Greetings Citizens. Today I did the unthinkable. I told an advanced student her work was s*&#. I feel horrible for it. She was making excuses as to why she wasn't turning in quality work and my terrible words slipped out before I could stop myself. The quality of her work has been lacking, that's for sure, but her imagery and seeing are fine. In reality, I think she has quite a bit of talent but she just doesn't apply herself as much as she should. But that is no excuse for me. When I was a young and ambitious lad, I wanted to be a photographer. There was a class at The Evergreen State College that I wanted to take. You had to show your work to get in. Well, I had some color images that were processed at the Photo-Mat and placed in magnetic photo albums plus a photo of Ian Anderson at a Jethro Tull concert. The guy looked at my work for 5 minutes and told me it, "was a pile of s&*$"! Well, I cried all the way back to my dorm room and didn't show anyone another image for years. I still find it hard to show people my work (especially gallery owners). Later, when I knew I wanted to teach Photography, I swore to myself that I'd never say such words to one of my students. And now I've done it and I can't forgive myself.