Monday, September 28, 2009

MFA Schedule (a reality check)

For anyone who's thinking of doing an MFA to have all sorts of "free time in which to write", allow me to explain how my day went today. This is not at all a complaint. I had a lovely, lovely day.

7:00am Wake up, followed by shower, breakfast, walking dog, etc.
8:34am Get on bus to go to campus
8:45am (approx.) Arrive at campus, drop books off in office, chitchat a little
9:05-12:05 Intro to Graduate Study seminar (with a short break around 10:30 during which I exchanged my coffee for water)
12:05-12:10 or so. Class drags on after it's supposed to be over while Prof. hands back abstracts after reiterating more than once how "charitably" he graded them. (Okay, so I am complaining about the condescension in that comment)
12:10-12:30 approx. Gather up a few people and walk into town for lunch.
12:30-1:30 approx. Try to get Indian food at two different places, one of which is closed Mondays, the other too crowded. Eventually end up eating at Pita Pit. It's delicious. Bitch about the class we just got out of and talk about teaching, and I get to tell the story of the creepy guy at the bar who I yelled at on Saturday night.
1:30-1:45 approx. Walk back to campus to my office.
1:45-3:25 approx. Print about 90 pages of reading off e-reserve, grade the last couple of freshman paper proposals, try to write a poem. Chat with a couple of people. Walk over to the library cafe to get coffee.
3:35-4:25 Observe Paul's teaching per the dictate of our teaching mentor group.
4:40-5:30 Teach my own freshman comp class while Paul observes. Hope he doesn't think worse of me because my students are rowdy.
5:30-5:40 approx. Walk to bus stop and chat with Danielle while waiting for the bus.
5:50 approx. Arrive home. Walk dog.
6:00-7:45 Eat leftover Chinese food, catch up on facebook and email, download an Editing Assignment from the class from this morning, write up my observations on teaching from today,try to make sense of Editing Assignment and get some of it done, before deciding to take a break to blog.
7:45-8:00 Post this blog
8:00-1:30 Foolishly drink coffee. Try to finish poem. Think about my plan for my chapbook. Waste time doing random stuff on line. Write in my journal. Look at poem again and decide it's as finished as it's getting for now. (Edited next day)

2 comments:

MonicaJBrown said...

You should cross-post this on the MFA blog! I,too, am wildly busy...

Emily said...

Thanks, Monica. I feel like I post a lot of stuff over there, so I'm trying to limit myself to one per week. This grad student thing is crazy, huh?