The past few weeks have been interesting. I�m taking awesome but time-consuming classes: Film, Make-up artistry, and Advanced Creative Writing.
My make up artistry class could be better. The girls in class are VERY stuck up. I don�t feel like talking to any of them and have so far mutually snubbed them. I have to say, though, that I found it amusing that the instructor kept telling me, a half-blind non-make up wearing kinda girl, that I was doing everything correct. She kept admonishing the twits, and after seeing their work. They used waaaay too much make up on the models: black eye-liner, and watermelon cheeks. It was supposed to be basic corrective makeup. Make up that doesn�t look like make up on film. Besides my own face, I don�t think they�ve seen anyone without make up, ever, because they had no idea of what �natural� means. So, as of last week, I�m doing very well in the class and having a lot of fun, minus the stuck up girls who only talk to people as shallow as they are.
Next week we�re doing beards and learning to do scars and how to use blood. :-P

My Film class is awesome; It is a crash workshop course so we will do everything taught. This includes acting, directing, producing, editing, audio/sound, lighting, etc. The women are very aware of knowledge and perspective but some are also annoying in the exact opposite way of the twits in my make up class. They are trying too hard to be �deep� and connect with things they clearly know little about. For example, one woman in class kept a conversation going for quite some time about Saturn going Retrograde because she had turned 30. I didn�t want to destroy her brief moment of attempted self-realization and her connection to the vast universe by informing her that my mom homeschooled me almost entirely using astrology as the focal curriculum and that she certainly had to have meant she experienced a Saturn return, not a Saturn retrograde, which is a transit that can occur while experiencing a Saturn return, but does not do or mean the same thing. This however is a much more pleasant annoyance, and involves a certain amount of intelligence even if they have no idea of what they are talking about. At least these women are aware that a world exists outside of their pore size and foundation color.

I got to hold my first digital camera last Wednesday and will soon be learning how to use that $2500 camera, which should I damage or lose, I have to pay for. I have however been enjoying watching short films, plays, puppetry, and basic artistic films as part of my homework. The assignments for class are still abstract and I have no idea what the instructor wants. But I have ideas for short films.

My creative writing class is an independent study class. I�m basically on my own, with guidance. As I will have a roughly 50 page final, I decided to go for it and start the novel I�ve wanted to write for 5 years now. My head is swimming with possibilities. I love the storyline that I know so far. I have written many short stories and poems, but never a novel. So I need advice and organization skills, which hopefully I will get.
I also had a re-realization thanks to taking such creative classes: I did not originally go to college to get a degree. I went to college to try to get better because I realized that 8 years had passed of trying to get help with my agoraphobia and panic and grief and avoidant personality disorder from counselors only to perpetually talk about all the things I could not do, which was taking me nowhere. I went to college to do some of those things I could not do, all on my own. I�m better now than I was, certainly, even though I�m still not functional enough to live on my own. And I�m working towards a degree. So I need to focus on this truth of why I am in college when I stress�I�m not there to get a degree as my primary goal. I am there to get better and learn to function in a safe environment and also get a degree.

Today was a rare snow day, and I made puppet people. :->
Okay, I will write more soon, I�m about to collapse. It is -13F outside right now. I just took a shower and I sit here on my bed with thoughts in the back of my head of going outside and timing how long it takes for my hair to freeze solid. :)
And P made it safely to Argentina�I miss him terribly, but at least he is no longer on the opposite side if the word and a digital version of himself with be able to communicate with me a lot easier with only a 2 hour difference.

I am processing things, and often have thoughts wondering if I am with the right person, and I think of P and I think of my boyfriend and then I think�my boyfriend has a really bad temper that he is trying to control, but he is the one getting me to school on crappy days, picking me up when I�m ill, cuddling with me when I need him to, rubbing my back when it hurts, sticking up for me even against his own relatives, cooking me dinner when I have too much homework, and helping me through the insanity of school. Among the many things he does. And then I feel grateful for all that he does and hope this lasts forever�

more soon...

~e