Are You Kidding Me?

A prospective student who enrolled in my AP class emailed me, asking for clarification on a section of the assignment. Her email was littered with, what I call, "text message spelling"--the atrocious abbreviated spelling for very simple words. She did not bother to check her other spelling and her punctuation either. Did she text me from her phone?

I simply replied to her email with the answer, and then added that academic emails should reflect the work I am expecting her to do.

I am nipping that dirty little habit in the bud on the first day of school. Somewhere in my eleven page syllabus, I know I covered that rule about "text message spelling."

Photographs

An old friend and I recently reconnected after a long dry spell of silence in our friendship. There has been a flood of emails as we reminisce about the time we spent together and laugh over one-liners. In the midst of conversation, we try to seek evidence of shameful moments to share more laughs, and then we remind ourselves that we will look for the photographs and the letters in our parents' homes.

I had the advantage this evening, as I was already at my parents' home for a weekend visit, and immediately retrieved the letters and the photo albums. Even though I am a writer, it is much to my own shame that we did not write more than ten letters between us. I thought having a penpal would be fun, but we didn't really write as much as we emailed each other. Internet was gaining popularity in the mid-90s, and computers suddenly replaced the traditional way of communicating with a penpal. And who thought of keeping emails back then? They are disposal like little memos on a post-it note. The emails are lost now, but the letters I still had were a fun read.

Then there were the photographs. There is something special about them. In fact, there is something special about photos and pictures that were taken and developed the old-fashioned away: by film. Digital photos allow people to perfect and edit pictures as soon as they are taken. People change the composition of a picture before having them printed. Red-eye can be retouched, crooked pictures can be cropped, teeth can be whitened a little more, certain people in the background can be removed--all these tiny things really take away the personality of a picture. It takes away the element of surprise when you open up that envelope and laugh at a candid shot that you did not know existed. Of course, I like the perfect photo, too, but I appreciate a random photo of myself that turned out pretty decent. A perfect photo enhanced through manipulation is just as fake as getting plastic surgery.

So I found this photo of my old friend. It is a decent photo that leaves me with just as much wonder as if I were looking at an archival black and white photo of an historic person from the 1800s. He was still in high school, possibly a freshman or sophomore, and he was standing at the foot of the stairs of his home, next to the banister. He wore his high school uniform, and he had quite an arrogant look on his face. As I look at this picture, I wonder about all the little details that compose this photo. He looked arrogant, but that is only my interpretation. Was he turning his head when someone randomly took that photo? Was that expression accidental? Then there is the strange setting: he stood at the foot of the stairs with both hands on one end of the banister, like he was unsure about whether he was going up or down. The photographer took the photo from the far end of a corridor. It's like my friend almost knew his photo was going to be taken; was he trying to escape the lens or did he reluctantly pose? The corridor itself is interesting... the crown molding on the ceiling, a wrapped painting or mirror (some decorative wall ornament) leaned up against the wall, like they didn't have time to hang it. I still can't tell if my friend stood on a gray or green carpet, but I did notice he took off his shoes and his white socks peeked at the bottom of his dark school uniform. His sleeves were rolled up, too. I can only guess he was trying to relax right after school, but the window behind him was dark, leaving me to wonder if the picture was taken in the evening.

He also sent me another picture of himself: a non-digital photo taken at arm's length with a small 35mm camera. The photo came out slightly blurry, and he even admitted that it was not his most flattering photo. We lacked the technology in the past, but he couldn't edit it or change anything about it. Yet there is an "honest" quality of the picture. He still sent it because it was a decent photo.Nowadays, we delete ugly photos of ourselves, afraid that people will find it and use it against us. We change our features to make ourselves more presentable to the world. We remove the details that will distract others' attention away from us. We want that photo of ourselves to be picture perfect, so no one could ever critique it or wonder about it.

But the mystery of photographs is the allure of looking at them. Taking away the details removes the wonder and curiosity. Taking away the curiosity removes the intrigue. A photo's details provides clues to a story. A photo's flaws, like a blur or a crooked frame, reveals something of raw honesty. And if we keep these flawed photos as opposed to trashing them, it shows our tolerance of mistakes--whatever they may be--and our acceptance of the imperfect that may come in our lives.

A random shot taken in a span of a second suddenly captures a whole life.

Tooting My Own Horn

Of the AP class I taught this past year--which, by the way, was the first time I ever taught that class--thirteen out of thirty-one students passed their exam. The previous teacher only had two students who passed.

I rock as a writing teacher!

Now I have set the bar for myself: about fifty kids signed up for my class this coming year. I hope to get at least a 50% pass rate next May.