Category: College

A Long Journey Ends

When I get really stressed out, the pressure manifests itself in the form of back pain. Cramps form in both my lower and upper back, and spread until they meet somewhere in the middle. By 8 a.m. last Saturday, I had already taken one round of Ibuprofen, and had a second round of pills stashed in my pocket for later. I’ve never been one to count my chickens before they hatch. Even though I had already successfully defended my graduate project the week before and seen my grades posted online, I refused to admit I had graduated until I had… (read more)

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Winning Two Jackpots

In the fall of 2017 I began work on my grad project, a novel titled The Human Library. On April 19, I delivered copies to the three members of my graduate committee. Two weeks later on May 4, I returned to the University of Oklahoma to defend my work. I spent those two weeks preparing. I wrote an outline of my novel. I made lists of all my characters. I noted every problem with my novel, and came up with ways to improve it. I went through the hundreds of handouts I’ve received and notes I’d taken over the past… (read more)

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Graduating with Honors: Kappa Tau Alpha

In the fall of 1991, three months after graduating high school, I walked into Redlands Community College. I walked out two years later with no degree and a 3.25 grade point average. After another year at Southwestern Oklahoma State University, I still hadn’t graduated and my GPA had dropped to 3.10 after pulling a 2.75 there. As much as I enjoyed journalism, there was zero chance of me being nominated for any sort of honor society based on my academic achievements (or lack thereof). It took me a few years to get my head on straight. In the fall of… (read more)

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75,000 Words, 285 Pages, 1 Deadline

Rob O'Hara in the University of Oklahoma

One of the main characters in my novel has a glaring flaw. A couple of scenes still feel clunky. I may or may not have a plot hole. If it weren’t for deadlines, I might have gone on editing my novel forever. There’s always something that can be improved. Rough parts can be made better. Good parts can be made great. Wednesday night, my deadline came. With Susan waiting out in the driveway, I saved the final copy of my novel to a thumb drive, and off we went. Thirty minutes later, I walked out of Office Depot with 570… (read more)

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A Break from Spring Break

Susan, her mom, and the kids are in Ireland this week for spring break, and I’m in Oklahoma. As I mentioned last week, I am wrapping up my novel for my final school project. If everything goes according to schedule, I’ll be turning my novel in during the second week of April, and defending it two weeks later (after the members of my committee have had time to read it). I started work on my novel last September, and over seven months, things have a way of changing. For example, one of my characters started the book with long blonde… (read more)

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A $69.50 Robe

I left work a couple hours early Thursday afternoon to visit the University of Oklahoma and submit the final paperwork required for graduation. Perhaps its from years of dealing with computers, but I prefer things to be linear and, if at all possible, chronological. Purchasing a cap and gown two months before I defend my final project almost seems presumptuous on my part. I realize graduation is a massive undertaking that involves hundreds (thousands?) of students and must take a long time to coordinate, but preparing for graduation before turning my final project in almost feels like showing up to… (read more)

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Another Semester in the Books

Sunday, while Susan and the kids were at the mall finishing up some Christmas shopping, I submitted my final paper of the year, bringing the end to another semester of school. This semester I “only” took six credit hours in the form of three classes, compared to the spring semester when I took 10 credit hours. I still wonder how I managed to pull that off. This semester I took Autobiography in Adult Education, Independent Study (essay/short story writing), and Project, in which I wrote 40,000 words of a novel. Last spring I finally hit that magical 2:1 ratio by… (read more)

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The Purple Star

This semester, along with two other classes, I began work on my senior project — a fiction novel. Each week, I write a new chapter for my novel and present it to the head of my committee. During our weekly sessions, my professor reads the chapter and provides me with immediate feedback. Project is the intersection where form meets art. For two years I’ve been reading and learning about story structure, plotting, character development, and pacing. Project is where students write their own stories, applying the structures lessons we’ve (hopefully) learned. Next semester, after my novel is finished, I’ll present… (read more)

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A Rough Semester Comes to an End

Wednesday, January 18, 2017, was the day I realized I had made a mistake. It was 9 p.m., and my third class of the evening had just ended. I was exhausted, and I still hadn’t eaten dinner. That day, and every Wednesday for the next four months, I woke up at 5 a.m., started work at 6 a.m., worked eight hours, left work and drove directly to Norman, ran to make my 3 p.m. class, sat through three back-to-back-to-back classes until 9 p.m., and then made the hour-long drive back home. As I stepped out into the cold January wind… (read more)

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Harry Belafonte: A Glass Half Full

Wednesday evening, my Theories of Professional Writing class (along with approximately 1,000 other people) got the opportunity to hear Mr. Harry Belafonte speak about his life and thoughts about equal rights and the current state of politics. I know Harry Belafonte largely as a singer and an actor, and for his work on 1985’s “We Are the World,” but I must admit, I wasn’t familiar with all the humanitarian and civil rights work Belafonte has been involved with. The 90-year-old Belafonte shared anecdotes about both John F. and Bobby Kennedy, and about the first time he met Dr. Martin Luther… (read more)

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