Back to School at GSW

Returning as a Nontraditional College Student

Georgia Southwestern State University

Today I start classes at Georgia Southwestern State University as a returning nontraditional student.  I was last there 10 years ago, when I was a Music major with an English minor.

Now, my plans are to focus heavily on my writing and reading comprehension skills as an English major. I've already completed a Music minor.

This Summer I'm taking a Lifetime Fitness PE class that meets each morning in June for two hours Monday through Thursday, and I have two Literature courses: an American Literature class that is condensed to fill the month of July and an advanced lit course called "Weird Fiction" over the whole Summer. It's a totally online course.

Weird Fiction Literature Class

Weird Fiction happens to be an interest of mine, but this Summer I'll be learning what that term means in an academic discussion. We're reading Edgar Allen Poe, Washington Irving, H.P. Lovecraft, Ray Bradbury and a number of others. I had to buy 16 books and novellas for this class, though in most of the texts we're only reading about 50-100 pages of particularly chosen stories and essays.

I'm probably most excited about H.P. Lovecraft's "The Call of Cthulhu." I've read excerpts of it before, such as the description of Cthulhu. It is definitely "weird," though it's also mighty interesting.

Read "The Call of Cthulhu" here

I'm up at 7am for my first day of class. I found myself awake at 5:30 thinking about my courses, so I decided to go ahead and get up and log into my class and do some reading.

I wanted to take the time to visit my blog and share my new adventures. Studying lit and honing my writing abilities is a dream of mine. I have so much to learn, and I need so much practice, but over the next four or five semesters I will have ample opportunity to do both.

Cthulhu