I made it through my first few months in New York City.  I made it through my first semester of graduate school.  I made it.  It wasn’t easy though.

This has truly been an emotional journey.  My mood has gone up and down since I got here.  Sometimes, I have been so excited and overjoyed to have received this opportunity.  Other times, I have asked myself why I did this.

I know I picked the right place to study writing.  Queens College and its faculty have been wonderful.  I’m looking forward to working with the Creative Writing instructors during the rest of my time here.  I enjoy my classmates, many of whom will be in my classes next semester, so the opportunity to continue to bond will still be there.

I needed this.  I needed to be somewhere where I could study writing and completely absorb myself in the craft.  What better place than New York City?  Many of my writing assignments are done for classes, but I’m doing a lot of writing on my own—outside of class.  It was hard to do that where I was at before.  When you study writing, you think about writing all of the time, and when you think about writing, all you want to do is write.  Hope that makes sense.

Not everything has been great though.  I’ve had some tough times in this city as well.  But I don’t want to dwell on that.  I’m looking forward to 2012.  A new year.  A new semester.

There are so many plays I’m hoping to see.  Seeing a performance on the stage always inspires me to work on my own writing.  I have family that may be moving up here so that’ll be nice—to have someone to hang out with.  I already have one great family member here so the more, the merrier.  I also want to get out and explore more of the city.  There’s still so much I haven’t seen yet.

This has definitely been an experience.  I’m glad I did it though.  I had to try something different.  I’ve got at least another year and a half in this city.  After that, I’ll move on to the next adventure.  Until then, I want to take in as much of this city and this life as I possibly can.  I want to write as much as I can, research as much as I can, and meet as many people as I can.

I realize what an opportunity this was.  I’m also more thankful for my time in Colorado.  That will always be my home.

I’m sure I’ll have days next semester like I did this semester.  Days where I want to pack up my bags and go back home.  Days where I want to give up.  Overcoming the challenges is what makes them worth it I suppose.

One semester down.  Three more to go.