And the Residency Begins!

Chatham is beautiful. The picture above is Mellon Hall, a building where we had our first faculty reading tonight. This is just a small taste of the magnificent buildings located on Chatham's campus. So far, everything has been going wonderfully. My roommate is a high school literature teacher from Boise, Idaho, and she's great. I've met many other fantastic writers as well. All of it has been really encouraging me to spend time writing, which is the push I have been looking for these past months.

I have to say I am a little nervous about tomorrow. The head of the fiction genre sounds like she will be giving me touch critiques. I read two writing samples from two others in my fiction group, and the writing was outstanding. I'm feeling intimidated!

Greg covered the remainder of the trip well. It was neat to see Chicago, but it was not neat to wait in dead-stopped traffic! Ugh, it was a Saturday at 2PM! I can't even imagine what workdays are like in that city. The toll roads were a joke there. One wanted 60 cents. It made us laugh though :)

I spent part of this evening walking through the surrounding neighborhoods with Jana, my roommate, and we passed by brick mansions lined with trees and flowers. They have wooden porches with swings. It's exactly what I pictured the neighborhoods in the East to look like.

I also saw my first black squirrel. I took some pictures on my camera. And, tonight, when Jana and I walked back to our apartment, the fireflies were lighting up all around us. I love it here so far! Hopefully, I feel the same way after tomorrow.

I miss Greg.