Back to the Classroom

Last night was the first night of my Interior Design workshop that Michele gave me as a birthday present. It’s a way for me to explore the beginnings of interior design and see if it is something that I want to do for the rest of my life. The class is offered by a local Adult Education program near where I live. It was a small class only 10 people and I was by far the youngest in the class. As we went around the room explaining why we were there it became apparent that a lot of the other women in the classes had different objectives. They were either houses they had just moved in to that needed decorating, decorating baffled them completely, or they had a specific room they wanted to decorate and it was their weekend project. Mainly I sat in the class with 9 bored housewives and a young singleton (me), all looking for something different.

You know that the first day of class is the least structured, people shuffling in late, tons of hand outs, and homework. That’s right I have homework. But before I get to that I have to tell you a few tidbits. The teacher herself is quite the subject for blog fodder. Ms. G- as I will call her- is at least 60 if not older. She spent the beginnings of her career days as a home economics teacher for college. Once the budgets dried up along with her job, she went back to school for a masters in Interior Design. With this Masters Degree she has been able to fulfill her interior design career dreams as an Interior Decorating consultant with Home Depot, 3 day blinds and her current job as a sales person for the Home Consignment Center. Maybe I am being SUPER bitchy but with a Masters, I would have thought that maybe she would have been working for a design firm or maybe ran her own design business. Not helping people pick out the right color paint or which kitchen cabinets are the longest lasting and durable. I have to say she was color coordinated which at least gave me some faith in her abilities. I am hoping she surprises me. Another thing about her is her speech patterns, this doesn’t annoy me but I thought it was funny. She speaks in rapid succession and pauses in the weirdest places, like three words before the end of a sentence. I have to say she is VERY jolly and reminds me of Santa Claus’ wife. Maybe if she wants to have a career change again there will be an opening for her in the holiday season. She loves her job, I’ll give her that.

Now to my other class mates, ok really one in particular. I am sure I will come up with others before the 4 weeks ends. Like I said the class is filled with houses wives looking for a project. One in particular brought her 1 month old daughter with her. At first I couldn’t figure out why, I understand that there is separation anxiety and thought that was the case. I soon learned the real reason, during roll call she whips out her breast and starts feeding her daughter. I am perfectly serious. She has a blanket for the baby which you would think that she would use to shield the rest of us from getting to know her all that much better, but no, she uses the blanket to cover the bottom half of the baby, the non-feeding end. Now whether you believe in breast feeding or not, its your right. However it is not polite to assume everyone will be comfortable with your boob hanging out like a FEED BAG!!

But back to the class, my homework is to go thru home magazines and pick out coloring schemes that I like. I have decided to do one of each spectrum, blue based tones and yellow based tones. Yes I am a suck up. I will take pictures of my home work and post them. God, I can’t wait until next week!