We surprise ourselves by what we write. Writing is thinking, not thought recorded. -Murray
Write in order to formulate thoughts. Wrestle honestly with ideas.

It is a cliche in the lore of writing that one writes what one knows - that the most powerful writing comes from the authenticity of experience ... one of the most important attributes of writing is a way of knowing, a way of working through confusion and fuzzy ideas, and a way of moving toward clarification and articulation of knowledge. This attribute of writing is often overlooked and undervalued. It should not be. Especially at those times when we are struggling to understand a new idea, to "fit" that information into our current knowledge base, and to arrive at coherent meaning, writing becomes a way of working through the process and moving towards insight. Thus, information emerges from text; new ideas come as we write and form what we write ... The writer's intent, his or her purpose for writing, profoundly influences the resulting text. Writing is the act of constructing meaning while transacting with text. -Ruddell

Day number two is done - at least the classroom part. Sixteen hours in the "classroom" and about 12 hours of reading will be "under my belt" by the time I close my eyes for a long anticipated couple hours of sleep tonight. And even though I'm exhausted I'm loving it. Absolutely loving it. I love our dialog, our shared insight, the new information, our collaborative inspiration. Here is a group of people with the same "general" goal in mind, all feeding off each other's energy. Absolutely amazing.
My little reading break is about over, but here are a few random things that have been distracting me =)

My drug of choice; sunshine.
My drink of choice; black tea with a touch of honey and milk.
My music of choice; Boston - they were exactly what I needed to plow through my 100 pages of reading today!
My snack of choice; Disney Organic Animal Crackers (at home) Hershey Dark Chocolate Kiss (at school).
My clothing of choice; slippers, yoga pants, white hoodie, next week I'm going to class like this, you can't stop me.
My reward of choice; sleep.