The month of January both flew by and inched forward. It’s weird how that happens. And I must say, this year is definitely one where I am outside of my comfort zone. It’s a bit of a new concept for me. I like the familiar and being in control. I like to be in charge of my own life and the experiences that I encounter. But so far this year, I have been forced to try a lot of new things and I have been put in situations I would normally avoid at all costs.
I’m not sure if I have mentioned this before, but I am taking several classes this semester that I wasn’t too thrilled about. And the first couple weeks of those classes were really rough. This semester, I am taking Introduction to Theatre, Second Year Spanish II (I didn’t take the first half of the course), Acting I, Painting II, and Ceramics I. In addition, I’m taking private violin lessons through my college. I LOVE Ceramics so far, which does not surprise me. I like creating with my hands, after all. But the rest is all very new and strange for me. Acting has been particularly tough for me. I have to take the course as part of my Visual and Performing Arts Concentration for Childhood Education. I am not someone who has ever enjoyed acting. Although I have no problem talking in front of a group of people, I hate situations in which I have to act something out and cannot hide behind a podium or such. I mean, I don’t even really like charades or games such as Cranium that much. I’m gradually becoming slightly more comfortable. The second Monday of class, we had to perform our first memorized monologue, and were required to do an action along with say the lines. I made it through, but as soon as I returned to my room after, I broke down and sobbed. I just hated doing it so much, even though I knew I didn’t really do much worse than most of the other students. But the class has gradually gotten better and I’ve become more comfortable in the class. I definitely don’t love it, but I don’t hate it. Spanish has also been an interesting experience. I took several years of Spanish in high school, but it has been over three years, and I took two years worth of French in between. Although I can understand quite a bit, I don’t remember how to say a lot of things and a lot of the grammatical structures and such. This is new for me. I am usually really good at languages and never do poorly in classes, so it’s weird for me to be struggling so much. I leave the class each day so confused. Hopefully, this will get better as the semester goes on.
Painting II has also been a bit of a struggle. I took Painting I last year, and although I didn’t like most of my paintings, I felt that I was fairly capable of painting. And I still believe that. But for the first four weeks, we had to turn in a painting each week, with no class time to work on it. It was really hard, especially because we haven’t received any feedback. The professor also announced the first week that for the first time in many years, we were going to paint from nude models. Although I know that this is a part of most art educations, I have to admit that I was a bit uncomfortable with the idea at first. We have had a female model (the same one) twice, and it hasn’t been too bad, but it did take some getting used to.
I know that it is good to get outside of your comfort zone and try new things, so I keep trying to remember that. I’m sure when this semester is over, I will be glad that I tried some new things and challenged myself, but man is it a difficult journey there.
P.S. This is my 100th published post!! I can’t believe I’ve actually stuck with this whole blogging thing long enough to publish 100 posts!
The Oke Den 