Extra Curriculum Offers Balance..(Ya' think?)

[an alter at the Dias de Los Muertos Festival]

With all the writing I’m having to do for classes, my blogging and journaling has fallen short, I know. But, rest assured that I am working hard to prove to myself that leaving a job to go back to school was not in vain. While I’ve recently finished reading two great books, Bastard Out of Carolina by Dorothy Allison and Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte, I reached my forty-fifth birthday. And right now, it’s all about balance…yeah right…anyway…. I’ve been trying to take advantage of some of those perks that come with being a student… (No, not a car loan that I don’t have to pay back until I graduate)…I mean like, discounted movie tickets and such. There’s a lot of things that go on that people who work everyday, at a job they hate, don’t even think about.

For example, a few weeks ago, me and my beloved saw Sean Jones in concert…for $10 bucks each! Jones is an awesome trumpeter with the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra. Our campus hosts an excellent jazz series and as a student, I get $10 dollar tickets. I also recently saw the John Patitucci Trio featuring the prolific bassist and Brian “Wow” Blade on drums…that’s worth the year’s tuition alone… (And now, I don’t even mind that hike in the student activity fee for the new building on campus.)

And rather than simply go out to eat on my birthdays now…I try to follow up with a birthday “activity”. One year it was rock wall climbing, last year, hiking. This year yours truly went horseback riding for the very first time in her life, thanks to intramural activities…(I’ll spare you the interesting photos of that one). I also attended the Dias de Los Muertos, the Mexican Day of the Dead Festival at the Atlanta History Center. So, you see, learning is more than simply opening a book; it’s about living and experiencing some of the fun stuff life has to offer…there is still some, ya’ know.

THIS JUST IN! I’m going to London next year for two weeks through the Study Abroad Program! Yes, yes…home of Shakespeare, Emily Bronte, Milton, George Herbert, Virginia Woolf….Zadie Smith! Whooo hoo!