Some Non-SIR Related News

Yesterday was the launch party for this year's issue of the Aerie, USI's student literary and art magazine. Jenni, Nicole, and I, as well as the rest of the members of the Student Writers Union (SWU) and the Aerie editors worked really hard on this event and were so pleased with the turnout. Basically we booked a room in the Liberal Arts Center, ordered food and a cake, and asked all of the writers and artists to attend to read their works or see them displayed on a continuous PowerPoint. Quite a few contributors were in attendance and I would say we had about thirty students show up. It was a very professional and well-done event, if I do say so myself.

Also, yesterday was the last day for turning in contest entries for SWU's first annual Write Away Hunger Poetry and Short Short Fiction Contest. Instead of entry fees for the contest we had writers pay us in pop-top canned goods and foods easily cooked by children. These foods will go to the local food back for their Backpacks for Kids program. The program puts food in a backpack and distributes the bags to area children who are at risk for having no food at home to eat over the weekend. We had a really great response to the contest and are confident that next year we will have even more entries.

I would also like to announce that I have ten papers due in the next few weeks. I can't even really comprehend it. Oh, Lord...

Registration

This week I have been working on a poetry chapbook for Miss Melanie Jordan. Issues with images have me held up, but otherwise it's a fairly fun task. [Oh the alliteration...] I'll update more when I have more to say about that.

While everybody around is concerned about registering for classes for the Spring Term, I have the fun of simply attempting to register to the school. I have respect for full transfer students, because this process is horribly inefficient. With work, this internship, and the class I am taking as a guest student, I have very little time during "work hours" to request my transcripts from my previous school, which of course is in a different time zone which adds just a little more chaos to the process. And requesting transcripts costs money, because apparently college students aren't quite poor enough on their own. I am looking forward to becoming a full-time student though. ^_^ When you see a transfer student, remember to give them a smile. They probably need it after the ordeal they went through trying to register.