Student Salon
My college has a student art show every year. I’ve never been in it. The show is juried, which means that the art department staff choose from among the submissions the pieces that will actually make it into the show. Up until now, I had misinformation that it wasn’t open to all art students. My information said that you had to be asked by an instructor to submit an entry. Otherwise I’d have been doing this all along.
Well, I finally got the correct information and submitted a photograph of mine from my digital photography class for consideration. I just got the email a couple hours ago. I’m in! Show opens Thursday the 24th, reception begins at 5:30. I’m dragging my Mouse and her boyfriend to it.
Yay! I’m so happy! I haven’t been in any kind of a show since I was in high school and submitted several pieces of mine to the county fair. Every piece won a ribbon, all but one first place, and then my work was on display in the county fair art show. Finally, more than 20 years later, I’ve got my work going up somewhere again. Very excited by that.
Where did the time go?
There are only four more weeks of class until finals. I’m really enjoying my classes this semester. I’m not ready for them to be over!
Anyone want to do me a favor? Come hold a gun to the heads of my instructors and force them to lengthen this semester?
Need more classes!
Wow.
Okay, so I’m over being angry (and in record time for me). I’m sure I blew the whole thing out of proportion in my head. But the biggest reason that I’m over it already is because I learned that after my posts got hit by the person who was rating me low, some other author on Protagonize came along behind them and put in all top ratings on those same posts. Others have also been heaping on 5.0s since then as well. So what got me over my anger at the latest example of the Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory is this: in spite of the fuckwads, there are good folks around. People who see someone trying to do harm in even this minor way, and who try to fix it. I would feel the same were I not the beneficiary of it, but still knew of it. It restores my faith in the folks who are in the community at Protagonize, and that’s why I’m over my anger.
I don’t know. Maybe I pay too much attention to what the rating is anyway. But it’s also good to have some feedback, so I know what folks think works and what doesn’t.
But what does work? What really works, what I really appreciate? The majority of the regulars, regardless of their skill as writers. Good, good people. I forgot that in the heat of the moment. I should try not to forget it again.
Obnoxious
Well, I guess someone got tired of me having the top author spot on Protagonize. I haven’t necessarily thought that I deserved the 5.0 ratings I was getting, but I certainly did not deserve some of the ratings I got since last time I looked, either. My writing may not be the most spectacular stuff ever, but it’s not horrible either. Someone went through a lot of my best writing and rated it horrible or mediocre. I can tell by where the averages of the ratings now fall. They haven’t hit every one of my posts – yet – but it’s probably only a matter of time and it’s quite an obnoxious thing to do. Ten of the twelve posts I’ve made were hit. With the semester on I’ve had very little time to write any more than that because I aim for some degree of quality. And then, sometime in the last 24 hours, someone came along and rated them all as crap. It’s just as well that Protagonize doesn’t tell me who rated me, because I’m pretty angry about someone coming along and intentionally dropping me so far down the ladder and would probably go harangue whoever did it.
It’s not like I was trying to hold onto the top spot. Indeed, when Rac7hel passed me for a while, I gave her a congratulations. When I wound up back at the top a few days later (not because my rating had gone up, but because hers had gone down by a small increment) I left a comment on her profile saying that I was sure it was only a matter of time before she’d pass me again, she’d just have to make some more of her excellent posts. Because her writing is quite excellent, as are the writings of several others there.
Right now I’m angry, and so I’m going to wait before I make any kind of actual decision. But right at this moment, I’m mad enough that I’m tempted to not waste any more time and effort there. If I still feel the same way in a week or two after I’ve calmed down, I’ll probably just quietly disappear and spend my time elsewhere.
