Yesterday was ceramics day, so I got ready and headed up to my class. I love this class, mostly because it's really difficult and I like that I can see my progress every time I make something.

Last semester, since I was just starting, I just did the class projects along with everyone else, but since this is my second semester, and the instructor is awesome, I have been just working on the things with which I felt I needed to get more comfortable. I'm hoping to be able to take this class every semester for a while, so that I can keep getting better and making interesting projects. 

Anyway, I've been working on hand-building, trying to get things more straight and even and not so lopsided. I've never been all that great at straight lines. Then, I made some simple things and worked on glazing. I felt like that's where a lot of my stuff went astray last semester, and I wanted to have a chance to just make some simple shapes and experiment a little bit, especially because I prefer the matte glazes and the ones that do weird runny stuff when they're fired. It's really great to see something that looks one way completely change after being subjected to high temperatures. Totally my favorite part.

So I decided that I had enough work on those things and I wanted to get back to the wheel yesterday. She told me to just go ahead and do it, so I got a blob of clay and started. 

My first attempt was great. I wanted to try making just a straight-sided cylinder thingy, and I did. It went really well, and I was happy. So I took it off and prepared another bat.

Let's just say the second one did not go well. I had a nine-year-old kid standing at my shoulder half of the time asking me, "Why did you do that? Why did it fall? Why don't you make it stand up like the other one?"

At this point, there were many answers I could've given her, but I just said, "If you have questions about the wheel, you should probably ask our teacher. I obviously do not know what I'm doing."

It was a mess. I tried two separate blobs. I tried going slow and going fast. I couldn't get it centered, the clay got too wet, everything was wrong. I ended up covered in clay, with splatters all over my pants and two mushy balls of clay.

I had to do the unthinkable. I had to admit defeat and ask for help.

For some reason, when they do it, it looks so easy. I had done about three things slightly wrong, and then the other things I tried to fix the problem were only making it worse. 

I realize that next time, I have to go in there and try again, but I made such a mess, I'm concerned that I might die. Just…die. I almost want to go back to hand-building, but I know that would be admitting defeat and I can't do that. I just can't.

Ugh. I hate being that bad at something. I just hate it.