2 more days until school starts...

I think I'm more nervous about school starting this time than I was about the summer sessions...maybe because at this point the campus culture is really starting up, with all the undergrads back. I went to the Welcome mass this morning, which was very good. A wonderful music ministry, which I signed up to be part of. And we have a new priest, who is blind. He had a braille sacramentary and book of the gospels, and it was really cool to watch him read them. And he's an excellent singer and piano player. But I was more overwhelmed by how many people were there. Granted, there were a lot of parents, but there were still a few hundred people in the hall....and I'm used to a nice intimate gathering of 35, 40 at most? Just one of those culture shock things I'll have to get used to. But I think the hardest part is that I'm going to want to get involved in things, and 1) most grad students don't bother, so the undergrads aren't accustomed to it, and therefore stay in their little cliques and groups without making much of an effort to meet other people; and 2) I'm so much older than these kids...well, maybe not so much, but significantly, and I'm feeling it. I don't know...I think I'll just have to get used to things all around. Especially when my roommate comes. She was here today when I came back from church, along with most of her family, and I was just glad that things weren't too messy. They left soon after I got home, though, and she said she'd be moving in for good on Tuesday. Kind of nice for her, to be able to come in shifts and decorate and all that; but it also means we haven't had a chance to sit down and talk together. We really don't know each other at all, and to have her come right when school starts, instead of the more relaxed summer...well, it makes it hard to transition. But at least she seems really nice, so hopefully we can get along.
*sigh* It's not even school yet, and I'm stressing.

Just finished reading: Forever Odd, by Dean Koontz. Odd is such a great character, and he talks like the self-proclaimed geek he is. He also happens to have paranormal powers: he can see ghosts, and has what he calls "psychic magnetism," which is basically the ability to find things that he wants to find. In this case, he uses them both to find his friend Danny, who has been kidnapped. This isn't hard-core horror like most of Koontz's books, and it's written in a sparse, witty style that really suits Odd. I think these books would be great to keep around for my students, because the paragraphs and chapters are fairly short and non-intimidating. Plus it's just a great story.

Also recently read: Kung Fu High School, by Ryan Gattis. A beginning writer's excessively gory fantasy about a school filled with martial arts experts gone Columbine. Very disturbing. I'm not going to repeat all my thoughts on it; if you want to find out more, go here.

Finder, by Emma Bull. I absolutely love her War for the Oaks, so I was thrilled to find this in the public library. It's a book set in Bordertown, which I know a little bit about from the story and description in Legends II, and though I liked the characters and the storyline, I kept feeling like I was missing something, or reading the second in a series and missing all the back story. But it also makes me want to track down the other Bordertown books, and find more of Bull's stand alone novels, because she's a lot of fun to read.

Weird synchronous reading: both Finder and Forever Odd discuss gelignite, a kind of explosive. Weird that I happened to read these both at the same time....