Schedule: Unwrapped

So like I promised, I'm going to write a short summary to each time/activity so you can get a better glimpse into my day.
Here goes.

7:00 WAKE UP you lazy bum! (This one is self explanatory; gotta get my butt outta bed.)

7:30-8:30 Breakfast in O'Hill (My suite and I walk across the lawn to the cafeteria, AKA O'Hill [Observatory Hill] dining hall. It is good food compared to regular school cafeteria food, but to any other meals it's just plain alright. But that's to be expected.)

8:45-10:15 Morning Workshop Lab (We all split up into our separate genres and I hang with my Creative Nonfiction peeps. We work with our two TA's [teacher assistants] and do some exercises that help stretch us and better us in our writing and free writes. There's generally an activity/prompt that we work the whole class around.)

10:15-10:30 Break (15 minutes to breathe before something else starts up. This break is greatly appreciated.)

10:30-11:30 Writing Time (We sit and either pull out our pencils and notebooks or laptops and fingers and just plain write. Write write write, whatever comes to mind, something you need to work on for workshop. Just as long as you're writing. This is probably one of my favorite times out of the whole day.)

11:30-12:40 Lunch; Independent Writing Time (Again we make the short [but hot] trek across the lawn to O'Hill dining hall and indulge in its lovely lunches. If we get done early, we can go back to our suites and write some more as we wait for the next activity to roll around.)

12:45 Leave for Workshops (At around 12:35, we split into genres again on the lawn just out front of Tuttle [the house of dorms that we live in] and then leave on our journey to the Hall where we have our intensive afternoon workshops. It's long and hot the majority of the time, but it's worth it when you get to the doors of the Hall and air conditioning almost blasts you away.)

1-3:30 The Intensive Afternoon Workshop (This is my favorite part of the day. Our main Teacher (Julia McGill) shows up and bends and molds us even more by throwing prompts at us and challenging our writings in many different ways. For instance, I wrote an art critique in the format I would normally, kind of like an organized essay. We "workshopped" it [this means we went into small groups and read it out loud and got feedback on it, what we should change, what we should definitely keep, etc.] and Julia challenged me to put it in poem form, just to do something different. Now, I'm no poet and it's not one of my strengths, so at first I was like okay, I might try it, vaguely thinking about it. But then I actually did it and she liked it. We workshopped this poem and she wanted a printed copy to use as a model for how much different your piece can come out from what you originally planned. It was pretty awesome.
I also really like my Creative Nonfiction family. I'm so chill and used to them now, so I don't have to worry about if I cry in class because of what I wrote or write something that sounds incredibly stupid. They understand what's going on in my head and it's so cool (: )

3:30-4:15 Break (Another breather before the next activity. This break is also very nice.)

4:15-5:30 Electives (The day before, we sign up for electives which are afternoon activities ranging from Beardology to Ultimate Frisbee. They're pretty neat and I try to do them every chance I get, but sometimes I just need plain ol' writing time, which is also an option in place of an elective.)

5:30-7:00 Dinner; Independent Writing Time (When 5:30 rolls around, we know it's time to trudge back over to O'Hill for din din [or yum yums, as Erika Lewis, one of the head counselor people here likes to call it.] After la cena, we chill in our suites for a little bit before the next activity.)

7:00-9:00 Cultural/Social Events; Student Staff Meetings (Poetry slams, faculty and staff readings, student readings, plays, you name it. And at times, important announcements.)

9:00-9:45 Personal time for writing projects, etc. (Quiet time [generally] to work on something you need to get done for workshop or just time to roll around other ideas in your head; this time is dedicated to anything writing.)

9:45-10:45 Suite Time ("SUIIIIITE TIIIIIIME" as the suite next to us likes to yell. Our 120s suite gathers out in the main area on the couches and floor and hang out. Sometimes we play Apples to Apples, sometimes we watch "Freaks and Geeks," we talk about how our day/week has been, etc. This time is dedicated to suites doing things together with their suites.

10:45 Get ready for bed (Suite time is over and it's really time to wind down and think about sleeping.)

11:00 Over head light must be out (We don't necessarily have to be asleep when 11 rolls around, we just need the room's main light to be shut off. Sometimes I'll take showers at this time or continue on my writing projects until I'm tired and need to go to bed. Although sometimes when I'm in bed and preparing to go sleep, someone starts talking to me about...random things :P )

Whew! So that wasn't as bad as I thought it was gonna be. But anyway, enjoy! It is a packed day and I'm glad again that the weekend is here to let me relax a little bit. Last weekend, by the end of Sunday I was refreshed and ready to get back to it, so I hope it'll be the same after this weekend.
Gah! Only 5 more days left! What?! That is insane. I can't believe the 2nd week is already over. I'm really really glad I didn't do first session, because I was fully adapted to everything here by the time this past Friday rolled around.

Thanks friends and family for your support and encouragement (:
And thank you so much Mom and Dad, for backing me up in this decision. I'm not tired of writing yet, I'm actually enjoying just how much we're writing, which is constantly. I'm so eager and excited to finish out this next week with a bang. (:

Love out to you all, and I'll even add a cyber hug just for you!

