Week One

 This was posted after week one, then taken away, and now here it is again:


I've finished my first week of school, which was just two and a half days long. Both Thursday and Friday night I was exhausted and discouraged.

 It is art class like I've never had. Fast-pasted and rigorous, with an emphasis on geometry and precision. There are calculations to make. We are expected to measure with not a millimeter of error, to make perfectly perpendicular lines, to draw identical diamonds, losanges, with a compass. It is more like high school math than (American) Studio Art, but harder, and more humiliating. Because art is supposed to be something I'm good at. And I am the oldest in the room.

But each time I talk to someone honestly, I see a little more sun. Romain says to take it one day at a time. Isabelle tells me I should ask the other students for help. Yes, yes..

Thursday and Friday are atelier vitrail, stained glass studio, days, from 8:30 a.m. to 6 p.m., with a lunch break in the middle. We are 11 in total, in both the first and second years.. The youngest, coming straight from high school in the south of France is 18, the oldest besides me is 25. We all ate lunch together in the park on Friday and Flore said to me "Ah, we aren't old, we are the wisest! Finally someone here's wiser than me."

Besides, 8 years of age difference isn't much. I've just always found myself on the other end of that spectrum.

But despite having lived in other countries and lived through some unusual experiences,  despite being married, the older I get the younger I seem to come across.

It's probably a particular shyness, and the way I don't dress carefully adult-like, that gives an impression of being younger. And maybe I guard that purposefully, without even realizing.. or maybe it's the self confidence I sometimes miss?

It's just that coming across as younger feels like coming across as somehow less. Like I've been coddled and my maturity's been stunted. But perhaps I should simply stop hearing this as an insult.

But it's just the beginning. And everything, from how to subtract half the 1.75 mm âme du plomb ("soul" or center of the lead pipe) when cutting out our drawings to new vocabulary, is explained in french. Because it's a French school for French students. So it's normal that everything's going to take me a little bit longer.

I spoke briefly to a ceramics student from China who is part of the International program, where I was initially accepted. In it you get to follow most/some of the DMA classes but have to pay and can only stay one year without the possibility of graduating with the ENSAAMA diploma. While deliberating over whether or not I'd go, and looking for a job, I was suddenly offered a spot as full time student. The student from China, after I explained awkwardly how I was almost in her class, gave me an icy stare and said "you are extremely lucky" and then turned her back.

 But I can't help question my choice to be here, because it's difficult, more difficult that any academic environment I've been in. And it's too soon to judge.

At one point, after all but one of my paper cut-outs weren't good enough, my professor asked "Are you sure you don't need glasses?" Well, yes, I had to get an eye exam to validate my Visa. But then again maybe I simply could use a sharper pair of eyes.

My dad says "Remember your strengths." Um, being nice? Finding color harmony?

One day at a time…