First day of class

Holy cow this is weird.  I've got a student ID and a parking pass, a syllabus, and homework.  What is happening?

 

 

I'll tell you what's happening:  Today was the first class of the semester for Intro to Interior Design at the Corcoran College of Art & Design. 

 

As predicted, it was a nightmare trying to extricate myself from work in time to get to class.  Seriously, the confluence of starting class and trying to leave on vacation tomorrow must have created a vortex in the space-time contuum of work, because I'm in way over my head.  (But, then, what's new about that?)

 

The class, once I got there, went fine.  The first-day chaos in the administrative offices was a tad unpleasant (that's one thing I do not miss about being a student) and I definitely felt out of place running around in a suit with a briefcase on the campus of an art school (everyone else was, like, barely twenty and so artistically bohemian).  But once I got into the classroom everything turned out okay -- most of the people in the room were actually Master's students or Continuing Education students, like me.

 

In fact, that was something I hadn't quite expected:  As we went around the room and introduced ourselves, the majority of the students said they hated their full-time jobs and were taking the class because they wanted to become interior designers.  I was the only lawyer, and also the only one who didn't say I hated my day job. 

 

Speaking of day job, I reminded myself over and over today that I couldn't treat this like a normal school class.  I have a job; this is secondary.  RELAX.  But the minute we sat down and started going over the syllabus, all my perfectionistic, competitive tendencies started firing up!  I wanted an A and I wanted to be the best (which is not necessarily the same thing).  I started looking around the room, sizing up the competition -- and then reminded myself that I'm not even taking the class for credit, and there's no way I'm going to be able to compete with a bunch of students with nothing better to do than pick out fabric swatches.  As long as I keep pretending to believe that, I might manage not to stress myself out over this!

 

The fun part, though, is that (a) I get to go shopping for art supplies (pencils and rulers and sketch-books!), and (b) I get to start designing a residence of my choosing for the final project.  Bathroom will be first; then the kitchen; then the whole thing.  And since I have no intention of designing for an imaginary client, and I don't want to redesign my own place, I'll be looking for some brave soul to let me redo her place (on paper, at any rate). 

 

 

Oh, and P.S., that subscription I've had to Elle Decor for the past three years?  Thanks to that, I had already seen and read about every room the instructor had us look at today.  It's like I'd read the summer reading list without even knowing it.  I'm pretty sure that warrants some extra credit right there.