My talented friends

Probably all of you have heard how I've had about 15 different majors during my college career. And since I've been collecting college transcripts while going back to school, I've got a more accurate list of the majors I've declared:

Chemical Engineering
Classics
Letters
Professional writing
English writing
University College (no major)
Biology
Biochemistry
Microbiology
Cell and molecular biology
Computer science
Film and Video Studies
Zoology
English literature
Journalism

So after earning 243 credit hours (thanks to a few W's I actually attempted 252) you can say I know a little bit about everything -- though I've always said it also means I don't know much about anything.

And nothing drives this home as much as seeing how talented my friends are, and how untalented I am in comparison.



This past weekend I heard Ben and his barbershop quartet sing. Ben being an ex-attorney reminds me of my friend Austin in that both are musically talented. And I like that Austin is working on being an ex-attorney as well -- even though he's in law school he still has goals of making it as a writer, filmmaker and musician.

And speaking of ex-attorneys, there's kc, who has a long list of things she's better at than me, but I'm really jealous of how her drawing is coming along. (for those of you wondering, yes, her sandal really does look just like that). I've also bought books on drawing and writing for comics; kc's almost done with her first comic.

She and Christy also are great at cooking; I like to think that I could cook if I didn't avoid it so much because I'm too lazy to want to clean up afterward.

Through kc I met Rick, who's really into rock climbing; he has the most buff hands I've ever seen. But what really makes me shake my head is how he knows as much or probably more than film about me, and his cinema studies he did on his own. Sure I've got an actual degree to show for it (still stuffed in the back seat of my car), but he's not saddled with more than $30,000 in student loan payments.

And I've never really wanted to be a filmmaker, but any thoughts of that would have been dashed anyway after seeing this clip my friend Wes sent me.



He makes me think I was holding him back on our senior capstone project.

I've always conceded that Ruben is the better dancer, but he's another amateur film buff like Rick; Wes and I took all the classes, but Ruben is just at good at analyzing a film.

There's also Randy and Chris, who have both flourished during the dot-com bust as programmers, something I tried but couldn't get the hang of past my first Java class. (I believe I can make a better cup of java than them, though).

I took my first photography class in ninth grade, and had a passive interest in it since. I even took a lot of photos for the OU paper. And everyone who's seen her blog knows how good Jill is at taking photos.

And the ones who really make me feel inadequate are Wendy and Erin because they can write circles around me, Erin particularly because she was a better writer than me when she was 14. Good grief.

But maybe I'm fixing that. For example, this week in nursing school we're learning to insert catheters. So just take my word for it that I'm good at my nursing skills, that way I won't have to demonstrate them on you.