Ooh, thanks for all the advice... I very much appreciate it!

And, yup! I totally meant a fake name. I'm not super social, and the thought of people from my childhood enthusiastically finding me and trying to connect kind of makes me bristle. Nothing against them, it just... I don't know, feels weird.

I wouldn't plan on "connecting" with anyone, and would just use it for the class/group, and possibly a few other classes/groups as needed.

Ha... I've always wanted to change my first name in real life, so this could actually be a fun test run for that!

Anyway... I'm super excited for the class, but not sure I'm going to do it this time around now. It's expensive and ends in a live class in November, that I'm probably not going to feel comfortable traveling by then. They did say that if you miss this live class, you can attend one of the following ones (no extra fee), so that's nice... but I think it might not be the best use of cash right now. (It's super interesting to me, but probably not very practical.)

I have to think some more, but I really appreciate the feedback on Facebook. You guys have made me feel a lot better about it - and given me some good ideas for ways to manage it! Thank you all!