Oddly enough...

Today one of the lit. mag. staffers from last year approached me about starting a creative writing club. Apparently there was some internal strife among the staff and this student, at least, became disenchanted with the whole thing and decided it'd be more fun to have a writers group where people could get together and write and critique each others' stuff. When she mentioned the words "writing prompts" I had a little deja vu. Maybe she reads this blog...

I encouraged her to stick with the literary magazine, but I told her that yeah, I'd be willing to take on the writing group as well. Not sure if my boss will be as enthusiastic about me taking on yet another extracurricular activity (I also co-moderate the weekly book discussion group), but what the hell. I've been a little frustrated with my job and the limits that are placed on me by the total lack of resources and the general anti-academic bias that pervades the school--students, faculty, and administration alike. (The other day the gen. ed. department chair told my boss that her freshman comp students were having trouble getting resources for their research papers, and he said "[This institution] will never have an academic library." Not sure what they hired me for, then--oh, that's right: our accreditation requires it.)

So if I can't make a difference doing the job I was hired to do, maybe I can do it by making my job a little more fun. I've been trying to take the motto of my mentor-for-the-day to heart: It's easier to ask forgiveness than permission. We'll see how that goes.