Busy busy AWESOME day

I had an awesome day today.  Totally awesome.  If every day this semester is like this one, I’ll be dead tired before Thanksgiving but so happy it won’t even matter.

It started at 7am.  Woke up, worked out, read a galley from Dragon Moon Press for Leading Edge while working out.  The book wasn’t that bad, either.

Showered, ate breakfast, read 1st Jacob chapter 1 in Arabic.  Great scripture study.  Read “The false gods we worship” by Spencer W. Kimball on the walk up to school.  Powerful.  President Kimball was a Prophet with a capital P.

Met with Dr. Bowen to discuss the TA job she wants to hire me for.  It’s going to be a LOT of fun!  I’ll be doing all kinds of interesting research on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and making a sort of game / role play for the students in the class…and getting paid good money to do it.  Fun fun fun.

Classes were awesome.  I love my capstone.  Professor Christensen is a blast.  Talked about spatial voting and why political parties in America tend to be identical.  Made fun of Provo/Orem municipal elections.  Good times.

After classes, met with Professor Kramer to discuss the other TA job I’ll be working.  He was incredibly happy to have me on board.  Out of the hundreds of papers he read for PL SC 201 last year, he still remembered mine.  Holy cow.  I’m shocked.

Proceeded to run through a series of bureaucratic hoops to get all the paperwork filled out for both TA jobs.  I was so giddy about working I didn’t mind the hassle.  Dr. Bowen at one point said “What’s the other job paying you?  Eight something?  Well, we can do better than that!” Man, I’m going to earn so much money this semester.

Went home, cooked up some locally grown corn and spaghetti.  Mmm, corn on the cob!  Delicious.  Talked with my roommate Ben Crowder about all the stuff he’s done since graduating.  Dude, he is a renaissance man, through and through.  Awesome guy.

Leading edge was a total blast.  The editors threw a start-of-semester pizza party, and we had almost a dozen new people show up to read slush.  Plus, Peter was there–he’s always fun.  Talked about spaceballs and Big Bang theory (the movie), how Arrested Development is funnier than The Office, violence in fiction, crazy story ideas, and all kinds of stuff.  Good times.

So then, after finishing my homework, I was sitting in the library when I realized I only had an hour and a half before the library closed.  An hour and  a half, and I had not written a single word in my WIP that day.  In order to keep up with my self-imposed deadline, I needed to write 1.2k words.  1.2k words…in 1.5 hours.

I didn’t really think I could do it, but I decided what the hell and gave it a shot.  Turned off the music, avoided the email and twitter, and just focused on the work.

An hour and a half later, lo and behold! 1.2k words!  And just as I realized that, the HBLL closing music comes on…and it’s Dropkick Murphies!

Let me just say, there is no better way to end an awesome day than with some good outro music.  So let me end this post with tonight’s awesome outro music, courtesy the Harold B. Lee Library.

That’s the news and I AM OUTA HERE!

By Joe Vasicek

Joe Vasicek is the author of more than twenty science fiction books, including the Star Wanderers and Sons of the Starfarers series. As a young man, he studied Arabic and traveled across the Middle East and the Caucasus. He claims Utah as his home.

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