Ashley Goes Back to School.

Last night I started a new class – Web Publishing – HTML 1.

It’s inconveniently located near neither work nor home, I got lost in the building for 20 minutes the first day, I won’t get home until 9:45 two nights a week for the next three months.

Do you understand that I’m usually in BED between 9:30 and 10?

Why am I doing this to myself?

Why would a girl who already gets overwhelmed by her time in the car commuting spend even more time in the car?

Why would a girl who already gets whiny about how little time she spends at home spend 8 more hours a week not at home?

Because I think this will help me be a better designer and open new ways of working with clients. And help me grow my client base, because I will finally be able to construct – from scratch! No Dreamweaver or anything! – a beautiful web page for my little design business.

Plus, taking a class or two each semester is good practice to get in that learning mode I grew so accustomed to while in school and college. Working full-time every day removes me from the student version of myself – it may seem odd, but it’s nice to connect with that version of me regularly.

It also reminds me of a few things about myself as a student that I forget, like:

• I take a LOT of notes. Constantly. Even if “it’s going to be online” – I am scribbling away. I know myself – even if they are online, I am NOT going to read them. And so, I write down everything he says.
• I ask questions. I’ve never been the person afraid of speak up in class. In AP Calc, I was the designated question-asker. Stupid questions weren’t off limits. You may have hated the question-asker in high school. Sorry.
• I laugh at the teacher’s stupid jokes and respond when they ask questions. I hate that awkward silence and the disappointed Eeyore look when a teacher is left hanging. Just imagine how terrible it would be to talk to a room full of people and only receive blank stares. I NEED FEEDBACK. And so, I listen intently.
• Learning new things delights me. Yesterday I (finally!) learned the difference between HTML and CSS, and what [div] tags are really for. (Not line breaks like I’d originally thought.) I was giddy. And excited to learn more.
• I learn best when someone else is teaching me. Google is fabulous and I owe lots of what I’ve learned to the wonderful World Wide Web, but I am simply too busy and lazy (oxymoron?) to be completely self-taught. Also, you are not better than me because you are self-taught. I am smart enough to know I learn best from someone who knows what they’re doing and how to teach. And some things you just can’t learn. Like design aesthetic. HTML coding? Must learn.
• The first day I’m always a drama queen, overwhelmed by how much we are going to cover. My first day of college, I remember thinking, “Oh my goodness! I will never graduate from college. This is just. so. hard. Everyone I know who’s graduated from college must be a freakin’ genius!” I eventually learned all that “required” reading wasn’t quite required, and life was a little happier. (PS: I graduated from college nearly three years ago. Woo!)