Twist a little closer now

I had my midterm meeting with Karen today. Oddly enough, the main thing she told me was that I needed to get better with using "specific imagery and concrete examples". That is so very much not what I think of myself. I can kind of think why she thinks it, though. I am pretty vague and abstract in her class. A couple reasons for this- she does things like present something and ask what it is about something that I like. I need more time to process. So I mutter vague things because I don't yet know what I think, and I'm working it out in my head as I'm talking, and I don't want to go back and clarify things because I said something I didn't actually mean in the first place. Another reason is that I can't always tell what she wants to hear, and so I stay vague until I know. And lastly, because when you ask me what something is about, I have a very hard time telling you what it's about, rather than telling you the plot. And that is something I need to work on. But it was a good meeting, I had thought it was going to be a big lecture about how I wasn't prepared and all, but it was very much about a few things I need to work on, and here's some suggestions, and resources for the next project. She didn't give any of us a grade yet, but my evaluation said she was confident that I would more than pass.
I need to buy the reader for engaging lit tomorrow. I have been getting by well enough by looking up the poems on the internet, but now we're into the short story section, and I really need my own.
My grandfather really wants me to come down to the Bay for thanksgiving, my aunt is going to be in town or something, and so he wants to do some big family junk thing. I'm not that into it. I dunno. I mean, aside from not wanting to have dinner with him and my grandmother, I kind of want to stay here, and just muscle through this semester. I feel like if I go home, it will feel like I've left Seattle permanently, and it will be triply hard to come back. I don't want to leave Seattle until I'm actually going to leave. But- I would like to see my parents and my cats and Zina's show. And Fred said he would have work for me, and I'd get to work at the Rep again a little, and it pays pretty well. We'll see. He says he'll pay for my plane ticket. If he hadn't offered that, the descision would be made. But now I'm kind of split.
My apartment is too warm, and I have no control over it.