“… The only time I ever argued with a prof about my final grade.”

When I took photography in college, the regular prof was on maternity leave and she’s really awesome. I ended up taking another class with her later. But they had a retired prof fill in for her. And if I had not taken two years of photography classes in high school, I would’ve been completely lost. Because he had written his own textbook, but – and by textbook, I mean, you know, like it was written by hand on paper and he got it printed at printing services, you know, and bound. It’s not like it was published. And it did not make sense to me, and the way he taught did not make sense to me, because with photography it’s not just about like how to take pretty pictures. I mean, you actually have to learn how to use a camera and, you know, f-stops and shutter speeds, not to mention, you know, using chemicals and measurements and stuff and times to develop it, like there’s a lot of technical aspects to it. And he was terrible at teaching that. And if I – again, if I didn’t have some background, I would’ve been totally lost. And I remember he was really – he was a cyclist as well. And so he was constantly talking about bicycling and like a lot of the illustrations – he illustrated the textbook as well. And what I remember from the illustrations was a lot of bicycling and he was really into forests made of broccoli trees, like all the forests were broccoli. Why? I don’t know. I’m like I could appreciate that kind of quirkiness, but not when it overtakes learning, you know? And he was very into – he made me hate the word “panache” and oh gosh, there was another one. And I just can’t stand those words anymore because he ruined them, because it’s like “Every picture has to have panache”, you know. Jaunt! Was the other one. Every time, you know, it’d be like “You go on a jaunt to take photographs”. Oh gosh. This man. It was the only time I ever argued with a prof about my final grade, because he wanted to give me a B and I was like “Absolutely not. I did every assignment, I did everything that I was asked of me just because you don’t think – I mean art is very, you know, subjective. Just because you don’t think my photos had enough panache?” Like I didn’t say this but like “You taught this class terribly, I deserve an A for even being here and doing every assignment.” I didn’t say that part but I did fight for an A and he gave it to me.