WHAT I HAVE BEEN UP TO:

After reading Lisa and Christy's blogs, I decided to make mine a bit more like some of theirs today--more journal like, if you will. I think it's time for a general update. I've been doing my 9-5 with the Grasshoppers. The big difference between this week and last week is that now I have co-workers. The first is a girl from Nova Scotia who did grad work in the school of natural resources. There is one more grad student, a guy, but I haven't really met him yet... The third is an undergrad bio/tuba major, also a guy. I like having co-workers. It makes the day less lonely, and I'm not imprisoned to my thoughts for so long. That was last week. I felt imprisoned to think deeply as I did the mindless work of organizing grasshoppers into alphabetical order according to species group and sub-species. Now my job is taking the grasshoppers, one by one, and entering them into a massive data base. Let me give you a little insight to how many grasshoppers this actually is. Each drawer has about 250-300. There are about 15 drawers per cabinet. There are 12 cabinets. In three days we entered 1000 grasshoppers in the database. So you see, it's very slow, and there's sooo much to do. I'll be doing it for the rest of May, and my co-workers will continue well after I'm gone. And we're just doing one of the many families of grasshoppers in the range (A range is a room full of collections). This week went by much slower than last week. Maybe it will speed up when I get more accustomed to it.

In my spare time (evenings) I've been doing research for the play I'm writing. I'm writing on my favorite subject: Detroit. Surprised? It's May now, so I'm starting the writing... It's based on an experience Lisa and I had in the DIA with James McNaughton and his girlfriend (JM is a teacher I had my freshman year. He started me on writing...) So I've been reading up on the Rivera Court Murals, and Henry Ford. The research is being morphed, now directed toward the auto-workers. I am not sure if my play is one of my many over-ambitions... Since I've started writing, I think my schedule is going to turn into this: Work from 9-5, get home at 5:30 eat dinner and then take a nap until 9 or 10 and Write the evening away... I don't think I can write before 10. Sound Crazy? I'm just trying it out, because I want to be a writer, and that means I'll be working 9-5's for a while. I'll keep my weekends free for socializing. We'll see how this routine goes. I had a 2 hour nap today.

Maybe one day I'll be paid to write! Oh Glory. Who knows...

Okay, I'ma get to it. Janet Bham will be calling any second...