First packet: off!

My mentor, looking studious during workshop

    I put my last first packet in the mail yesterday.  It’s sad that I won’t be doing this anymore.  My last-last packet will go in the mail at the end of May, and that will be it.  Well, I do want to do a post-grad semester, but I need to establish myself in the full-time work world after this, so I want to wait until I have that under control before I go the post-grad semester.
    My mentor this semester is David Yoo, and he has his students mail their packets to him, most mentors, my past ones included, prefer email.  It’s a little different, but by no means difficult, and thanks to Flat Rate shipping, not expensive at all.  Putting it in the actual mail felt a little mor final than emailing it, but strangely I haven’t experienced sender’s remorse.  I think that if I haven’t by now, thirty-two hours later, I probably won’t.  This is a nice surprise on the self-confidence front, and hopefully it makes my little novel feel good.
    I had to send forty thoroughly revised pages of my novel, along with my Artist’s Statement (my last Artist’s Statement!...for now).  The page quota for semesters one and two is 20-25 pages (third semester has no creative writing quote, since most students only have the time and mental capacity to work on the critical thesis), and since I follow rules very well, I usually sent around 20.  Or 19.9.  But now there is no range.  The handbook had an example of a fourth semester Plan, and I pretty much copied that.  Forty this time, fifty next time, the entire 120-150 the third time (this includes the previous 90, with the mentor’s comments taken into account, and most likely acted upon).  I was nervous at first, because I still have two (out of six) characters to write, and they were the only two I had to do capital “R” Research for.  I’m almost done researching one, who is a soldier.  I still have to write him, and research and write the other one, but I just...don’t feel worried.  Right now, anyway.
    I decided to rearrange my chapters a little bit.  Right now, I have my novel divided into three parts, which I tried to be too cool for school and call “Book” 1-3, but that seems to be confusing people, so I might give up the ghost and call them “Part” 1-3.  So each character has a chapter in each part.  I had them all in “perfect” order (my OCD is showing, I know), but at the last minute I decided to switch it up, and I like the new order.
    I feel bad for my last two characters, because I’m still not really looking forward to writing them.  That sound so bad.  It sounds like a parent having favorite children, or a teacher having favorite students...which I also do.  The teacher one, I don’t have kids.
    I do feel really good about my choice in mentor.  David is funny, and people keep saying there is humor in my novel, and I should bring it out more.  I know he’ll help me do that, and it was also really easy to write my cover letter (which all packets have).  It’s not that my other mentors weren’t funny, it’s just that David is always funny, and my weird little self-deprecating humor (well, I hope it comes across as humor) just flowed from my fingers as I typed.  I’m off to a great start, and it’s making me a little less sad that this is the winding-down part of my grad school career.
    I will, of course, be as present as possible for the Winter Residency, when some of my favorite people (in the program and in life) will be graduating.  I’ll be there for graduation for sure, and if I can take the days off, I’ll be there every day, taking classes and eating the haute cuisine from the cafeteria.
    In addition to writing my other two characters, I need to think about the class I’m going to teach.  I don’t want to do this.  I hate being the center of attention, by which I mean I hate everyone in the room hanging on my every word.  I’m super with one on one (in which I kind of am the center of the other person’s attention), or groups that don’t encompass everyone in the room, but stick me at a podium or something and it’s over.  I want my friends to be there (and I know that unless there’s an awesome class at the same time, they will be), but I also kind of don’t.  I kind of don’t want anyone but my evaluating professor to show up.  I feel like I’ll be overwhelmed if too many people show up, and scrambling to fill the time if not enough people do.  If my class is a dud, I can just have a nice conversation with the professor about my thesis.  But I have a cute little bit semi-planned with Amanda, so there’s that.  I’m sure it will be fine, and I’m worrying for nothing.  I need to come up with a description by March 31, which sounds like a long way away, but we’re supposed to run it by our mentor first, so that means the description is going in the second packet, due March 3.  Did I mention that my third packet is due March 31 also?  And that’s also my birthday?  Sweet Jesus.  My packet will be in the mail before that, obviously, and I’m going to try to get my description emailed to Meg early, too.  That way nothing is really due that day.
    There’s so much I have to do this semester.  I’m afraid it’s going to make it fly by, and I want to savor it, cherish it, before it’s gone.  I have to decide what I’m going to read for my graduate student reading, and spend time not looking forward to doing it.  I also need to find gifts for Meg and Tanya, to thank them for the wonderful program.  That’s what fourth semesters do, who are then graduating students at Residency.  The incoming fourth semesters get to decorate for graduation, which worked out fine for us, but could easily have turned into a shit show.  Luckily, we all worked together and got our shit decided in plenty of time for school.
    This ended up being totally different than I thought it would be when I sat down, but suffice it to say, my semester is going well, but I know I’m going to cry a few times along the way.  I’ve cried other semesters, too, around the time when a packet is coming due, because I overwhelmed myself and felt like I couldn’t do it.  I didn’t cry this time, and I feel like I can do it, but I don’t want it to be over.