First, I want to thanks John Teehan (I hope that's spelled properly) for his excellent comments on self-publishing. There's some good advice in there, and I fully intend to take advantage of it.

Now let the rant commence.

I may have mentioned I'm in the MA program at Brockport. Well, as a requirement for the degree grads are expected to take fifteen credits worth of six hundred level classes. No big deal, right?

Wrong. Last semester they offered two classes at that level. I took one of them, Bibliography and Research Methods. This current semester there were more scheduled, one of which I took, but the rest conflicted with other requirements I had to take. Still, I figured it would be okay since they were offering so many again. I'd been told three to four was the norm. Somebody lied because scheduled for next semester are two, one of which is Bibliograpy and Research Methods. I'm hoping to be done next year, so I guess I'm taking the other.

Now, this may seem like I'm whining and should just deal with it, and if it just affected me I probably would. However, many of my friends in the program are teacher and can only take classes at night. These people are having a really difficult time meeting not only the 600 level classes requirement, but several others as well.

I always figured Master's work (I have no idea if that should be capitalized or not. Anyone know?) would be tough, but I didn't think getting the classes would be the problem.

And here ends rant.

Next semester actually shouldn't be too hard for me. I'm going to do two classes and my thesis. The former are Contemporary British Literature and American Literature from 1870 to 1920. The latter is still in the proposal-writing stage, but I've started a major bulk of the research, and since it's an SF thesis, I intend to enjoy it a great deal.

Assuming I do well this semester, an idea that more or less hinges on the twenty page paper for American Lit since I'm doing well in the other classes, I should be able to finish next spring. At this point I have four classes and the thesis to complete.

I've read that you can get graduate credit for Clarion. I wonder how difficult that would be. Of course, I have to get in before it becomes an issue.

Alright, I have a small mass of homework to finish (more stories to critique) before eleven thirty. I still don't understand how a beginning writing course counts as four hundred, much less five hundred level, but that's a rant for another time.

Bye, all!