I'm in San Francisco for another school session. The SF Giants won the World Series last night and thankfully my room is unlikely to take a stray bullet through the window. You'd have to directly across the hall to get me. I had concerns that there might be some shenanigans in the hotel hallway but since that is about as wide as my rolling luggage I figured you'd also have to be aiming directly for me. Luckily I was pretty quiet during yesterday's critiques, so I made no new enemies.
Speaking of yesterday's critiques.... The technique that my advisors plus one guest have decided to go with could not be farther than the truth that I know is quality teaching. It's very humiliating and left one girl in a puddle of tears in the hallway. So ridiculous to me. During my critique I asked a question and they told me answer it myself. I told them I wasn't being a joker and to please be teachers. They didn't budge and in the end my director set a timer and had me stand in front of five photos I selected off the wall as favorites in silence because I did not understand what he wanted me to say and after the first thirty seconds or so I realized it was a test of wills so I was determined to stand my own silent ground instead of fumbling around for something to say. The director was uncomfortable enough to get up and stick his head in the hallway I just stood there thinking what an idiot thing this was to and how differently I would do things if I were in charge of the program. In the end all the other students were fidgeting in their seats as I stood motionless and hopefully expressionless over the table with my five selected prints all because in that exact moment the director and me both wanted to be the bigger jerk. It was a waste of everyone's time. Nobody benefitted from three and a half minutes of awkward uncomfortable silence.
Right now I have no interest in being part of a photography program, but should life bring me to unexpected places... I am going to use my teaching expertise combined with what I learned in this program and be a kinder gentler teacher all in an effort to make this world a better place. Also, I will TEACH instead of ridiculing.
The most inflammatory moment of the critiques came when the director asked my Chilean friend to remove some images from the wall and he began to bark "Rapido! Rapido!" at my friend. The guest egging him on with looks from across the room and it was everything I could do not to smack him in the back of the head.
Apparently the director was asking around to see if I was okay and how I responded to my critique. Except, not having any clue who I am and what I am about he asked the last person I would have a heart to heart with. No one seems to believe me when I say the critiques could not bring me to tears unless they ask about how much I love my kids or miss bear bait.
In other news flying seems to have irritated my trigeminal neuralgia even more and I have been pounding the OTC painkillers. I'm concerned by the throbbing in the tooth behind the one that was removed. I still have a hot tight ball of numb and pain around my jaw joint. I think I might be in for more surgery on that tooth. I suspect it is a separate thing. Freak.
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