John McClain

I'm finally home. The fall semester was very hectic, but a lot of good came of it. More finished pieces, more experience in time management, more opportunities to experiment, and more time spent processing with God and working on my character. And the new, unfortunately temporary, professor allowed me to leave my comfort zone to experiment with different materials and styles. Even though it was scary for me personally, there was no added pressure from him that would have made it that much harder on me. Instead, he was very supportive and gave good feedback.

Now that I'm home, there is still much to be done. But there's a different kind of stress here. It's good. It keeps me going, motivated, feeling responsible and mature. I'm not as overwhelmed as when I'm at school, even though there is a lot to do. At school, you have deadlines and grades and expectations to meet. At home, there is love and understanding, and while things do need to be done, no one is here to bite my head off if I can't come through on everything because they know I'm working hard at whatever it is I AM doing. At school, some teachers think that their class takes precedence over every other class and aspect of your life, and if you don't come through on their assignment, you weren't trying hard enough. I hate that. I know I work hard. On EVERYTHING I possibly can. I've gotten physically sick trying to meet deadlines. I even threw up during a crit once because I was so sickly exhausted. And sometimes it's hard to decide whether to get something done just so you have it in on time, or to do it very well and risk not finishing. They say that in the real world, you get to say yes or no to what jobs you take. Or that you can sometimes work it out with a client so that you can work with a decent timeframe for you and also give them quality. If every class or assignment I had equalled a job, I'm sure I would be saying no to some of them. But you can't really do that at school. Any of it. Everyone has the same deadlines, whether you work fast or slow, and if you can't get it done then "screw you; I don't care if life happened; you knew about this assignment since ther day you were born; this is unprofessional; blah blah blah".

I guess all I'm saying is that it feels good to be home. The best part so far is that my dad got a Christmas tree that was apparently too tall and had a lot of empty spots. So he pulled a John McClain move and drilled holes in the trunk so he could stick branches in them to fill the empty patches. I really thought it was hillarious, and I'm sure I'll remember it forever. I love my dad. My sisters and I always imagine him doing the things Bruce Willis' character does in the Die Hard movies.

I love being home.