Wednesday, September 28, 2005

What a long day, but extremely interesting. Three classes, and each one slightly different. The first I posted about earlier. The second was similar to our Industry Overview class at Vic Uni - I talked about writing fiction as a career, so covered the things that make it different from non-fiction freelancing, some stuff on how royalties work, record keeping etc. The third session was with the journalism students who work on the Pima student newspaper - Aztec News. They were on a deadline to write a front page story about a student who had been shot and died on the weekend, so they talked a little about how they had been gathering material for their article.
At lunchtime a writer friend of Meg's, Nancy, took me out to her house in the desert, over Gates Pass - the road has been closed for a few weeks for widening and resealing. It is still a fairly winding narrow road but the views are great. Lots of saguaro cactus and also teddy bear cactus (it's fuzzy).
On the way to the campus this morning I saw a funny bird run across the road and when I asked Nancy and described it, she said it was a road runner. So now I have seen the real thing!
When I got home tonight, I was so talked out from the classes that I had to get out and do something where I could just listen (and TV wasn't it!) so I went to the movies up the road. Saw "The Constant Gardener" with Ralph Fiennes. It was OK, not madly exciting, but the ending wasn't totally predictable.
I'm starting to get a bit worried about my luggage, and considering posting some stuff home to avoid weight problems. I might have to investigate postal rates tomorrow, but I seem to remember last year that it would cost a fair bit, more perhaps than excess luggage penalties. I shall see...
It's time they invented books that only weigh a few grams or ounces each. I think one of the ones I have bought feels like a brick.

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