There is no such thing as writer's block.

Especially when it’s a personal (ish) blog.  And especially when there’s really quite a lot going on.
I’m teaching a class—excuse me, a “student-led colloquium.”  Not supposed to call it a regular class since I haven’t gotten my degree yet and since I’m not getting paid to do it, but I designed the class and the curriculum, everyone enrolled is getting two units (half of what a regular UCSB course will get you), and I have absolutely no oversight.  The advisor has already said she was willing to be my advisor on paper as long as she didn’t have to show up to the meetings (I’m disinclined to call them “lectures.”  “Discussions,” maybe). (Sssshhhhhhh!)

Which is just as well.  I’d be way more nervous if she was there, and there’s way too much pop culture and genre fiction floating around in our discussions for her to enjoy any of the sessions, anyway.  (Ssshhhh again!  Shame on us academics-in-training, enjoying discussions about genre fiction and popular villains! /sarcasm.)

There are way more first years than I was expecting.  There are even a couple of comp-sci and chemistry students, which just about floored me in the middle of class.  It might be silly, but I was expecting more third- and fourth-years, and no one but literature students.

This is better, though.  Definitely, definitely better.

The weather has lost its mind.

That's really the only explanation.  There is snow visible in the hills (when they're not obscured by massive grey clouds), the wind is literally whistling through the apartment, it's sunny with raindrops all over my windows, and there is a tumbleweed--an actual tumbleweed, guys--blowing across the parking lot. 

I'm kind of loving it.  Mostly because it's fun to watch while I'm snuggled up under my NHS blanket (the one the paramedics gave me when I blew up the kitchen) while I'm pretending to study for my exam.

Wow, scratch the sunshine bit.  It suddenly started pouring.  And there are people wearing shorts and hoodies sprinting across the parking lot.  hahahaha!

Monday (tomorrow) marks the official start of finals week, I think.  (If it didn't officially begin on Saturday, that is.  Dunno.)  I've got an exam on Tuesday, my last essay is due Wednesday, but hopefully it'll already (magically) be completed and I'll get to head home early.

It's sunny again, by the way.  And the rain has stopped.

Spring break is only a week this year, so by April 1 I'll be back up in Santa Barbara slogging through the first week of my last quarter (!!!!).  I'm teaching a writing class of my own creation on Friday afternoons called "Villains in Fiction," and I'm... sort of already freaking out a bit.  Mostly because when I'm supposed to do some kind of public speaking and I get nervous I talk too much.  Gaaaahhhh.

It'll be fine, though.  It's alllll going to be fiiine.

The sky is now completely clear.  I really don't understand how.