Day 312: Something New

Everyone has something that they love to do but for some reason never get around to doing, or put more bluntly, they procrastinate doing it. For me it has been the ongoing procrastination of getting back into ceramics. But not anymore... I finally signed up for a class and tonight is my first one in nearly five years. In my excitement I called the studio to see if there was anything that I needed to bring with me tonight. I know... calling at the last minute is further evidence of my procrastination, but anyway. After some confusion on both my part and the teachers part, I came to the realization that I missed the first two classes. How did that happen? I remember noting in my mind after signing up that I would miss one class due to our trip last week but somehow I rearranged things in my mind and had the class all set to begin tonight instead of October 25th. Am I the biggest dork or what? I wish I could blame it on the jet lag but unfortunately my blunder occurred well before I stepped foot on any plane. Sigh.

It may be (comically) worth mentioning that the teacher could not find me in her roster at first because she had written me down as "Ann" instead of "Grace Ann" and, of course, I told her that my name was "Grace" in the beginning of our conversation, as it's usually easier for people to understand. As a result she had no idea who I was. Our back and forth was like Abbott and Costello in "Who's on First." Add the fact that I missed the first two classes and I speak broken Swedish and you have a skit ready for Saturday Night Live. Or even an alternate script for the book, Me Talk Pretty One Day, by David Sedaris.

I really felt the weight of having Swedish as a second language as I spoke to my new teacher. I guess in all fairness I have been out of town and speaking primarily English for nearly two weeks. But then again I've lived here for almost three years now. You'd think I'd be fluent enough to withstand a measly couple of weeks away. Yeah... Well regardless, now things are all squared away and I am "välkomen" (welcome) to my class tonight. By the way, she said that all I needed to bring to class was an apron but I think I'll wear other clothes too. It might be cold and drafty otherwise. What do you think?

Here is a shot of my first pot. There is a little kink on the left rim but all in all I was pleased. I succeeded in making one additional piece but three other attempts didn't work out so well. Not too shabby for my first time at the wheel after over five years.

P.S. After all that I still forgot to bring my apron. But I did wear other clothes. :-D