...Plain Upon Tablets

Happy New Year, Everyone! I've been on (and still am on) vacay, so I was away from the blog, but I plan to get back into the swing of things - especially with me going back to Lubbock at the end of the week and with school starting next week. If you follow me on any of the social watering holes like Twitter {I'm HERE }, Facebook {and HERE }, and MySpace {and HERE , too!}, you know that the semester ended pretty well for me. Despite my issues and wishes to flee Lubbock for Lake Charles, I finished the semester with great grades and even a few papers that sparked me into General Dissertation Thoughts. Always a good thing. The biggest thing I learned over this semester was if I could succeed when I felt so overwhelmed, so unstructured, so unprepared, so un-everything, then with more organization and preparation (and heavy, heavy doses of God and prayers), I can shoot for beyond the stars. I'm nervous and excited about the new semester. Why? Well, though I'm happy to be tak...

Since 2004, I have participated in NaNoWriMo . In 2004, I didn't win. Can't remember what I was working on, but I know I petered out early on and wasn't concerned with the fact that I stopped participating. Since 2005, I have participated in NaNo and have won and have actually went beyond the 50,000 words to complete full novels (which will see the light of day). This year, I was unsure if I would participate. For those of you who have been reading the blog regularly, you know that I've been struggling with my creativity since starting in the doctoral program back in August. In fact, up 'til NaNoWriMo this year, I had written NOTHING. And wasn't trying to. I was convinced writing would have to take place during the holidays - the Christmas breaks, the summer vacays. So, I decided not to do NaNoWriMo and was actually OK with not doing it. Until everybody started talking about it. Until I went to my page on NaNo and saw that I had participated and won NaNo four...

Dedicated to my spiritual daughter, Ceria Friday night, I hooked up with a "fellow" fellow to see author Jeanette Walls. Walls is the author of the NYT bestselling memoir, The Glass Castle , which details her life growing up in extreme poverty and the unimaginable obstacles she faced. To say Walls is a character is an understatement. She was brutally honest and funny and sweet and vulnerable as she talked about her life, and we in the audience were very receptive to her story; every time I nodded my head or offered a quiet "Mm mm mm," at least twenty people were in agreement with me. One thing Walls talked about was the power of storytelling and how important it is for us to reveal our truths. These truths do not have to be in a NYT bestselling memoir, mind you. They can be revealed to yourself as admission. They can be revealed to another as an initiation of comfort. As she talked about this "revealing of truth," tears slipped down my cheeks. I thought ab...