Wow. Judging from the people-count on the front page, it seems a lot of folks are tuning in, for which I am grateful, and a little bewildered.

Last night, after the orientation dinner, the rules of the workshop were laid out by Lister Matheson, our fearless Scottish leader, and Patricia C. Wrede, our first-week instructor. We received four submissions to start us off this morning. We also got an envelope listing our remaining costs for the workshop (minus meals, which get paid at the very end), and I was pleased to see that the scholarships I was told I had been awarded hadn't been suddenly taken away. I am unbelievably grateful for those who donated money so that I could be here, and as soon as I find out who those people are, I'm going to send them a very gracious thank-you letter.

So after we were all done and fans had been passed around to cool down our rooms (we have no air-conditioning, by the way, except for four lucky people), Trent decided he was going to make another trip to Meijer's (pronounced Meyers; probably should have said that before), and since I had missed a few things on the first run, I went along with him, as did a few others. I got everything I needed and we came back, and I started critiquing. This was around 9:30 or so. I got finished at 2 AM. And as I was trying to sleep, emphatic squeals and screams came from my window, which I found out were coming from some enthusiastic soccer fans watching the World Cup. The last time I looked at my alarm clock, it read 3:15. And I woke up at 7:30 this morning. Needless to say, I am freaking exhausted.

So now, to today. We had our first critiquing session this morning at 9:00, and just about every one of us looked like I felt. It took 1.5 hours to get through the first story, then another 1.5 hours to get through the second, which was about twice as long as it should have taken. So we got someone to be the timer for the third story, giving each person two minutes, and we got done in about 45 minutes. Then, we broke for lunch in the cafeteria (with which, to be honest, I haven't had any trouble yet), and then met up again to get our MSU IDs made. Lister led us down a nice tree-lined walkway past the river or creek or whatever the body of water is that runs near the dorm. And surprisingly enough, my ID photo came out all right. This is a rare thing. We then walked back to Owen Hall, our residence.

Oh, and I didn't mention that I'd been walking on blisters this whole time, did I? I discovered last night, after coming back from Meijer's, that I had two enormous blisters on the ball of my left foot. This is the result of all the walking I've done thus far. So I don't think I'll be walking anywhere for the next few days unless I absolutely have to. And it's not as if I didn't bring comfortable walking shoes, because I did. It's just one of those things, I suppose. Just have to grit my teeth and bear through it.

And I just realized, I haven't described my room yet. Comparing the size to a jail cell would be insulting to the jail cell. It's small. Smaller than most hotel rooms (unless you're looking in London or Paris, and then you'd be closer). The bed functions also as a couch, if that helps at all. But there is a phenomenal amount of storage space. After unpacking on Saturday, and looking at all the empty space left, I started wondering if I brought enough.

The books I picked up in the Curious Book Shop yesterday:

• The Wood Wife in hardcover by Terri Windling. I have this already in mass-market paperback, but the hardcover is so rare that I just had to get it. And at $3.95 to boot!
• LUD-in-the-Mist in MM paperback by Hope Mirrlees. This has been highly recommended by several writers I admire, and it is in excellent condition.
• The Faces of Fantasy, an oversized paperback photography book by Patti Perret. It contains photographs by an enormous number of significant writers in the fantasy field. I've been looking for this for months, but was never able to find it at a decent price.

All right, that's all for now. Most entries, I suspect, won't be this long. I'm plain pooped, and I'm taking a nap now.