This time last year I was going through major adjustments. I had been away from home for more than three weeks, in a new city. I was thrust into the frightening university world, left to battle monstrous word counts and an eighteen-year-old roommate who still thought her mom was going to come behind her and clean her messes up.
I drew naked people, in a shocked stupor at first, but then with resignation, and then with relish (the human muscle structure is poetry, people). I exposed myself--no pun intended--to the art world of Tallahassee, in all it's fearsome and strange wonder. I explained five million times to one million people that I was a transfer student. I attended every single day of a class in which the professor never took attendance. That was just the first semester.
Then it was off to making friends in experimental drawing, going to unicorn parties, learning to not hate technology, traipsing through a Frank Lloyd Wright house, making crazy new friends, dancing salsa with my Spanish teacher, getting 5 hours of sleep a night, and illustrating my first book.
I made my summer home in Panama City, because for some reason I guess Tallahassee wasn't humid and hot enough for me. I learned how to swim butterfly and breaststroke, and I learned that I have an unnatural fear of suffocating. I helped bring a gigantic Joann Fabric's into the world, with the added bonus of getting to wear a radio and learning the proper way to cut fabric. I painted, but not as much as I wanted to. I got to go to North Carolina (YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!). I went on my first date (and started my first relationship). Best of all I became an aunt.
APPALACHIAN TRAIL!!!! AHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!
My first week back I discovered how horribly inferior I felt. While going to a community college for a bit before heading to a university has it's advantages, it will haunt you forever. Well, maybe not forever, but I'm still feeling it a year later. I come into classes in which I have all the required prerequisites, but my prerequisites lacked quality. For example, I painted with oil paints once, in high school, and it was a horrible experience. We're painting with oils ALL SEMESTER LONG in my painting class. Did I mention everyone else has painted with oils a million times before? In my printmaking class we're starting off carving in wood. I've never carved in wood before. Everyone else has. Everyone knows what they're talking about in fiction technique. They're all English majors. Week one was pretty awful.
Week two was more of that mess (Like staring at a canvas for two and a half hours without putting any paint on it).
Week three was an altogether different animal. I started carving in wood and I discovered it's a lot like carving in linoleum...and I liked it. I got over that horrible oil painting experience and I...actually...like oil painting now. Then, to end the week we did a group workshop on our writing exercises and everyone liked my writing. Spanish is still bad, but that's expected.
So, one year later and I still have this blog. I'm one year, twenty pounds, and one less roommate different. The Tappers are still tapping, the Beaters are still beating, and the Stompers are still stomping. As I speak there are psychos roaming the halls being loud and obnoxious.
Did I mention it's almost midnight?
This semester is going to be really interesting...
