A New School Year

As we reach the middle point of August, school-aged kids and college-bound individuals are beginning to fret the return of going back to school. Back when I was in school, when we reached this point of the summer, I was left to wonder where on earth my summer vacation had gone. In grade school, we always went back to classes during the last week of August. And that was pretty much the case when I went to college. Nowadays, the state of Michigan has mandated that public schools throughout the state begin the first day of classes on the first Tuesday after Labor Day. So, for all of the students that attend public schools in Michigan, you still have another three weeks of summer vacation. But for those attending universities and colleges in the state, your vacation time is much shorter.

For Northern Michigan University located in Marquette, I was quite surprised to find out that the first day of classes for the fall semester start Monday, August 23rd. I was expecting they'd start on the 30th, which is still one week before Labor Day. But I think they may be pushing for an earlier start in the fall so they can get an extra-long winter break. It's kind of hard to believe that when the semester is over, we'll be looking forward to Christmas and the winter season. As for Michigan Tech in Houghton and Lake Superior State in Sault Ste. Marie, their first day of classes is August 30th. So take heart NMU students, even though you'll be starting classes a week earlier than everyone else, at least you can look forward to a longer winter break before classes resume in January.

Similarly for the community colleges like Bay de Noc Community College in Escanaba and Iron Mountain, classes begin Monday, August 30th. Community Colleges are also located in Ironwood at Gogebic Community College and in Brimley at the Bay Mills Community College. There is also a private college located in Hancock, called Finlandia University. Finlandia was once a two-year college but now offers four-year degrees in a variety of fields. Like NMU, classes at Finlandia begin Monday, August 23rd.

Even though my days at a university are long gone, I can still remember those first few days of classes for the fall semester. Typically there's no place to park so you have to do a bit more walking to class and when you get to your classes, it's like a whole new experience. You're meeting new teachers and classmates and you get to spend 16 weeks with them learning the same material. I wouldn't say my time at college was as satisfying as I would've liked, but I still had some enjoyable times. For any prospective students taking classes in the U.P., hopefully you have a successful academic year. And be sure to get out and enjoy some of that U.P. scenery when you get a break from your classes.

Cell Phone Frenzy

So, how many of you were thinking I'd forget to blog on the first day of the new "Luke's Ponderings" re-branding? I wouldn't blame you if you did. So tonight's blog entry will be a topic regarding my personal life. So here goes...

It's amazing how quickly we've embraced cell phones in our lives today. Back when I was in high school during the late 1990's, I could've never imagined each person carrying around their own cell phones and going text crazy. That's not to say cell phones didn't exist then, because they did. However, they were pretty pricey and it seemed the rich people owned them the most. E-mailing really became the fun way of keeping in touch with each other when we were out of school and soon came instant messengers like ICQ and MSN. It wasn't until I was in college when I really noticed the cell phone explosion.

Let me start by saying I still don't own a cell phone and have no desire to get one. Now, that may change eventually, but at this point in my life, my regular landline phone service works fine for me. I just don't see the point in owning a cell phone that I'd rarely use and still pay for a landline which would probably see decreased service. Yes, cell phones do have nice features and I'm sure anyone could find something positive in owning such a device. I have often thought about purchasing a cell phone, even if I bought a cheaper phone plan simply to have it for emergencies. My current landline service is through the cable company and when the power goes out, I have no phone service. If the cable service is off-line for more than a few hours, a cell phone would be nice to have in that circumstance. But then again, why have a landline when you have a cell phone?

It was during my last couple years of college, specifically the last year, when I really noticed the increase in cell phone usage among students. It surprised me because it seemed to come out of the blue that suddenly everybody, except for me and a handful of others, had cell phones. If I knew then what I know now, I'd probably own one. But even those phones didn't have the kind of features that today's cell phones do. So I guess it's just as well that I didn't get tricked into the cell phone frenzy that pretty much has captured everyone else. Otherwise I'd probably be paying two separate phone bills, or just using my cell phone exclusively.

A Lost Love

Her name was Jennifer Swanson - a woman who was strikingly beautiful and whom I had determined to have zero chance even speaking to. The first time I noticed her was during an upper level non-fiction writing class. I sat towards the back of the room while she was placed in the middle. At certain times, I would stare at her and not pay attention to what was going on in the class. I just had to talk to her, even if it was just "hello." But that would be difficult, because I had always been shy, especially when it came to striking up conversations with pretty girls. The non-fiction writing class would not be the one where I would "introduce" myself to her, so to speak, but later on in my college career.

It was the next winter semester and Jennifer and I would end up having another class together. I remember entering the classroom and the room was packed with people. I managed to find one of a few remaining empty seats and it was up towards the front of the class. The classroom ended up being way too small for the class and we eventually moved into a bigger room. But on that first day of class, I wasn't the last one to enter the room. Jennifer ended up being one of the last to show up. She found a seat on the other side of the room and she was striking up a conversation with another fellow classmate with whom I had class with prior. I was feeling pretty jealous but I knew if I kept my courage up, I would get a chance to talk with her. Hey, the semester lasted around four months long. I figured that was a lot of time to bump into her.

I can't remember the exact details of our first official conversation, but we bumped into each other outside of the classroom in the hallway during one of our breaks. I remember a feeling of euphoria coming over me as I talked with her. She was so easy to talk to; I felt comfortable and didn't stumble over my words. I knew that she was single because she had brought it up during her introduction to the rest of the class when the semester first began. From that point on, I continued to talk to her whenever I got the chance. However, it remained simply a college friendship and nothing outside of the campus life.

