Wednesday, September 2, 2009

Resolutions?

I'm so sporadic with this blog. In my defense, shortly after my last post, I embarked on a fantastic adventure. I spent two weeks photographing figure skating events in Ottawa and Lake Placid. I went to Montréal for less than eight hours. I saw friends -- both old and new, took over 50,000 photos (ah, the life of a sports photographer...going to need a new shutter soon!), laughed until the wee hours of the morning most nights, survived attacks from giant spiders and a batlike moth, developed knots in my shoulders from holding my camera that still haven't gone away, and had a marvelous time. Of course, I should have come home and blogged all about it immediately, but it took weeks to catch up from all of those photos. I'm still catching up, actually.

So today, I'm re-resolutioning to blog at least once a week, and I'll certainly try to write more often. It's a good day for resolutions, because tonight is my first class of my third semester of grad school. I'm also resolving (see, I do actually know the word) to do my assignments in a timely manner and manage my time better than I did last semester, so I don't get sick. In addition to my really lame retail job and two grad courses, I also have plans to step up my photography assignments this semester. I have a lot of traveling planned, at least tentatively, and I'm hoping that I can balance everything.

Tonight, I'll begin a course on Ecoliterature. I'm kind of terrified, because I don't especially like nature or reading things that require me to form opinions. I do like pretty descriptions and interesting facts, though, so I'm hoping I can find some common ground. I'm also hoping that no one makes me argue in this course. I hate arguing.

Tomorrow night, I'll switch gears for Creative Nonfiction Writing II. This will be my fourth writing workshop (I'm required to take six for my degree), but my first with this instructor, so I'm not sure what to expect. My emphasis in the program is creative nonfiction, so I'm hoping that I'll feel more comfortable in this class, but I have to admit...I haven't done much writing in the CNF genre since last semester's CNF course which was discouraging at best. I hope I can step up my motivation.

And because I can blog about whatever I want to blog about, since I chose not to go with a theme for this blog, I'm planning to write about Canadian ice dance in my next entry. Shooting events in Ottawa and Lake Placid means that I've seen most of Canada's dance teams for the season, and I feel like sharing my opinions. Plus, I just really like writing about figure skating.