Happy 2011

I must have been too relaxed, or maybe too busy getting ready for company on New Year’s Eve, to journal a Happy New Year’s greeting.

So a belated but very heartfelt “Happy New Year” to all you peeps out there.  I hope 2011 is a banner year.   

In truth, I have steered clear of my laptop, logging on only occasionally—to check university e-mails—since my last and final paper submitted three weeks ago.

Said weeks have provided a nice respite for catching up on trivial reading, which is something I had not done since the semester began way back in August.

While I have a stack of books next to my bed waiting to be read, I instead plucked two fiction books—from the University’s Coe Library—on Wyoming, one of which is a selection of short stories by Annie Proulx of The Shipping News and Brokeback Mountain fame… 

I'm told Annie Proulx lives here, somewhere in Wyoming

I find I have a penchant for reading about my adopted—and much loved—state, its history, places and people.  

I also read the posthumous bestseller, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (though not certain I want to see the movie) and Mennonite in a Little Black Dress, which I wish I could say I enjoyed but found to be a huge disappointment and rather boring. 

Although no longer a Menno gal myself, I fear R Janzen has done a disservice to Mennos everywhere 

But alas, reading for the sheer pleasure of reading is all too soon coming to an end. 

Classes begin anew next Monday.

I thought I was ready.   

I thought this upcoming semester would be less intense, less stressful and less work.

That is until I went to the purchase my books this afternoon and discovered I have to read this tome….

This--nearly 1,000 pages--is just one of 4 books for this particular class

The student cashier behind the checkout counter lifted the book, whistled and said, “SOMEbody is going to be busy this semester!”  

Yup. 

That somebody is me.

But hey—it is by choice, after all, and being a full time student (at my age) is, indeed, a true luxury.

Onward and forward...

Feliz Navidad!