Maddy Billison

Well, here we go again, back to school. I've recently come to the conclusion that I can no longer ignore the right hemisphere of my brain. Since moving to this wonderful town, I've been so enthralled by my creativity (as egotistical as that sounds) that I've been a spoken word poet, playwright, screenwriter, narrator of a small play, director of a short film, director of photography for another, founding member of a film company, improviser, flash designer, blogger, and flash animator. Whew! You know, that's the first time I've broken it down like that. But I digress. What I'm trying to say is that being in a town of so much artistic stimulus has left me extremely restless and asking myself the all too familiar question of 'what do I want to do with the rest of my life?'

The answer, as much of career suicide as it sounds, is not 'analyze HRIS data'. It would be so easy to live out the rest of my life, career hopping, or working toward a pension, or even crawling my way up to a nice six-figure salary someday if that was the answer.

That's why I say I just can't ignore it anymore. I really do need to follow what I'm passionate about. I've always sort of known that it was something creative. The hard part was pinpointing what that was. At least I had it pinpointed to 50 percent of my brain.

So I've now applied to a small design, fashion, and culinary specialty school here in Chicago. If all goes well, come January, I'll be starting a BFA program at the Illinois Institute of Art in a Media Arts and Animation program.

One good thing is all the general education requirements I'll get to skip due to my existing BS from UConn. Also, it's a school that has a lot of enrollment from people in my 'mid-career, needing a drastic career change' situation, so I won't necessarily feel like I'm eighty in class. The best part, besides working toward something I enjoy, of course, is that I have a little leeway and can change my 'major' a bit into the program because of all the intro courses that the different programs share.

Yes indeed, it's a good time to be me... soon to be busy and happy.

Drop me a comment to let me know what you think. I know some people have been visiting, as I've consistently gotten hits lately. I have been less than diligent about updating, but am very glad to know people have been visiting my home out here on the web.

Know this, though, definitely more to come (god, I always say that)...