My Last First Week of Classes

I'll be in school for a few more years and if alls goes well, I will be working at a university in the future. But this week was my last first week of class (unless I go back for another degree sometime). Next year will be all teaching and writing, but I don't know how I will feel without classes in the fall. I am in my 22nd straight year of school. That is a lot of classes. But this semester, my last semester, seems like it will be a fantastic one. 

I am take 3 classes, in addition to read for comps. I am taking Black Rage in the English dept at the University of Pennsylvania. I am so so excited for this course. We are reading everything from bell hooks to Strangers in Their Own Land to Angela Davis's autobiography. I am also taking a women's studies writing seminar, in which I will write a research paper and present a conference paper at the Greater Philadelphia Women's Studies Consortium Conference. This will be a chance, maybe my only chance, to sort out the role of feminist theory in my own work and I am incredibly excited. I also think I am will be taking one of my Auntie Bellum essays and turning it into a conference paper-which will be sort of experimental, but I am excited for. I am also taking a course called Cross Cultural Encounters, which I am super excited about. I will be reading a lot of the cultural theory I had missed or skipped over. So, all in all I think it will a great last (tear) semester of classes.