This is the last week of my writing class. I’m definitely going to miss it. The structure of having to produce something for class will be gone. I want something that will keep that requirment to produce there. I’ve been hunting around rather aimlessly for a website that needs freebie authors to produce regular content. That would require productivity and it would give me some experience.

I finished my last piece for class yesterday afternoon. It turned out to be sort of a hybrid between a travel piece and a story about the events of my next to last night in London last April. It grew out of a “Try this” exercise in the last chapter we covered. I had started something totally different for our last writing exercise and scuttled it after I wrote this piece. I may see if I can publish it somewhere. I’m sure I can at Boots-n-all, but it would be nice to at least try spreading my wings.

I don’t know if/when I’ll take another class. Well, I don’t think that it’s an “if” so much as a when. I know I want to again, but nothing Emory is offering in the next few months called to me. And I looked around and didn’t see anything else at area schools, so I reckon I’ll wait to see what is offered. I’m giving off thoughts to maybe taking a photography or drawing class down the road. The latter would totally be for enjoyment as I am not gifted in that arena at all.

The gypsy spirit has had me again. I’ve spent a lot of time researching how much trouble it would be to take a job overseas. I doubt that will happen in the short term. I really want to finish paying off some debt first, but it’s an idea that has more than flapped in my ear a little. I was looking at a job in Scotland last night, ironically in Stirling which I visited in December! I was qualified for the job and the pay was, with the rate of exchange, more than I make now. So, I thought about all the high apartment rates I’d seen in London and figured, yeh, right, I couldn’t afford to live. Well, wrong… out of curiousity, I checked out rents, and I could afford to live, probably comparable to my standard of living here. If I didn’t have debt left here weighing me down, better (of course that’s true here, too!). So, that’s something in the wings.

Hare-brained scenario #1023

• Mark spends the next couple of years wiping out debt still remaining and building a nest egg.
• Sells house and pockets proceeds.
• Concurrently finds job, applies for work permit/visa
• Moves abroad for a time.

Disclaimers: I don’t plan to STAY there. I just want to travel at my leisure on the odd weekends and holidays. I don’t believe I could leave kith and kin forever.

Is this all just part of my usual winter doldrums? Maybe? I don’t know… I know that every year since I’ve moved here as the gray days stretch out into infinity, the desire to move home has surfaced. This year, I guess, it’s being replaced by overseas? Why? I don’t know… It was darker and grayer there most days! Yet, I guess I found somewhere that I could enjoy even in that weather… Atlanta doesn’t seem to fit that. I feel like a caged animal most days here. When will the weather clear so that I can go out again…

Maybe then I’ll quit feeling this self-destructive need to shake up my life and see where the parts all land….