Obligatory Winter Break/Semester Wrap-Up Post

I'm all Hokie'd out!

Hi Dudes and Dudettes,

Well I must admit it's been quite a while since I last updated, but I'd like to let you all know how things are going at Virginia Tech.

First, I must say this was a hard semester. I didn't think that an MFA program or grad school, in general, would be a breeze, but it was tougher than I expected. I think the hardest thing was the ever-present time management skills...or rather, lack of. Trying to balance social life with school and other commitments was rough. I didn't want to be viewed as anti-social, nor did I want people to stop extending their warm invitations to hang out, so I did sometimes neglect my work.

In addition, I forgot what it was like to just...write! I know it sounds a little silly, but I wasn't writing or concentrating on the things I wanted to do with my writing this semester. My two poetry classes - one a workshop and the other a form class, both focused on forms. I don't really get down with forms, but working with them this semester has been helpful. I just wish I was able to workshop what I wanted to, instead of focusing on villanelles and ghazals that are god-awful and will never see the light of day.

I ended up getting a 20-page teaching portfolio out of my "how to teach composition" course. Wrote a syllabus, three major assignments, as well as other classroom documents for my class that I'll be teaching in the Spring. In addition, I spent half of the semester, observing a PhD student teach the class I'll be teaching next Fall. Also, wrapped up a semester working at the Writing Center. Surprisingly, I felt that throughout the semester, I had an equal number of undergraduate and graduate students. I'm still playing with the idea of returning as a consultant next semester, even though it's not required.

My other classes went okay this semester. There were a few research classes and a New Media creative writing course where strangely, the work I was doing was prose. Ugh. <- Not to all you prose people out there, but why can't I do what I need to be doing!?! lol

In addition to all the classes and social stuff, I survived another few months of the dreaded long distance relationship with my boyfriend. He sent his MFA applications in [again :(] a little over a month ago. He's applying to schools near me, including WVU and UNC, so we'll see how it goes. I'm keeping my fingers, toes, hell, even my eyebrows crossed for him. He's an excellent poet and deserves some good news about school!

I am most excited about the classes I'm taking next semester:

Practicum
Black American Literature
Editing a Literary Journal [VT has recently acquired the Minnesota Review and the students will oversee the submissions].
Fiction Workshop
Poetry Workshop

I am also toying with the idea of adding another course. Possibly in another department. I am seriously considering working towards a certification in Nonprofit and Nongovernmental Management, as I see it as another option when I finish the MFA. I have a background in nonprofit management, working for several arts organizations and I can see myself returning if the teaching thang doesn't take off right away. The only disappointment in this certification is that it seems Virginia Tech has dissolved their Arts Management program, which upon many searches was active until a few years ago. Yet depending on who I contact, no one has information about it. This is what I was really interested in as a secondary study. And right now, there's only one course being offered in arts and cultural/nonprofit/policy studies. Maybe I'll create my own courses and do independent studies.

In addition to that, I am trying to figure out what I'm doing for the summer and am currently looking at various job opportunities. I am also thinking about what I was my commitments to be for the following semesters. I NEED TO FOCUS MORE ON WRITING. Obviously, that's what I'm in the program for. I just find it hard to focus when I have so many other interests and aspirations. I can't knock those important things out of my head, but I am seeing that it's all about balance.

Well, 2010 will bring a lot of exciting opportunities. I'm going to London and Paris [my first abroad trip] for Spring Break with the BF. I'm presenting at AWP in Denver. And I'm praying for great poetry and many acceptances to lit mags. I'll also be hoping the same for you! We gotta hang in there!

Thanks for reading. I hope you all had a wonderful semester. I'll try checking in a little more often next time!

Best.
xoxo,
Raina

Introduction and Other Bits and Pieces

Hello all!

I thought I'd take a minute from reading and finally introduce myself! My name is Raina Fields.

I started my first year of Virginia Tech's MFA program in poetry this week. I graduated from Loyola College in Baltimore in 2008 with a B.A. in music and writing. I spent a year working for The Philadelphia Orchestra before I started graduate school.


I'll admit I did get tired of the same sort of urban life in Philadelphia and Baltimore and was drawn to the sort of small-town life that Blacksburg would offer. So far, it's been great. My life has been in full-speed this entire summer. I bought my first car, stopped working, packed my things and moved into my first apartment. The first couple of days in Blacksburg, I was too exhausted by the move that I fashioned cut up trashbags into a shower curtain and slept on the floor. The ten hour drive from Philadelphia (thanks to the U-Haul trailer) was just too much. Haha!

This week has been full of emotions, wavering from "Omg! I am so happy and blessed to have this sort of opportunity! I am up and ready to take full-advantage of everything presented to me!" to "What?! Why am I doing this to myself? Is it time for bed, yet?! Was I really on campus for 12+ hours today?!" It's all in good, clean, educational fun, though. As everyone is telling me, this is the time of transition and it will get better.

A bit about the program: We have seven new MFA students, 3 poets and 4 fiction writers. I believe we are all signed up for 18 feisty credits of English and Graduate School courses. My schedule this semester includes courses in Teaching Composition, New Media Writing, Poetic Forms, as well as a Poetry Workshop, a series of Graduate TA workshops, and Library Research workshops. My Teaching Composition course is 6 hours and includes students from the MFA program, MA and PhD in composition and rhetoric programs, which is pretty interesting! There also some experience teachers in the classroom, so everyone is pretty varied on the teaching spectrum, but we're all excited and ready to learn more to impart on our students!

While we don't teach this semester, we do get to assist in teaching a course and then next semester, we are given our own classroom! WOW! Haha! Also, this semester, we work in the Writing Center, assisting students in their writing papers and projects.

So far, I have to say my favorite course has been New Media taught by Ed Falco. It's been really interesting learning the basis of hypertext writing. We also have some great reading coming up, including Carole Maso's Ava and Nabokov's Pale Fire, two precursors to the hypertext writing movement. Yesterday in class, we all did a "exquisite corpse" and had to write a line based on a picture we were given and we linked certain words in the lines to other students' lines. It was fun and interactive and I love that! Our final project is that we all create our own hypertext writing. Wow! We even get to use Dreamweaver! I love technology :)

I'm also really excited for my Poetry Workshop tonight. I'm sure it will be fabulous! The thing I'm most nervous about is my current lack of creative writing. I'm in that stage where I haven't written a poem in a long time. I'm contemplating by giving introductions as "Hi I'm Raina! I used to be a poet! I hit my peak and now I'm struggling through graduate school pretending to be a talented writer! What's your name?!" I can only be proactive and do one thing and write, so that is a challenge I (and the program) has and that's what I will do. But in the meantime, PRAY FOR ME! Haha!

Well, it's back to reading Aristotle's Poetics! Best of luck to everyone who already started! I can't wait to read your stories :)