winter semester line-up

i am going back to the kind of school schedule that made me beam - exuberantly beam, i mean.  i love my classes, right now!  but {being honest, here} they've gotten a little heavy.  heavy load, weighty subject matter, all on the same day... it's gotten to be quite a lot this semester.  

class registration opened for me today, and although nothing will be absolutely finalized for a week or so (and even then, it'll probably change until a day before the semester begins), i'm ecstatic about several of these classes.  it is rather funny, though: the schedule is surprisingly reminiscent of my high school class schedule - something i never thought i'd care to repeat.  with the art major i've added, i'll have either a painting or drawing class.  i've decided to give in to my love of it and take a creative writing class (thus more happiness).  i really haven't done much thought-out creative writing for a few years, so i am excessively excited about this one!  also, it's a prerequisite for a class natalie is taking this semester, creative non-fiction, that seems fantastic.  i'll be taking that one for sure as well.  also, call it a guilty pleasure if you will, i'm taking a family finance class.  it makes me a little giddy, i'll be honest.  all that budgeting stuff, it's just right up my alley.  of course, there's the moral foundations of family life course, theories in family perspective, and the high hope of the internship prep class rolling around in the potential mix, too.

one thing's for sure: there's no getting bogged down in five fourteen analytical research papers due on the same day in the same semester again.  i was crazy for taking this many 400-level classes at once. crazy, i tell you.  but i think it paid off.  after all, i never would have broken down enough to add an art minor to begin with if i hadn't gone a little bit crazy.

so here's to crazy.

and a really great class line-up.

to october:

lately, i love the yellow leaves crunching under my black shoes while i run on the provo streets, swishing and whirling on the pavement.  the watercolor east mountains, staying transparent from dawn till late afternoon, give the days a surreal quality {as if in a fairytale}.  confused clouds - all different shades of blue and grey, all different shapes and speeds floating - play around the mountain tips, concealing their heights, failing to hide the white sunlight, the sunlight the last days of october have still permitted power to leak through to rest on my eyelashes and cheeks.

lately, i wake up slowly because the mornings have turned blue.  i peak out the blinds, anticipating the first morning i'll wake to white covering my windowsill, the stair-rails, the light-posts, the trees.  the sun is tardy usually, these days.  on the walk to class, this morning, natalie read aloud to me (essays by brian doyle); the moving text kept my mind off the frigid air.  scarves. coats. mittens.  socks and tights.  frozen breath in air.  red trees covered with spiderwebs of ice.  these are the days i crave yoga in the early mornings, to wake up before the sun.

lately, midnight comes too soon.  october is slipping away from beneath my toes, whisping and threading through my fingertips and out of grasp {like a handful of sugar}.  it's real - very real.  although each individual day isn't filled with specific memories lifetime lasting, the repetitive nature of waking and cracking the blinds to check for snow leaves a fingerprint in the storage center of my mind.

october has been a remembering month, granting nostalgic longing for lost people, lost places, lost emotions.  the onset of winter tends to have that effect - a clinging, of sorts, while memories are buried under white drifts.  checking for that burial is an anticipation, i guess.  soon, the snow will cover more than the leaves.  i've never felt quite so freed by the idea of winter as i do this year.  there have been things i've neglected to bury,  but the snow is coming; the first flurries danced in the valley today.  and when snow buries autumn's dead, the earth can begin to heal, to restore, and once again to play.


and about the scrabble interview: i was called back for a second (which took place last friday).  individual this time, luckily!  the waiting shouldn't last long.  the promise of the first of november clutches the back of my mind constantly.  honest to goodness, i want this internship!