Stickers and Such

"I don't think I should be underestimated." - Lindsay Davenport

John/Jane Doe:
"Yeah, I know Rachel Parrish.
She's pretty, but not beautiful.
She takes good pictures, but not of what I want to see.
She could be a leader, but she doesn't have good enough grades for it.
She sings well, but she doesn't know technical things.
She's smart, but she didn't make a perfect score on the ACT.
She's fun to be with, but I don't want to confide in her because she might tell me something I don't want to hear.
She's nice, but she's too conservative to be 'cool'.
She tries, but her contributions are subjective.


This is the story of my life.
Denied. Refused. Denied. Refused. Denied.

I'm never quite good enough.
Why?
People look right past me.
They walk right by my photographs and say "Oh, well there's a portrait of someone".
NO.
It tells a story, genius.
The girl has a black eye. And a busted lip. She is abused. Her eyes are haunting.
But no, to some, it's just a portrait.
"There are none so blind as those who will not see." - Gregory Y. Titelman

To some, I'm just some girl that tries to change too many things for their comfort level.

If you are confused, which I wouldn' t surprised about and I apologize, here is the story:

Today our photographs were due for Intro to Photography class.
Mine was a photo of a friend who we had made into an abused woman.
The photo was powerful. People told me so.
It had a story.
We put our photos on a wall for examination.
The professor told us that we all were to disperse three dot stickers on the pictures we liked the best.
He then said: "Some students complain saying 'but students will conspire, form groups, and pool all their stickers on one photo, taking turns of who gets the automatic A (whoever gets the most stickers gets an automatic A)' and well, I guess there's nothing I can do about it. The system is vulnurable to abuse."
And he just leaves it that way.
Hmm.

There were some awesome photos - a portrait of Kayla Ramsey which was gorgeous, a creative superman shot (guy laying on the ground in a superman pose, with chalk buildings beneath him), etc. All those pictures told stories.

But no, our intelligent classmates chose pictures of a rock and some chairs and a table.
They were clear and in focus, but boring. They said nothing.
And they got 50 million stickers.
Bogus.
I guess not everyone things that pictures should be meaningful.
They can just have "cool contrast", "nice lines", and that's enough.
I disagree.
So yeah, my photo got one whole sticker.
And no, it wasn' t my own.
Lame.

It really disappointed me.
I guess I expected too much, from myself and others.

And then after we critiqued everyone's pictures, we took them down off the wall.
And as I was turning mine in amid the crowd of students, some guy said this:
"Your picture was really good - it was underestimated."
I said thank you.
I wish I had said more than that, but I was still flustered.

That made things a little better - I'm so glad that guy took the time to bestow kindness to me.
I hope I see him again to thank him properly.

And then campus safety gave me a parking violation.
I was in the spot for like, 30 minutes and there were a million other parking places around me, so it isn't like I was taking up valuable space.
Lame.

I then drove to Sonic and cried like a small, candy-denied child for no apparent reason, other than disappointment and build up of who knows that else in my subconscious.

I know that Satan is still trying to discourage me.
What a jerk.
Sheesh.

But like I said, I don't care what happens.
I am not giving up.
I still believe.
I will still try.
I have faith.

My kind deed for the day wasn't much: I smiled a lot at random people.
They probably thought I was crazy.
But oh well.
They're right - ha.

Here's hoping tomorrow's better.
I will take pictures this weekend.
And by jove I will get stickers!

"Little by little, one walks far." - Peruvian proverb