As Equals

One of my greatest annoyances is people telling me that I have to do something one way because they would do it that way. If you say "Hey Kelsey, why don't you try it this way?", you know what, I will. Because you made a suggestion, and hey, maybe it is better than what I was thinking. But what I can't stand is, "I wouldn't do that and you shouldn't either."

On our very first project in the design class, my teacher told me that statement: "I wouldn't do that and you shouldn't either." Well, one, I wanted to do it. I thought it looked brilliant. And two, this isn't your project. Oh, I despised him for it. It really did just get under my skin. I wanted to do it just to spite him, but I know he would have given me a worse grade had I actually done that. All because he wouldn't do it. Needless to say, the class became one that I hated. I didn't want to go to it, I found all the projects meaningless, and I really wouldn't listen to his critiques.

Today, this changed. Because last week I had been sick, I hadn't been in class and missed some lectures and going over the details of our latest project. I knew what we were supposed to do in general terms, but I didn't know everything, and it made it hard to actually start on anything. Since today was my first full day back in the class, he pulled me into his office to explain in more detail what we were supposed to do. I'm not sure how we got to talking about it, but he mentioned he used to be a runner, until he blew out his foot. I told him I could relate, due to a skiing accident that terribly injured my knee and making it hard for me to do a lot of things I used to enjoy. We also related in the fact that neither of us are big on actually teaching, we just want to do our art. We talked as equals, not as a teacher and a student. It was nice to know that we had things in common.

I still don't really like the guy, like really like him. He's okay. It will take a while for his initial comment to fade. I mean, after all, the first impression is the most important. But, he doesn't stand where he used to either. I don't think I'll mind the class as much anymore.