erin elizabeth

(no this is not me or anyone I know, I found this picture off google just to give you something to look at while I talk about things I'm sure you don't care about :)

Soo I have been in college for about four years now trying to decide what I want to do with my life.. geze the frickin pressure! "If I don't pick the right thing I will forever be stuck in a terrible unhappy life that will result in years of useless therapy and deprssion". Great.

Here's a little bit of history so you can know what goes through my head when I try and figure life out. My dad has been all over the place when it comes to career decisions. When I grew up he would paint a lot, go to museums and art shows, and he spent a lot of time in antique shops buying mainly junk. My mom went to school for teaching and now works with middle schoolers stressed and aging quickly, but she loves it. Neither of my parents graduated till after I was born soo the fact of me taking awhile, doesn't bother them, because honestly they're not allowed to let it! I saw my dad struggle with making money and trying to survive off selling his paintings and that is something I never want to do. My main goal is security, that's actually the only reason I'm going to college.. to have options. options = security. Even though I have always leaned toward the art field, I'm trying my hardest to stray because I do not want to make a life out of struggling to make my work worth something to someone else.

Ok so I went to Ohio University taking the basic g.e.c. classes with more art than anything else. I left knowing these things:
1. I hate psychology 101. They cram you with way too much. Hate it.
2. Philosophy was interesting, but it was hard for me to continue to pay attention.
3. Math is hard. very hard. (it took me 3 times to pass calc with a C. actually this is a good story, I'm going to tell it real quick. I went into orientation and ok my mom has always said I'm not a.d.d. but I have to be something because I can't pay attention to save my life! But so the orientation people were talking, I was dazing, and then they passed out our results for the english and math placement tests. What? I scored into the level that allows you to take calc? How'd I do that? Well whatever yay for me!! So then we scheduled and me, who doesn't listen, didn't know I didn't HAVE to take a math right away. I placed so high if I majored in art I would never have to take math ever again. But I didn't know that because I didn't listen. Soo here I am 3 classes later of barely passing with a C. So now I know, listen!!

...okay I got distracted and forgot where I was going with this.. anyway I took some art history and foundations classes at OU, which I liked a lot, but still wasn't sure if that's what I wanted to do. I was leaning to photography when I decided to come to OSU, but hadn't picked up my camera in awhile and didn't miss it as much as I thought I would. I always liked taking pictures, my dad bought me a sweet camera when I like 13 ..so I got into that a lot in high school. ANyway, my friend was majoring in visual communication and that sounded really appealing to me. It was something that fit all my criteria: I wanted to be able to use my creative-ish brain, work for a big company where I can make lots of money, deal with people. ...SECURITY! I loved it, I got really into it thinking about all these ideas I already had to make the commercial advertising sweet! (you just wait... I've got tons of ideas) Well I took my first design class.. it was frickin hard! It was only three credit hours and I worked harder in that class and spent more time than I did on anything else. I got all my drawings back with "this line isn't straight enough", this lines too sketchy", ...C. Wait. What? C? I have never gotten less than a B in art my entire life! That has always been the only thing I can count on A's for! Now I am used to doing badly but in art? What?!? So I scrapped that because 3-4 more years of that torture was going to send me into a downward spiral. Plus it was such a competitive field and I wasn't looking so hot. Well this same quarter I was taking a glass class learning how to cut, glue ..it was using all cold glass. I loved it! I wasn't the best at it but I was learning and I really liked it! I like to draw and I like to paint and I like to take pictures, but I was starting to love glass. Well I got on the wait-list for glass blowing and kilm work, both were full and I knew I wasn't going to get in. At this point it's Christmas break and I figure that I'm going to do art, because I want to graduate and I was furthest along in my art classes. I talked to my dad and he said just to do what I wanted now because in the long run it doesn't really matter what I major in and I can always go back to grad school. Well I thought about glass but I knew it was fate (yes, I'm so cheesy and yes I think this was fate) when I was sitting on my butt doing nothing on the first day of winter quarter and decided to check my email. It was about 7pm when I was reading the email: Hello, you're on the wait-list for glass blowing and an opening has just become available. If you can get to our first class tonight at 6:30 then you can join the class. I think I actually yelled out loud with joy lol. I have heard people waiting two and three years to get into glass blowing so I was very excited. I drove there and even though I was late, she let me in. I love this class, I am very bad at it, no natural that is for sure! But I love it. Soo I went to my advisor and said, I want to major in glass. We set up a plan of when I'd take my classes and when I'd graduate. Now the next step is applying for my BA review, which will be in the spring, and then in the fall apply for my BFA so I can take my adventure into glass further! What a relief to declare a major! Phew! Now I can breathe.

So you might be thinking.. but what about the money and the job and the security of not becoming a starving artist? Screw it. I just want to be happy at this point. I want a big family and even more to be able to be there for them when they're growing up. Now my plan is to marry a man who's making all the dough and live off that :) ..and maybe one day cash in on all my sweet commercial ideas. trust me, they're good. :)