company finally!

I have, as of now, attended all the classes I signed up for. The "peak" of my time here so far has been my outdoor adventures and my writing workshop. I am very excited to begin this class. My instructor is an older lady with tattoos and dreadlocks and is incredibly sweet and enthusiastic about writing and teaching. At the orientation, I talked to her about my week at Iowa and the independent/used bookstores I've been to and Amazon's frightening plot to monopolize the publishing industry. She was immediately easy to talk to and I already feel comfortable in her class (I even signed up to be workshopped first - next week). I have a history now of volunteering to go first because usually no one else wants to. I like going first because the group is so new that no one has had a chance yet to be comfortable tearing someone's story apart, and it gives me a chance to get one of the workshops out of the way so the rest of the semester looks more manageable. I am thrilled that she gave me the go-ahead to submit one of the stories I gave Colorado State for my application, as it has never appeared in a workshop before and I have only ever heard one person's opinion of it. I also love, love, love the room we are meeting in. It is what I always fantasized a workshop room to be like: all of us sitting around a conference table in a room full of books. And dark wood.

There is a "free book" table on the same floor where we meet. My assumption (and allegedly this may come true later in the semester) was that it would be just a bunch of reject novels, overstock stuff, maybe even Fabio romance novels. I was shocked to find it full of new and old literary journals - lots of Colorado Review, some I'd heard of before like Southern Review, Atlantic, Pleiades (Central MO State), and Missouri Review, and even some I hadn't heard of, like the Hawai'i review and some East Coast publications. I got very excited, my hands sort of shaking as I added more and more to my pile (I honestly would have taken the whole table if not for my shame). When I went to Iowa, I saw for the first time a bunch of literature journals in one place, and these you had to buy for, like, $8-15 apiece. I still can't believe I got this whole stack for free. They wouldn't all fit in my bag (yes, that's how bad it was), so I had to pedal the whole 2+ miles home one-handed with this stack of journals under my arm. It was worth it, though.

The pit of my week, I have to say, are my other two classes and Colorado State University. Coming from a perspective of having been involved in student affairs at Missouri State, I am very aware of the difference in the information provided to new students between the two schools. At MSU, there were signs everywhere pointing you in the right direction, informing you about things. You got letters in the mail explaining what to do when you got to campus, you were directed to specific places to collect information about the campus, about your classes, etc. Not here. I thought it was just the grad students that got shunned, but I've heard they haven't done a great job with undergrads, either. Everyone is lost. Many people ended up in the wrong classes these past couple days. The buildings, I've noticed, are not clearly marked - there is one spot on the building that clues you in to which one it is, and it is often kind of hard to find. I learned through word of mouth that you're not allowed to ride your bike on campus at CSU - you have to walk it once you get onto campus, which is extremely counterintuitive if you ask me. We had bike paths on campus at MSU, and it's about a fourth of the size. I also got chased down by a cop in a car for failing to stop at a stop sign on my bicycle. I tried to explain to him that I just moved here and I am not from a bike-friendly town, that I've never been somewhere that people bike as much as drive, and he continued to be accusatory and rude, and I was really flustered having all these people walk by and stare at us in the middle of the road. It just made me realize all the little things that would have been good to know as someone who is new to CSU/Fort Collins. Coming from a university that is extremely welcoming of new students, it makes me feel a bit betrayed that CSU hasn't stepped up with some info for those of us who know nothing about the university. I hate that I feel that way already about my school. 

I learned one of my classes will not count toward my degree. Upon examining the degree requirement notes, I noticed that at one point it tells you "At least 12 credits have to be 500-level or above", which sounds to me like some of them could be under 500-level. Then, later on, it says that ALL of them have to be 500-level or above, which explains my initial confusion. I looked over the schedule to see if anything else interested me, and I was once again reminded of how disappointed I am in this semester's classes. Most of the classes are internships (which can only fill degree requirements to a certain extent), classes on teaching (which you aren't supposed to take until year 2) and theory classes (yawn). I am trying to get an override to take a class on teaching creative writing. 

My other class, one of the few 500+-level literature classes offered this semester, was called "Crossing Boundaries in Literature" when I signed up for it. No description. Turns out, it is a class on colonial literature around the world - which, I'm sorry to say, are the two topics that interest me the least in reading (mostly because they will never, ever influence my writing). The pro is that this class is taking a more contemporary turn (most of the texts were written after the 1980s) yet it can still count for my requirement that I take a class on pre-20th-century literature. Pre-20th-century literature makes me want to cry, it is so boring to read. The con is that it is still about colonialism, still mostly international, there are two 10-page papers (I have a hard time writing 6-page papers), plus movies outside of class, huge reading loads, a couple presentations, and just all-around sounds like a very difficult class that I will be very, very uninterested in. I was thinking today about how I took at least 30 hours of literature classes as an undergrad, and really only one of them turned out to coincide with my personal writing interests. I would love to study contemporary American fiction or short fiction. I'd love to read literary texts that have been published in the last 20 years. I feel like I am always studying something that is entirely foreign to me or written way too long ago to influence my writing. Don't get me wrong, I have very much enjoyed some of these classes I've taken and have appreciated breaking the mold of what I usually read, but I have always felt at some point I would really get down to studying more contemporary American authors, texts that are more in tune with what I write or want to write. I wanted grad school to be more about pursuing my personal academic interests and it is turning out to be...not that way. 

Sorry to end this post with something negative. Looking forward to hopefully hiking Horsetooth mountain on Friday, beginning work with the Colorado Review on Friday, seeing my friends over Labor Day weekend, and starting work in the writing center next week (I get 10 hours/week this semester - yahoo!)