Vada Sultenfuss

I've never been more excited to buy myself a mustard colored single-subject notebook.

After work Tuesday, I skipped to the closest drug store to purchase all of the supplies I would need for the very first session of the 8-week writing course I recently enrolled in. I found the class through Mediabistro.com, a Web site best known for publishing media job listings and offering continued education courses. The class, called "Personal Essay Writing", focuses on grooming first-person pieces for magazines and Web sites that accept freelancers. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I signed up and shelled out the not-so-modest $350 fee after my experience with this blog inspired my return to writing in a formal, publishable format. After all, my blog entries are mini personal essays. Why not try to sell them?

Even better, it gave me the perfect excuse for a crisp new wide-ruled notebook.

To be honest, as I always am on "Orange to Apple", a part of me was just as excited about buying fresh "school supplies" as I was about experiencing my first class in (brace for unsettling realization that I'm getting older) nearly three years.

As long as I can remember, I have been oddly enamored with school/office supplies. I love (and love is absolutely the right word) fresh sheets of loose leaf, packs of markers, piles of folders, pencil cases stuffed with rulers and pens and erasers shaped like hamburgers. I even love the smell of every Staples I frolic into.

So, yes, I was excited to buy a new notebook for the notes and handouts in my near future.

Now, after having sat through my first three hours of "Personal Essay Writing", I'm happy to report that the class is even more exciting than the new notebook.

During the meet and greet that started the class, I was amazed by each person's introduction. My seven other classmates have serious journalism chops. There's an editor at TIME, an ex-editor at Nickelodeon Magazine, an NBC News veteran and a handful of other equally impressive and interesting writers. Honestly, most of the people taking the course could easily teach it.

I'm officially Vada Sultenfuss.

The instructor, a magazine editor/college instructor/PhD in medieval literature, was friendly and engaging while still coming off as legit authority in writing, editing and reading. I can tell he won't hold his red pen if my work sucks which thrills me as much as it scares me.

This class and the mustard colored notebook are exactly what I need right now. It reminds me of why I moved to New York City. It reminds me of how much I love the process of writing and how much I still have to learn about it. I reminds me that I'm still a writer.