I've been reading my own blog a lot this evening (shut up, you know you spend half the time on the internet looking at your own Facebook/Myspace/blog too) and I realized that I haven't officially announced that I changed my major yet, so guess what everyone! I'm an English major! Creative writing to be exact. (shock waves reverberate) Technically I am not a Spanish minor yet but I will be before the 2006-2007 school year is out.

Of course, I didn't just post because I wanted to make an announcement (especially because almost everyone who reads this thing has either heard it from me already or saw the change on Facebook). No, I posted because thinking about my spring semester and planning a new and improved future is the only thing I have going for me (school-wise) right now. What do I do when I'm supposed to be listening to a lecture on shear deformation in structures? I imagine myself 10 years from now writing for a magazine during the day and writing a novel at night in the company of my two cats Bianca and Brooklyn. When I'm building a bridge for studio my hands may be super-glued to the truss members but my mind is in Intro To Creative Writing: Prose. And when I'm supposed to be learning all about arrays and data types so I can fail another computer science test I'm instead divulging all the details of my decision to forsake the College of Architecture.

To be an Environmental Design major (and, I suspect, any other major as well) you have to be just a little bit proud of what you produce. You have to be confident in your ability to really be successful in your field. In short, to be an ENDS major you have to know that your designs are better than everyone else's. The biggest problem that I had with being an ENDS major was that I never thought that my designs were the best. They were always kind of plain and simple and boring and I was ready to trash them and make room in attic for more junk at 2:14 on the glorious Friday afternoon that I became an English major.

Now I'm on the creative writing track and I know that's where I need to be because I know I can write. I'm minoring in spanish because I know I can speak and understand it better than many of my fellow gringos. I know I can do these things in the same way that my viz track boyfriend knows he can make 3D models and in the same way that my electrical engineering brother knows he can rewire a television and in the same way that my elementary education friend knows she has the saintly patience required to teach little kids. It's not vanity, it's being self-aware.

I started reading chapter books in kindergarten, I wrote my first short story when I was 8 years old, I was gawked at in elementary school for having my nose in a book when I walked home from the bus stop, I typed a 16-page novel in 9th grade, I corrected more "Me and Bob went to the store"s than I probably should have, and I bite my tongue every time I read misused "your" vs. "you're"s. Two of my three goals in life are directly related to my new major and minor (publish a book and be fluent in spanish) and you can bet that the third one has nothing to do with being a graphic designer.

Ironically, when I was in high school I had every intention of majoring in English until I hit the brick wall that was AP English 3. That same year I took a web mastering class (and was subsequently introduced to Photoshop) and heard about Environmental Design when I visited A&M for the first time and the viz track sounded like a very fair alternative to the horror that (at the time) was English. But when I got here I quickly realized that the class that I missed the most from high school was English. I waxed nostalgic about AP English 4 for the first 3 months of college but accepted my place in the College of Architecture anyway.

When I was an ENDS major people automatically assumed that I was really artistic (laughable). Now when I tell people that I am ENGL major they may correctly assume that I a) like to read, b) like to write, and/or c) like to correct grammar mistakes with the same fiery conviction of a born-again Baptist minister on Sunday morning.

When I was an ENDS major I didn't want to think about the internship that I was going to have to face a year from now. I didn't like to think about where I'd be after I graduated. I could see myself enduring a job during the day and writing when I got home. I'd thought about working in graphic design for a few years and then going back to school to get my English degree. And then, after the slightest nudge from my mom, I realized that that was probably the stupidest idea I'd ever had in my life. I was really dreading the direction in which my old life was heading. I didn't want to grow up and leave school because my only prospect was a minimally enjoyable graphic design career. Now I'm excited about graduating! I'm excited to work for a magazine and to try to publish a novel and now I will proudly proclaim to anyone who asks me what I plan on doing with my degree, "I'm going to be a writer!".

Gosh I must really have it in for my GPA. Either that or I just hate programming. Yeah, that last one.