WELLSWORLD

 I had a lot of college teachers who believed in me, who invested in me, made me feel validated - like I could take on the world. Then there were all the other professors that took one look at me and knew I was a fuck-up. One actually admitted this almost verbatim when he told me in front of the entire class that I was wasting his time taking this class and wasting my time pursuing something as ambitious as film-making.

He went on for awhile. I’m sure the exact transcript is buried in my subconscious somewhere right next to all my other nightmares. He didn’t yell at all. He was very calm which made it a lot more terrifying. Like if I someone came up to you and said softly “I have a bomb strapped to my chest” it would be scarier than if they yelled it. I guess both are pretty scary, but the former shows more control and forethought. And in the long-run that’s way scarier.

One student told me right after the class “man, he wasnt just talking about the class. He was talking about your life.” 

What spurred this on? I handed in an assignment that was messy. I guess there’s no such thing as a director with bad handwriting.

I’ve had a lot of people tell me I’m wasting time in the fields I’m pursuing over pretty small potatoes. Oh well. They’re wrong. Right? I think so. We’ll see. 

I stood up for myself by sending the angriest email I’ve ever sent telling the teacher I would redo the assignment from scratch just to show him he was wrong and that I didn’t care if he gave me another grade or not. And I really didn’t. He respected that and was a little shocked. Later that teacher loved me. He became one of my favorite teachers. Maybe I should’ve stuck up for myself more often.