verbicide | Well I feel heavy metal! Whoo hoo! And I'm pins and I'm needles!

What a great morning.

I did have to wake up at a cruel hour (7:45am) but somehow survived with the sheer adrenaline required to face a day like this. First day of class, new route, etc.

I know myself enough to know that I'm not particularly functional in the morning, so I had laid out clothes, packed my bag. Nothing was required of me except to get dressed and walk out the door.

I decided to drive today to cut down on one new thing (an unfamiliar bus stop is not very happy). Figured I'd ask my other Ballard classmates about the bus system, because the information I found online had me walking a bizarre distance from bus stop to class, and I wasn't keen on doing that first thing in the morning in the rain. So I parked in a garage off Union which was of course, priced at highway robbery ($15, ouch). I was running a bit late, so couldn't hunt for other parking.

It was nice to return to class. Met up with Jeff in the lobby and we started chatting and found our way to class. No drinks allowed so everyone was huddled outside of class with coffee and granola bars, etc. I grabbed a computer terminal and chirped at Jeff to "Sit with meee!" and he complied. Life would be so much easier if everyone just obeyed.

The instructor, Lisa, is one fine woman. It's weird to have a really hot teacher, for some reason. And really, I know low cut jeans are the thing, but it's distracting to see your instuctor's navel on the first day of class. Regardess, she went over the class structure etc. I can understand that she wants us to turn off our monitors and watch her go through the steps first and then try on our own, I can understand all the reasons for it, but it's still a bit frustrating. As she's clicking, I want to follow along, instead of watching the screen and then trying to duplicate it after 10 minutes of watching her do it. But, whatever.

It's also nice to have a teacher with a sense of humor. Do any of us outgrow 4th grade? Her sample data was on the Planets. So there was much merriment over Uranus. And I'm sure for even the most seasoned teacher, first day of class is awkward or tense, so she kept cracking herself up with the Uranus jokes, which made us crack up. She eventually had to call it the Blue Planet. Hee.

A couple of women around me were having problems, so we formed a little huddle around my PC, which was just nice. It's exciting to be in a class where you already feel so comfortable with the subject matter and can just be excited about learning shit without worrying about it.
And inside you're burbling "I am so SMRT! I am so SMRT!" because you get it and get it well enough to help others.

I mean, first day of class, I'm always 4 years old. A little shy, wanting approval. So when I make a joke and it's warmly received, I can just feel the apprehension melting away. It was nice to have someone to walk with for coffee at break and sit around, all of us chatting like old friends. Yay!

In case it's not obvious, I freaking love my program.

Then, since I was downtown I wandered around, found the gelato place I used to go to when I worked at 4th/University. They still have the rice flavored kind, which I love! And I got a bit of that because I could. Hit the comic book store because I fully believed SiP #62 was out, but apparently not, dammit. Then hopped in my car and came home. It was just nice. Despite the early hour, I think I'm going to love this. It's nice to come home and have it be 1pm and have already accomplished so much instead of stretching out of bed at 11 and meandering around in a fog.

Tonight I'm fully prepared to be robbed of my $5 at KC's poker game.

Shit. I should finish cleaning, as O and Em are coming over tomorrow so I can give Em a tutorial on webstuff. Meh. Later. I'm too perky right now.