I was sitting around the other day thinking I should go really look into using my G.I. Bill to take some photography courses. It's something I've always wanted to do since I was a kid carrying around my dad's 35mm SLR. I'd take it on school field trips, out in the summer to the zoo and around town on the bus. It still baffles me to this day he'd let a kid run around with a piece of equipment as expensive as that. Lucky for me I never so much as dropped it (I swear to the best of my recollection). Anyway, my love of photographs goes way back. Bad pictures with closed eyes, funny photos, and even a few good photos too. I got familiar with how it worked but never truly understood all the dials, knobs, and numbers. I knew how to change out the lens, how to focus, knew what ISO to use where, load and unload it, but that was about it. Man, I really loved that camera.So now that I'm all grown up *shiver* and taking pictures of my own kids I thought it would be pretty neat if I actually figured out what all the rest of those knobs and numbers on that camera mean. So I looked up some local schools to take some courses and found that Art Institute of Houston offers a full course. I figured I should use my G.I. Bill money before Uncle Sam decides to take it. I filled out their online info page and got a call the next day. Before I knew it, I had an interview set for Monday with the Assistant Director of Admissions. I honestly was just hoping for a pamphlet with a course schedule but got more than that. I'm pretty damn excited about tomorrow and more than a little nervous. If admission is based purely on past school performance than I'm just screwed. I was the kid who "never seems to apply himself and daydreams too much in class". I'm hoping for the best though because the more I think about it the more this feels right. Worse case scenario though, I take some community college classes and try again when I got some grades to prove I can do the work.
So tomorrow is a big day for me so I'm trying to relax a little listening to music and pouring through my photos. Lana's been awesome about the whole thing considering I really kinda sprang the whole thing on her. It's another complication in our life and she saw only good things to come of it while I worried over clashing schedules and babysitters. She simply said we'd find a way and she's right of course. She was happy I finally got around to doing more than talk about taking a few courses and helped me dig out a few good photos to print up and take with me tomorrow. In fact, one of them is now hanging up at our local Walmart. When I went to pick up my 8x10's the clerk asked if I would sign a release form for them so they could display my tree frog photo. Yeah, it's just the local Walmart but I was pretty happy.
So keep your fingers crossed, knock on some wood, turn in a circle three times counter-clockwise and wish me luck!
