the first day of skewl... again..

so today was the first day of my "i'm an official grad student" day of skewl...attending my first college lecture class in 4 or so years ? (holy shit, has it been that long?)... it's strange, because about a year or so after graduating, i had this resurgence in wanting to get my learn-on again, only i didn't want to pay (or moreover have my parents pay) for staying in school any longer...

this insatiable appetite was somewhat satisfied through a myriad of insurance certifications, .NET user group meetings at the local college, and anything else i could get my hands on... however, they all lacked having a dear and wise professor teach you his steady and learn-ed ways... it's harder to prod yourself in the ass to move along than it is to have someone else do it, ya know?

anyways, after finding out that work pays for you to take some classes, i couldn't pass this up... it's was a free meal, to something i just found out i missed and liked... i actually missed the late nights sitting up in the media union (ummm.. think geek library with a slew of computers so that the future byte-warriors could compose their latest aria...)... janelle kept mentioning to me how much i hated it at the time (as evidence through e-mails that she has from me back in the day about wanting to stab my eyes out with a keyboard missing the ';' and '/' keys), but i don't think i appreciated it as much during my undergrad...

maybe it was because it was because i was more fascinated with being my own authority (which got me in lots of trouble...) than with school, but when finding those classses i was interested in, it really wasn't that bad... now that i've been in the "industry" i've been able to find what i'm missing and now want to work on refining those aspects... plus 1 or 2 classes at a time at a nice slow pace shouldn't be too painful.. that coupled with the fact that if i don't receive a good grade, that money will be coming out of my pocket is more than enough of a hot branded cattle-prod to keep me riding on my horse...

so today i headed off to my class... a software engineering class all about design patterns and refactoring methods... and i absolutely loved it... i must say that when i first arrived i was a little nervous about the whole aspect of being a student again... i can't explain it, but i felt a little out of touch with being a student... maybe that's just me getting old.. or maybe the thought of, "now i'm that old guy all the students look at and wonder... what's that old guy doing here?"... all this was cleansed though once the lecture started and i felt right at home...

but for now, i'm going to gauge how the quarter goes and figure it out from there... who knows.. in 2 weeks i may be trying to commit program suicide with a blunt mouse...