4:29 PM
having one of those days. You know the kind I mean, right? It starts when you oversleep and goes downhill from there. I woke up when I was supposed to be at the bus stop, but Mom had already said she'd take me to the second bus, so I was only going to have a short trip to school, with 45 minutes before class started. What actually happened was entirely different.

I didn't realize until my mom pulled off that she'd let me off at the wrong corner. Somehow, the street we were on had veered to the left and we ended up on another street. Moreover, since I'd had trouble waking her and The Boy up, we were late, so I couldn't make it to the correct stop in time. The one stroke of luck I had was that I had over an hour before class. I called a cab and actually arrived early for class.

Determined to turn things around, I went into my Photoshop class with great enthusiasm. I was indeed able to forget the morning and have a lot of fun. I've used Photoshop for about two and a half years, but have had no formal training. I can do basic things -- some color correction, sepiatone/monochrome, crop, resise, use filters, etc. I manuever around Photoshop pretty well, but I knew there were features, combinations of features and techniques that leave gaps in my knowledge, so I'm happy to take this course. I actually lost track of how many new things I learned, which is great, because I hate being bored. Below is the first assignment. In the book it had an actual album title, but the instructor asked us to use our names instead.

All of the visible objects (4) were seperate layers, spread over three different documents. The CD in the top right corner was made semi-transparent and cropped/scaled/rotated; the musical note background was made more transparent and filtered blue-green; finally, the horn was removed from a white background and the color was enhanced from a pale, flat, beige/yellow to a more realistic color.

All in all, class went well and my prof (the same one I have for PageMaker) used me as an example a few times. She already knows my name...I'll have to mind my manners. Not that I was planning to be an ass or anything.

However, Ye Olde Mad Woman nearly made a comeback. I wanted to snap at the woman next to me, for so many reasons. First of all, she had some compulsion to sit side saddle, so she kept kicking me. She also stayed on the Internet throughout class. OK, fine, I'm not innocent, I checked my email while the prof took attendance, to find out if I had been able to get into the two online classes I wanted (I didn't). However, once we came back from our break and got to work, I closed Netscape because I was there to learn. I figured this woman was some Photoshop pro, just taking the course for credit, because she didn't pay attention at all. Then she had the nerve to keep asking me how to do everything. I'm going to remember her and sit somewhere else next week. Honestly!
...

We actually got out 35 minutes earlier than I expected, so I thought I could catch the 12:30 bus. Some stupid urge in me said I should go to the bookstore to price more software, for my evil software-buying spree. I should've just went to the student center for a new bottle of water and to go to the bathroom. Instead, I got to the bus stop a few minutes before the bus was due, but it never came. I had to call another cab or else I would not have arrived home on time. There was much swearing, digging for and wasting of change and then there was the heat. It's absurd here. As the cabbie said, it's like breathing cotton.

This week, which I'm glad is over, has been one long, expensive, exhausting sign that I need to get my license and get it over with. I realize a lot of the fear I was remembering was not in fact mine, but that of a former friend. She had a car and a license, but she avoided driving, by any means necessary. I was never afraid to drive, despite my mother's first words to me on the subject of cars being "You know, you can kill someone with one of these." Thanks for the vote of confidence, maybe we should move back to the more flattering subject of my weight.

My father, who made more fun of me about not driving than anyone, had the least room to do so. He only took me out to drive once, although he said it wasn't bad at all. My mom took me out a few more times, but not often enough for any continuity. It was like starting over every time. It's like math, I needed a little extra help. Writing's my main strength, I don't work at it enough. For other things, however, I have to really work. I'm not a freakin' genius, at least not in every possible area. It's just as well, Einstein was known to leave the house without pants.

[ link to this ]

+ + +