i am nowhere near as good at balance as i am reflection.

currently procrastinating from finishing off another Oxford description.

this is my problem as a writer. (interestingly, declaring yourself a writer has made for controversial discussions over here. apparently many are of the opinion that doing so is pretentious, or idiotic, or simply untrue. we are 'writing students' i am told. not writers. personally, i've always thought of myself as both. what do you think?) whenever I drown in other work (i.e. literature classes/tutorials/essays, etc) i immediately let that take precedence, since it demands the greatest amount of hours, or so it seems. reading lengthy novels, complicated criticisms of said novels, and writing a coherent, ideally innovative or intelligent essay--all of that takes time. or at least i let it. i came to sarah lawrence predominantly for their writing program. i wanted to write all the time, and so we do, but every year i have let other classes push aside my writing classes. paula's trumped rachel's freshman year, even though rachel's was and is the best class i have taken. julie's, however interesting it was (and it was, to be sure) trumped tina's poetry workshop. and now, my literature tutorial seems to trump my fiction one.

i'm well aware that's not how it should be, but i don't know how to work it any other way. and so i panic and take short cuts, and in the end, i'm only screwing myself, since this is primarily what i'm here to learn, why I came to Oxford. take today, for instance. my fiction day. task--come up with 10 pages of writing. out of writer's block stemming from not having written anything creative since last may, and any actual fiction since, oh, my junior year of high school! i ultimately resort to revising, somewhat, the beginning of a novella i had started and never finished. the revision, not nearly as extensive as it should have been, to be fair, still served the purpose of acting as a starting place, and more importantly, letting me figure out where i want to go. now i know, at least tentatively, what i will do for next week. though i can't help but view this week as kind of a cop-out, especially since i didn't turn in ten pages of fiction last week.

i want to be able to write. creatively. and do it well, without anxiety. so how do i do that? how do i relax, find the time, not let one course dominate the other? i worry that if i don't figure that out, i'll never be a real writer, i'll never finish anything, i'll never be able to fashion this into some sort of career. i'm so particular. i can't be sleepy to write, or restless. then it becomes work, and though it is work, should it feel like work? it sucks all the enjoyment out of it. and sometimes i'd rather just read, and i do, voraciously, but perhaps not as much as i should. i fuck around on facebook and other people's blogs, wasting time. tomorrow i have to get out of this flat. even though I have to read the entirety of Portrait of a Lady, I will at least do it in the Radcliffe Camera.

i read at wadham's open mic night last night. there is so much freaking talent at that school. i wish i was musical. sadly, i am not, but sometimes i can write decent poetry. i wouldn't mind reading again.

alex and i were talking today, after drinks with the chaplain (how cool, to be standing in a four hundred year old chapel, as the chaplain keeps pushing more wine on you), saying we really want to meet more oxford/wadham kids, and aren't quite sure how to do that. i am already sensing how quickly time will fly. every single day flies by. it seems far longer than two weeks.

"every single girl on this Programme is going around waving her [metaphorical] panties at every cute guy to pass her by."--katie. sad but true. don't particularly want to be that girl, but of course we are. no one wants to pass up this opportunity, away from sarah lawrence's awkward incestuousness.

right now, amy is out at a pub with two of my flatmates, and i am here, "writing" and soon to be reading. lame. but i am sick, and didn't feel like going out and drinking. everyone is sick. "fresher's flu," they call it.

snippet of conversation i had with x person, after telling them i do tend to get what i want, at least academically: "yes, but you aren't happy." in response i made some inane comment, when i should have said, "well, not entirely, but i am." in any case, i didn't want what he wanted. at least not now. i'm young. i'm ok. it will be fine.