Back at school

and officially a college junior. Now there's a scary thought. Only two years away from actually having to do something with my life instead of bum around school and pretend to work. I have a very cute single, quite good-sized, with a mirror, desk, dressers, closet, microfridge, and very springy bed (while putting up my posters, I was tempted to jump up and down on it). When I first moved in, all my stuff was trapped in storage and all I had was a metal-frame single bed and high white walls, and it looked a bit like I imagine a mental institution would. Now, though:


I think it is quite homey, and I have more wall decorations that are supposed to arrive soon.

That, however, is completely irrelevant to the topic of this blog. Before I get to writing, a quick word on classes: History of the European Left, World War II on the Eastern Front, Views of Heaven and Hell in Medieval Literature, Fiction Writing Seminar, and Beginning Racquetball. I've only had Medieval Lit, which has a total of five students including me, and it looks like it'll be fantastic - good discussions, interesting reading material that includes Dante's Divine Comedy and Doctor Faustus, and a 12-15 page research paper on the topic of our choice. I'm thinking something about Lucifer/Satan/the Devil.

Anyway, writing. I suppose it's never too early to think about NaNoWriMo, and I've got a tentative plot. This year, I'm going back to basics and writing an old-fashioned comic-book-style superhero story. Not a graphic novel or anything, because that's way outside my ability range, but a novel in the tradition of the old superheroes, with alliterative names, dastardly plots to take over the world, doomsday MacGuffins, disguises and alter-egos, the whole deal. Awesomely, this makes wacky stuff like ninjas completely plausible. Er, as much as anything is plausible.

Side note: no disrespect meant to Shakespeare, the man was a brilliant writer and Much Ado About Nothing continues to be my favorite play. However, I've come to the conclusion that Romeo and Juliet is an 'idiot plot', as defined in the Turkey City Lexicon: "A plot which functions only because all the characters involved are idiots."

I think that describes Romeo and Juliet pretty accurately.