First day of classes!

I woke up this morning at around 9AM to the sound of rain pelting my window. Its been raining a lot the last couple of days, but today the rain was coming down particularly hard. First on my agenda for the day was my Philosophy of Happiness class. I looked up the building it was in, donned my ski jacket, and headed out into the rain.

Class was in a big old lecture hall on the other side of campus. I took a seat at the front of the class because I forgot my glasses and got out my notebook to jot down a few choice notes. It actually an incredibly interesting lecture. We tore through the history of “happiness,”  looking at people throughout history have tried to define what happiness is, exactly, and determine what it is that makes us happy. We actually have to keep a journal for the class on things that make us happy everyday. I’m really looking forward to it, especially since it provides a much needed opportunity for self reflection. More on happiness later, but it was an incredibly engaging and thought provoking two hours.

I left lecture a few minutes early to try and be on time for my Photography class, which I ended up being about 5 minutes late for anyways. When I got there I made sure to sign in, since the class was full and there were about 20 kids there waiting and hoping some people wouldn’t show up (everyone did). We talked about the class and expectations and requirements for the first half of class, and then went into the dark room and learned the basics. (Enlargers, the different chemical baths for developing film/prints, etc). We then got a bunch of objects and made some photograms (Prints without using negatives/cameras) to practice our developing chops. It was a ton of fun, and I’m going to have a blast.

After photography I went over to the ceramics studio for my ceramics class. Unlike photography, which I have a feeling I’m going to be pretty good at ‘naturally’, ceramics is going to take some serious practice. I’m absolutely envious of Luke’s skills; throwing stuff on a wheel is HARD. I managed to eek out a couple of cup-ish shaped objects that weren’t too bad by the end of class, but I went through a ton of clay trying and failing miserably. I’m just starting to get the hang of it I think, so hopefully next week wont be too bad.

Unfortunately, for both photography and ceramics we can only be in the darkroom/studio at specific times (in class for photography, and at a couple of times I’m otherwise pretty busy for ceramics), so I’ll need to spend my time in both classes very efficiently to do well. I’m very excited about my first three classes; hopefully Digital Arts tomorrow morning proves just as fun!