~Vicki

Illness

Air conditioning. A cricket chirps for a mate in the distance. Cotton blankets and polyester sheets rustle in the dark. A sigh emanates from them.

An insomniatic figure rises as a slim shadow from the twin bed. She’s thin as death himself and pale as the horse he rides.

Ebony coats her walls with darkness.

The darkness is unfriendly.

Luna isn’t out tonight, clothed in her silver dress.

She hobbles over to the wall, leaning her frail arm against it for support.
She shouldn’t be out of bed.

Flicking the switch, lights blaze to life and she shields her sunken eyes from them in envy.

If only it were that easy to live.

The orange and white bottles of pills taunt and jeer at her from the small bathroom countertop.

Her legs begin to wobble. She’s already stood up for too long.

Stumbling, she barely makes it over to her bed before collapsing onto it. She heaves a sigh, panting lightly and beginning to feel her head swim like it was lost in the ocean.

Drowning.

The doctor always told her to act positive, to think optimistically. He would always straighten his glasses and smile reassuringly at her.
And she would always scowl and turn away from him.

How wrong he was. “Think optimistic,” she would mock once he had finally stepped out of her room. “Fat lot of good that does.”

She had tried. She’d thought optimistically, acted positive. She’d smiled.

But not anymore.

Not now that there was a price on her head, a price in time.

Steadily she got cheaper every day.

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I'm not sure if "insomiatic" is technically a word, but oh well. I like it.

Ciao!
~Vicki

Week One = Over. Success?

Heck yes!
It was nice to sleep in a little bit this morning after this jam-packed week, as it is a glorious Saturday. I know I didn't elaborate much on it in the other blog I posted, but the daily schedule for Monday-Friday is full of stuff. We're constantly doing something, whether it's walking to our next class, listening to our instructor or writing.
Here's my daily schedule:
7:00 WAKE UP you lazy bum!
7:30-8:30 Desayuno(1) in O'Hill
8:45-10:15 Morning Workshop Lab
10:15-10:30 Break
10:30-11:30 Writing Time
11:30-12:40 Lunch; Independent Writing Time

12:45 Leave for Workshops
1-3:30 The Intensive Afternoon Workshop
3:30-4:15 Break
4:15-5:30 Electives
5:30-7:00 Dinner; Independent Writing Time

7:00-9:00 Cultural/Social Events; Student Staff Meetings
9:00-9:45 Personal time for writing projects, etc.
9:45-10:45 Suite Time
10:45 Get ready for bed
11:00 Over head light must be out
FIN.

Whew, that's a lot.
On a later date, for the sake of the frequency of blog posts, I will elaborate on each of the times.

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1 - breakfast, people, breakfast.

Thanks for reading!
Love!
~Vicki

Young Writers!

Hey-hello!

Okay, so I've made it to the Young Writers Workshop! Woo-hoo! It's only the end of full day 2 and it seriously feels like I've been here for a week already. In a good way, though; there has been so, so much packed into these past couple of days. It keeps me busy and productive, but even though it's a lot of things to hold me occupied and my brain constantly thinking, it's not work. Writing and getting to know other writers is fun to me and quite enjoyable.

Jumping into random mode here, I am currently (and literally just got hooked on this thing I stumbled upon on youtube.) Oh youtube, how you waste away my life with inescapably captivating videos.
My mind doesn't seem to mind(1) even while I cover my mouth gingerly with my cupped hand to repress a yawn in the wee hours of the morning as I sit and continue to watch videos endlessly.
Anywho, my latest and greatest obsession is actually a collection of videos by MysteryGuitarMan on youtube. Here are my two favorites so far:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhiP4cNgHxs (Root beer Mozart)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQXA7ErL708 (Guitar: Bumble (Flight of the Bumblebee)
The videos above are songs in stop motion guitar and root beer bottles. They are really cool - go check out his whole channel.

Alright guys, it's late and I need my sleep, as much as it doesn't seem like I care about it.
Type to you later!
Goodnight,

~Vicki

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1 - Ha! That was funny. ...wasn't it? Kind of? Sort of?
...okay so maybe not. Sorry.

Air-travel Syndrome

As I gaze around at the faces of the people waiting to board my same flight, I see and hear a wide range of emotions. The majority of these faces, however, show me the same expression: boredom, mild exhaustion and semi-irritation all rolled into a wonderful ball I call air-travel syndrome.

Some people have taken the chance and haphazardly folded up their jackets to tuck under their heads and take a quick nap as they wait, but others pop in their earbuds or whip out a book to pass the time as they momentarily cut themselves off from the outside world and fall into their own.

As an apt people-watcher, I observe the things that strangers do. I interpret actions, read expressions, and try to decipher emotions from the signs they outwardly send. Sometimes it's easy to tell that the girl sitting across from me is talking to her significant other by the way she twirls thin strands of hair around her finger, or how she smiles as she talks to him for countless minutes. Other times it's hard to tell by the overall expressionless faces; curveless mouths and subtle changes in the distance from the eyebrows to the eyelids make these people difficult to figure out.

Then the plane begins to board and this announcement over the intercom makes people come alive. Sleeping teens rise from their makeshift bench-beds and young boys pack up and put away their electronic games. Everyone is suddenly awake and alert; ready.

Ready to get to their desired destination.