The cat is out of the bag

Apparently, my public demands that I write more. I didn't even know I had a public, but, well, there it is. The reason that I haven't been writing is very simple: I have lots of work to do. Schoolwork! Yup, I've just finished my 3rd week of class, and teachers have been giving us homework pretty much the whole time. So basically, I've been drawing and making sure that I get 8 hours of sleep for as long as I can (realistically, when things start to get really heavy, I will probably get less and less sleep.)

This blog post has actually been in progress for 2 weeks, so when I say "last week", please read "2 weeks ago", and so on:

Last week, the first week of class, one of my classmates asked myself and another classmate something along the lines of "so, are you guys getting to know your way around yet?" Naturally, having attended the very same school going on 12 years ago, I confessed the fact. There was this silence--short but very telling--where my classmate was obviously processing what I'd just said. She had a bit of a freak-out, where she kept exclaiming things like, "oh my GOD! You totally don't look 29!" and "Oh my GOD! No WAY!" She also just couldn't believe that she knew a 29 year old. She also said something about me being "sophisticated", which I thought was the icing on the cake. Then, she or the other classmate (I can't really remember) asked me "what it's like". Can you believe that? Being old is all relative, obviously... (Edit: The classmate in question will no doubt recognize herself if she reads this; I hope she won't misconstrue my tone as being condescending.)

In my drawing class this week, our teacher asked us to introduce ourselves, one by one. She wanted to know a bit about us, about our art background, and some general things like how we came to want to be graphic designers and such. This was my big coming-out party. "I actually was in the Creative Arts program in '99..." to this, even the teacher's eyes got big. I went on to briefly describe how I'd always been immersed in art, but never thought it was something you could make money at. I wanted to be a film animator; that was my thing. In those days, though, film animation was becoming increasingly more computer-driven, and I had absolutely no interest in that. Dropped out, got into music, held a job for 7 years, had an epiphany, and the rest is history.

A lot of the people in my class are coming straight from high school, but there's also an interesting number of them who are transferring from other programs in the same school, as well as people who have done university and decided that they would rather be graphic designers. I'm delighted to see such variety, and I'm actually looking forward to seeing what my classmates are capable of (but believe me, I'm feeling competitive, even this early-on.) The one other girl in my class who I thought might be older than me, as it turns out, is 2 years my junior. Naturally, we get on well together.

I don't want to make a big deal about my age, because I don't attribute much importance to it, but it does come up, and I thought it would be important to mention in a post. I won't be dwelling on it much in this blog, though, but if my public has any questions pertaining to that, I will gladly answer.

I've seen many other bloggers ask their public a question at the end of a post, but I hesitate to because if nobody answers my question, I'll feel like a bit of a tool. I guess it's worth a shot, though, so here goes:

What would your biggest fears be, in returning to school? If you already have gone back, what were your fears, and did you find them to be justified in the end?