Learning to swim

I've had my first few composition classes this week: compositional studies, where we all look at each other's stuff; composition workshop, where we have a talk from a composer who tells us about their works and plays some of it to us; contemporary art and music; and media music.
The first two of these took place on tuesday, and I immediately felt like I had been thrown in at the deep end, or rather, I was in over my head! In comp. studies, half our class gave presentations about themselves and their work and I felt completely immature amongst this group of more adventurous, interesting composers.
We then finished tuesday with a workshop from Ed Bennett, one of the composition tutors at college, whose work was completely crazy, and very alien to me. I suppose I felt out of my depth as I've never studied music like this before, and as a result was unable to grasp his motivations or, indeed, his talent, for writing what sounded like a cacophonic mess. I am eager to learn about all this stuff, though. I feel like I need to - there's a huge gaping gap in my musical knowledge.
Yesterday was a better day though, with a couple of semi-interesting lectures (it's all still very introductory at this stage - haven't got into the nitty gritty yet) followed by our contemporary art and music lesson, which was interesting. We spent the entire lesson playing a game, with our teacher wanting us to think about what made something art. It proved to be a very interesting and fun way to start that part of our course.
Wednesday's final lesson was my favourite - Media Music. This is what I want to do - as I would imagine most composers would aspire to - and as a result I felt I could fully engage with the lesson without feeling like I had to say something which would probably highlight my ignorance. The lesson was very interesting, although we were mainly just setting up for the year, I'm really looking forward to that module.
Today's my day off, so I'm just having a rest (not that I've done much!) and trying to rid myself of this irritating cold.
I suppose I'm not surprised to be 'thrown in at the deep end' - I've been looking forward to being challenged and stretched. Our timetable starts properly next week, with everything kicking in. I can't wait.

Bring it on.