My Class:

The bright spot in my week.

Many of you might (or might not) know that I'm kind of a freak when it comes to school. When I graduated college, I instantly missed it. I wanted to go back! I want to be a professional student and not have any debt! If there was a career path where you could get paid to go to school -- well, and not be a professor -- I would do it.

I've always been this way. A strange, sick part of me loved coming home from grade school/high school and doing my homework at my desk in my bedroom. I also loved studying for tests. And going to the library. And in college I would study my butt off for an exam, get really nervous, and then ace it. I don't know why I always got nervous. It's a cycle I guess.

My only dearest little brother, on the other hand, is very opposite of me. Where I would go to sleep at 10 and bounce out of bed at 6:03 a.m. every morning, following the same routine in the same exact order and get ready for my day at Westside High School, Matt would stay awake until God knows when and sleep in until the last possible second. In fact, I don't really know where I came from when it comes to my insane study habits and love of schooling. I'm probably an alien.

If you could go back to school for anything, what would it be? If I had unlimited time, money, and resources, I would want to go into nutritional science. How different foods and chemicals react and how that affects the body has always interested me -- probably because I love food so much and it's something we see and eat every day. I'd also be interested in psychology. And picking up Spanish again. And this, and this, and this...

Anyway, I'm not sure that I want to go to grad school. Yet. So in the meantime, I'm getting my certificate of publishing at NYU, and my first class started last Tuesday.

Even though school is an old hat for me, I've never gone to a place that's, well, not in my hometown. So going to NYU was a little nerve-wracking. And I felt old, even though I'm not. I felt old but also very young, because I was actually nervous! And I texted Tyler the whole time. After I called him to double check the building and room number.

Me: Dotting the student lounge: kids with iPads.
Tyler: Ha. I believe it.
I'm kinda nervous!
You'll be fine. You're smarter than those kids.
You know how UNO had those PCs in the student center to check your emails? And they were kinda shitty?
Yep. Things a little nicer at NYU?
There are huuuuge brand new Macs with the flat monitors here.
Sweet!
Room C-1 right?
Yep.
Ok. I know I'm in the right place; I can hear the convos!
Good. Lots of people in the class?
5 others now.

Ah, Tyler, the voice of calm reason and agreement while I documented my pre-class time. What would I do without him? Freak myself out into oblivion, that's what. Or text myself.

Moral of the story is that my class went great. My teacher is the VP of a department at Random House and is easygoing, cool, and excited about teaching us about the changing industry. In he first class we learned about the steps a 'book' goes through, from leaving the author to getting to the reader.

I'm thrilled to be learning more about this process and all the facets of publishing besides what I already know: editing. I left class with a homework assignment (reading a manuscript and giving a reader's report on it) and feeling elated and more confident that this is the industry I want to be in. And if this is the job industry I want to work in, this is the place I have to be right now. Even though, as Tyler often points out, I always want to be somewhere other than where I am.

I guess I need some lessons in living in the present moment.