We would end up being part of another class together the semester following. She even sat right next to me in that class as I was the most familiar face that she knew. And despite the class being absolutely useless - she actually made it fun for me to attend. I know we would converse about the teacher and her being an absolute dingbat. The professor seemed absolutely unprepared to teach and her syllabus was so unorganized. Despite that, Jenny made all of the headaches involved with the class go away. She was an absolute joy to be around and I was a total fool for not making that next step and arranging a date outside of school with her. Who knows what life could've been like if she would've been more involved with me? And even if she only wanted to remain just friends - at least I would've know.

After that semester, I lost all contact with Jennifer. Those were the days prior to facebook and myspace - so I really didn't have a source where I could find her. I know she talked about flunking out of the second class we had together and she was looking forward to officially being done with school after the last semester we had that class together. All I can guess is that she either quit college altogether, graduated (barely), or transferred to a new school. I know that she lived in Illinois originally and that she possibly went to be closer to home. In other words, she was no longer in the local area. Also during that last class we had together, she revealed that she had a boyfriend but that the relationship was "new." I felt that all but quashed my chances of us being an item. Foolish me - I was so naive.

Hard to believe, but it's been five years since I've talked with Jenny. She's been on my mind recently which is why I thought she would be a good topic to discuss in my blog. Where ever she is - I hope she is happy. And if she happens to see this blog about her, I hope she even remembers who I am. She may not have felt the same way about me that I do about her, but she still holds a special place in my heart. And on the very slim chances that we ever to talk again, I hope I am able to tell her how I really feel about her, even if she is married to someone else. You know, I've had a lot of missed opportunites when it came to women in my life, but not initiating a relationship with Jennifer is probably the biggest missed opportunity of them all and it's something I'll live with for the rest of my life.

Writer's Block / Being a Novelist

Wow. I am having a hard time trying to think of something to write in my blog. Its been this way since the last time I wrote and tonight isn't much better. But I will not let the month of August go by with writing only four blog entries for this month. I will type out something -- even if it makes absolutely no sense, just so that I can have five entries for this month. Five per month is usually pretty good for me. I think the most I've written in one month was about nine or ten, that was back in October of last year when my favorite Major League Baseball team, the Detroit Tigers, were in the midst of a pennant race. There are some people that write blogs every single day. How do they do it?! I always run out of things to say, and sometimes when I think I have a decent idea for a blog, I end up trashing it shortly thereafter. Either I'm too critical of my ideas or don't them enough of a chance to flourish.

And you will notice that my blogs are usually never short. I consider three paragraphs to be short for me. I've seen blogs where people write a short paragraph, basically explaining how they feel and how their day has gone. I'm usually not that way, unless something tramatic has happened in my life and I prefer to keep it short. In fact, I probably won't even write if I feel that way. Thankfully that hasn't happened too much since I started this blog over a year ago (the other one was at WordPress). Overall, I have received a few nice comments from people since I started this blog. Some people just happened to come upon it and said I wrote real well. Others I've known for some time and really enjoyed what I had to say. See, at least I'm using my writing degree in some way.

One thing I have not yet discussed in my blog and something that I probably should explain is why I decided to pursue writing as a degree in college. It all dates back to high school, when I took an English course my sophmore year. We had to do an extensive amount of writing in that class - which I believe consisted of us writing journals. Mrs. Mattson was our teacher; and even though she made us write a lot (and I mean, a lot! Her tests were nicknamed "arm-burners" by the students), she became an influential person for me. She's the one that motivated me by giving me compliments on my writing and made me feel like I could do something even by jotting some ideas on a piece of paper. And although I never won that scholarship for my writing skills in high school and despite the fact that I was mostly an outsider then, she made me feel important. In college, I knew it was either going to be computers or something to do with English that I would focus my degree on. When I knew the computer route wasn't going to work, I decided to just focus on my liberal arts classes until I really figured out what I wanted to do. Teaching entered my mind, but I found out my GPA was much too low for me to take any teaching classes (for those non-believers out there, yes, I did struggle with certain classes early on in my college career). I even considered a possible career in business but ultimately nixed that. Then I focused my attention on writing and possibly journalism. And thus the start of my post-college career with writing. Journalism is no longer an option for me, seeing that I refused to join the college newspaper and have very little interest in hounding people for quotes.

People still ask me what I plan to do with my degree, even though I am settled in with a good paying job. Those dreams of being a best-selling novelist are still in the back of my head. Although I haven't done a lick of serious writing in about two years, I am still serious about those dreams. But I will never be a best-selling novelist if I don't actually start work on it. I have tossed around some ideas in my head and there is one idea I have generally focused on for a premise of my novel. Last winter I kept telling my mom, who is really pushing me into writing a book, that I was going to start writing last winter. Well, I never even typed a single word! But this winter I have promised to focus on my writing career. These are my goals: #1 - to develop a complete outline of the story I plan to write and develop chapters based on the outline; #2 - to write at least ten chapters by the end of the winter of 2007-08. Those are two modest goals for myself; goals that I think are easily achievable if I focus on the task at hand and stay motivated on what I want to complete. Motivation is what kills me most of the time, or the lack thereof, really. Well, I am looking to change that once the cold weather moves in.

Hmm, for someone having great difficulties in thinking up ideas for my blog, I think I did pretty well tonight. At first I was writing some pretty random stuff, but then I focused on a topic that really got me motivated to write about. Too bad I am about to end it right here, too. It just goes to show you that sometimes you really need to dig deep down inside yourself to come up with something. But it's down there. Once you reach it, it flourishes into something much grander than what you expected. And then you reach a point where you can't stop! I hope that's one thing that occurs once I start writing my novel. Stay tuned on the progress of my book in the months and years ahead!