sneezing my way through

When I graduated college my mom said to me "I'll give you two years." No, this was not some ultimatum or prediction of failure. She was merely stating a time frame for my insatiable appetite for knowledge. It would be two years that I was out in the industry, honing my skills, before I would thirst for more. Well, Mom, you were right. A mere 18 months after completing my BID (Bachelor of Interior Design), I was in the Registrar's Office signing up for my first class of Graduate School...MBA, to be exact. Now because I didn't have the first business class behind me, there was nearly a full year of night classes I would be required to take to bring me up to speed before I was considered a graduate student. Ah, phooey. Economics 500, you're up first. Three months later I'm one class closer to a new goal. Or so I thought.

Grad school aside for the time being, you've got bigger fish to fry. Once my interior designer friends learned that I was forging ahead, they began to express an interest in the national licensing exam for interior designers. And since I'm known in our circles as the "friend bitch" and the one responsible for our quarterly catch-up dinner and drinks fete, they decided that I would be the perfect one to kick our butts into gear and steam ahead with studying. Let me give you a little background...to become a Licensed Interior Designer one must work in the industry for a minimum of 4160 hours, 2 years full-time, before it is determined that you have amassed the experience necessary to take this wonderful, delightful, all-the-world hinges on your passing, 16-hour test. It is recommended that you study for a minimum of 6-12 months before attempting, at best, as the 3-section pass rate for first time examinees hovers around 30%. I mean, what other testing authority prints on all informational brochures, "75 % of applicants who begin the testing process eventually pass." Fast forward 12 months, skip over two devastating hurricanes and the discombobulation of our study group, and the test results are in. I PASSED!

Fast forward again to what we'll call "Mom's time frame". Yes, not quite two years since the TEST and I'm ready for the next one. This time we're going to do double duty. It's the LEED AP certification exam (green-design), which at three hours and 80 questions hasn't even registered a blip on my radar and my second attempt at graduate school. This time I've put a little bit more thought into it and I've met with the advisers for SCAD's eLearning program in Historic Preservation. While my interior design backgrounds and area of residence leads itself into HP, close but no cigar. Without a 20-item HP portfolio, the admissions requirements include a 30 page research paper. Luckily, the research paper is also the basis for scholarships, so we'll see. The topic is of our choosing...mine...Historic Ironwork and it's Evolution from Horseshoes to Housewares (working title). Basically, the history behind the village blacksmith trade evolving from horseshoes and door latches into structural iron elements for buildings, cast iron facades for buildings, and the decorative ironwork that you see on homes today. Lots of polish left before this thing pays for my degree...I mean, have YOU looked at the cost of tuition!

And that is why I spent Sunday afternoon at the University Library, 2nd Floor, Dust and Grime.