Big things happening here. As most of you know . . . wait, wait, no . . . as NONE of you know, I am an alumnus of Georgia Southern University. Yes, that Georgia Southern University, the home of the finest English Department on the eastern seaboard! Uh, the eastern seaboard of Georgia. Hmm . . . finest English Department for a *public institution* located on the eastern seaboard of Georgia. No, the finest . . . well, you get the idea.

How did I choose GaSou, you ask? Hearken back with me to the dog days of Spring 1997: how well did you know your future then? I was getting married in June 1998 -- that much about my future I knew in 1997 -- and I had no earthly idea what I was going to do with my life. I had recently graduated from David Lipscomb University (the home of the finest English Department in an American-Restoration-Movement-derived college or university located within the city limits of Metropolitan Nashville/Davidson County) and the employment field confided to me by my college-entrance-mandated career survey (package deal with the Myers-Briggs; "Psychologist/Counselor" and ENFP on the same day, can you believe all the self-awareness I gained that day?) didn't really appeal to me. So: I had won medals at graduation (for something?) from the English Deparment; I was an English major; I was president of Sigma Tau Delta (STD!!!!!!!!) the English honorary society; my advisor and confidante was an English professor. Strangely, I somehow felt that graduate school in English was in my future.

But where to go? Somewhere close to Jami (who would be in Florida student teaching in the second semester of 97-98; also, the June wedding would be there. . .) Plus, somewhere cheap (Public!) and somewhere I could still be admitted, despite the fact it was late March of 1997. Florida State and the University of Florida? All materials due December 15, 1996, thank you very much. University of Central Florida, South Florida, North Florida? No admission after February 1, 1997; no exceptions. Even Valdosta State turned me down (March 1, 1997).

But GaSou had (and has) a rolling admission policy, and they were downright eager to take my money. So I spent 1997-1998 there, doing my coursework for an M.A. in English. It was actually a very good graduate education, all my joking to the contrary.

Of course, I didn't finish my thesis. A million times you've heard this, right? Breeze through the coursework, don't finish the thesis. I began a perfectly serviceable thesis on the humanist framework found in the later novels of Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.; my advisor hated it. So, I started another on a different aspect of his work; never did finish it.

End of grad school. Kaput, right?

Well, no. I never finished my academic thesis, no, but I did channel my inner writer enough to finish a creative thesis in poetry (enjoyed that much more than the non-creative one) and [INSERT DRUMROLL HERE] I discovered that under the conversion to the semester system from the quarter system I needed six more hours of coursework to finish the degree. So I signed up for the course, and here I am . . . with one six hour seminar between me without the M.A. and me with academic bliss.

Here's where the fun begins: I did not know that I lacked coursework until March of this year (March to March, eh -- a fearful symmetry there; Blake would be proud!) and as I am up against the seven year rule, I must finish before August. So I need six hours worth of credit this summer from Georgia Southern. Easy, huh?

I didn't know until yesterday that GaSou had changed its academic semesters in the summer so that the first course started in May . . . May 11 to be precise. So that's why I found myself hightailing it to Statesboro, GA, a three-and-a-half hour trek from my current Atlanta home, in order to make it to my graduate class at 6:30. Oh, yes, I drove back last night, too, when the class ended. At 10:30. So I got home around 1:45 AM or so, just in time to collapse and awaken at 6:15 in order to teach my eighth graders. Yep. I've gotta do this twice a week until the end of school.

However, I'm excited by the prospect of the high adventure that goes along with finishing this seven-year-long chapter in my life; I need epic drama and torment in order to give meaning to those things that would otherwise be devoid of significance.

I need sound and fury. For me they signify . . . everything.