i am alive

Thanks to the number one reader of this blog, it has come to my attention that it's been over two months since I posted.  And I guess if you don't know me very well, you may have assumed that some unfortunate event had called me to glory.

But fear not little ones.  For I am alive and well.  

I've just finished my first quarter as a graduate student in the sculpture program at SCAD.  I'd decided last year to quit my teaching job in order to obtain this degree.  Partly because I really hated my job and also because I figured if I was going to do something I didn't like, I may as well get paid well for it.  My plans were to return to teaching after the MFA and make way more money.  

However.

I 'm rethinking this whole "return" thing.  

I am L O V I N G loving loving loving this not teaching thing.  I don't know if I want to go back.  

So, what will I do?  

Who knows.

I feel like I've just started down a new road that I've never driven down before and I have no idea what's around the corner.  Possibly a new opportunity will come my way just from being in this environment where art and sculpture are the subject of every topic.  I've already witnessed many students move on to great things and exciting adventures.   I'm really looking forward to the uncertain future.

So.  Grad school.

Wow.

What a trip.

I've never been so busy in my life.  

I thought I was busy when I was a teacher but that was a vacation compared to this.

I was juggling so many things I couldn't keep my head on straight.  There were several bouts of crying and breakdowns. But my professors warned me that it was perfectly normal.

I gotta say though, that it wasn't horrible or anything.  I was definitely enjoying what i was doing.  I think I was just mourning for the downtime that I'd lost.  No napping, no tv, no lounging around all afternoon watching movies.  My house is the dirtiest it's ever been.  But, I was immersed in the world of art and it was  such a fulfilling place to be.

I took two classes this quarter: Contemporary Art History and Sculpture Studio Processes.  The art history class covered everything from the 1940's to now.  This class was pretty difficult.  There was so much reading, writing, and talking about art I thought my head was going to explode.

This is what my desk has looked like for the past two months

Reading an art history book is really quite difficult.  I mean, my reading list for the past eight years has included such academic titles as the Hunger Games and theTwilight series.  So there was bound to be a period of adjustment.  After I finished my BFA, my head just needed a break.  It was pretty difficult at first to retrain my mind to focus and concentrate so intensely in order to understand what I was reading.  And then to actually COMPREHEND what I was reading.  I hadn't studied in so many years that my brain was completely out of shape.  Have you ever noticed how hard it is to clear your mind of all extraneous thoughts  (like "i gotta wash the dishes",  "what should I make for dinner?" , "why do dogs have to get old?", "i miss grey's anatomy", who should I vote for?", etc) and just purely focus your mind on grasping what you're reading?  Not too mention, flipping through the dictionary every five minutes to look up a word I didn't know.  Every week there was a chapter to read, a topic to research and write about, and a research paper to work on.  I nearly thought I'd die.

But I didn't.

I survived it, learned from it, and succeeded.

I passed the class with an 87.