After that, it's smooth hovercrafting. Truly, it's mostly a bunch of grading, a couple minor assignments, and looking to the future.
Speaking of the future, I've been wondering what I'll do once I finally am done with ESU. I do not believe I will pursue a second bachelor's and rack up a bunch more debt, although I did consider it for awhile there. Instead, I will try my best to get some form of employment that works for our current situation (and preferably one that pays well). By "our current situation," I mean the one wherein we may need to pick up and leave Emporia come spring or next fall. Mobile employment is definitely optimal, and since I am not yet published (by a major publisher that pays me, I mean), I have been looking into some other means of work for the time being.
I have, of course, been looking into a lot of freelance work. So, there's that. I am technically currently employed by two content writing/editing firms--Purecontent based in the UK and WriterAccess based in the US. The latter I just finished applying to/was accepted for today. The former I have not heard from since they told me on Monday that they were going to start sending me work. Maybe there's no work to be had at the moment, but we shall see.
I have also been considering a position as an outside contractor/adjunct professor at a certain online university. The pay would be reasonable, I can do all the work online, and I actually have several connections with people who already work in the department there. So that seems perhaps more promising.
I am also considering starting my own website that would charge for editing/proofreading. It would be targeted primarily toward fiction writers. I think that might be a slightly better way to go. I am not entirely certain of that, though. We will see, I suppose.
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You may be wondering why I haven't posted in so long. But most of you know the time-consuming beast that is higher education. And many of you also know how difficult it is to keep up with a blog whilst also attempting to write your own fiction, keep up with school/work, and generally have a life at the same time. So, those are my reasons for the lack of updates on my life.
For those of you who have not kept up with anything and perhaps have no contact with me save via this blog, here are some general updates since last time:
2009
Summer:
Juliet and I moved to an apartment in Emporia.
We both got extremely bad sunburns over the summer. She worked part time at a school.
Fall:
We started school in the fall: BS in Health/PE for Juliet; MA in English: Creative Writing for me.
I worked as a Graduate Teaching Assistant (still do, for the next three weeks or so).
2010
Spring:
I continued working as a GTA (see above; it's not a video game). School, school, school.
Summer:
We went (for class credit) to London, and it was awesome.
We took classes. My major one was a Creative Writing Pedagogy course. It was intense.
Fall:
More school. I started work on my thesis material.
2011
Spring:
School. Juliet has been writing lesson plans like mad and learning to teach by teaching--it's the only way, in my opinion, to know whether you can actually do it. I think she would agree with me on that. As for me, I have written and now defended my creative thesis, the major requirement for obtaining the MA degree (more about that at the very outset of this post--no need to reread the whole thing though).
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What about you? What have you been up to?
