Getting Sketchy

I've been taking a drawing class to help me put together a portfolio for architecture schools (and hopefully get a letter of recommendation from the teacher?).  It's a 10 week class and today we hit the halfway mark.
             It's been a good experience for me.  I haven't really drawn anything since high school, and then it was abstract stuff.  It's been really eye-opening to try to draw actual objects and go through the frustrations of not having them turn out the way I'd like.  It's also very different from the art I normally do; when I'm sewing, quilting, or needlepointing, I feel like I can see how it will turn out, but when I'm drawing it's like anything could happen.
           I've been enjoying it overall (aside from the fact that it's 3 hours every Sunday morning) and I think I have some good work to show for it.  Here are a few of my favorite pieces, including one I drew in this morning's class.

             This one is from the 3rd week, when we drew fruit with pastels.  I really enjoyed working with colors.

            This one is from this morning's class.  We were working with graphite, which is good because you can be more precise with a sharpened pencil, but I surprised myself by making all my lines and marks shaded instead of drawn.