Photo Class

I have some photos that I've taken, but they're on the school network.  I'll have to upload them soon.
Anyway.
I've never taken photography class before, but I've wanted to for the past few years.  When I started at my prep school, I realised that many people had DSLR cameras that they just toted around with them during dances, football games, with friends, etc.  Looking back on that, it's amazing that a fourteen year old would have a $1000 Nikon or Canon, but that's irrelevant.
I got really into the idea of having a DSLR, and even wrote a few embarrassing essays in 10th grade about it.  I became attached to the idea of having a camera that would surely open up the world to me.  In June this year, I finally saw the light.  I was gifted a camera for graduation/birthday, and finally got to pick one out at the store.
When I took my first few photos with my Canon T2i/550D, I was thrilled.  Once I started getting the hang of it, I thought I was taking some pretty awesome pictures.
So I started in a photo class here.  To be honest it's been a little boring at times.  Our teacher tends to ramble about technical stuff when really all of us just want to take some photos.  We started with photograms and pinhole (which was truly a challenge) but we've finally moved on to film.
I developed my first set of negatives yesterday, and we'll develop them into photos on Monday.  I made the daft mistake of opening the camera with the film still inside (I know, I know) so some of the photos are partially black, but a few came out.  I can hardly describe the feeling of seeing those negatives.  To know that I made an actual, tangible photograph is really exciting to me.  I felt so empowered having the camera (Zenit) in my hands, I was taking pictures of people's feet, little rocks in the grass, flowers, etc.  It was a lot of fun.
If I think about the goals I have for this year, which I'm meaning to write down, I think that taking the photography class is truly an accomplishment.  I've wanted to do it for some time, and I'm already getting the result that one should after doing something fulfilling, if that makes sense.  That, to me, means that the gap year is already sort of worth it.  Maybe after I go to Italy and Switzerland during half term, I'll be even more excited to say that.