It’s one of those days when you wake at 5am and the wheels in your head start turning.

A day when coffee is consumed all day, because it’s soothing and calms me while I work.

It’s a day when you know then and there you will not be going back to sleep.

A day when you have better things to think about than to go back to sleep.

And all of this started (for me) yesterday afternoon.

I was sitting in photography class when I learned of our final exam. I sat in what felt like a state of panic. What was I going to do? You have no idea the questions, doubt and concern that flooded my thoughts at once.

I don’t want to do a good job, just to get the grade. I really want to do well and know in my heart that I did my best. And that to me, that is more important than the grade I get in the class. My wheels have not stopped turning and I’m already well on my way to figuring out how I’m going to execute the photos for the exam.

Speaking of grades, it’s something I’ve been obsessed with all semester. While I’m concerned with giving my best shot, I really want the grade to reflect my work. I started off getting 100 on every assignment for the first several weeks. And then…KA BOOM! Just like that Jack (the teacher) announced that he would not be passing out any more 100’s in this class. As he said, “there is always room to improve and nothing is ever 100%.” And you know what? He is absolutely right. But that didn’t stop me from doing my best. In fact, it pushed me.

If I can be perfectly honest, there is one grade that I’m not proud of. Yes, there was that one assignment when he dished out an 85%. I was devastated, but I deserved it. It was not because of the quality of the print, in fact he said the shots I presented were excellent quality. Only I failed to follow the directions. Even tho (at the time), I thought I nailed it. It was my best, but it still killed me.

After that, I continued to get really high grades on my assignments and he even gave me a few 100’s even tho he said he would not be giving them.

But yesterday was a pretty exciting day in class. A day when my grade shot up over 100. In fact, Jack dished 100% + I got an additional 20%. Here’s how it went down.

So last week our assignment was to edit a picture (everyone in the class did the same picture) by taking things out. But the goal was to make the shot look real, as though none of that stuff were there to begin with.

Below is the shot we were to work on. Circled in white are the areas I corrected. The bummer is, I had already spent 2 hours at this point. A car was already removed in the lower right and several of the lights and posts had already been removed.

So here’s where I was two hours in. The white circle in the bottom right corner represents the spot where the car was before I removed it.

11 hours later. Yes, I timed myself as it was insane! + it was the first time I’ve worked in Photoshop in nearly 15 years. Trust me, it’s not like picking up and riding a bike once you’ve already learned.

With that, Jack (our teacher) had us line up our work for critique. Then he had the students judge who came in 1st, 2nd and 3rd. Followed by saying “the student who comes in first, gets an extra 20 points for this assignment.”

I was humbled when the students in unison agreed that my work came in first.

That added 20 points more than made up for that lousy 85% (back when). In fact, that little extra bumped my GPA from a 97% to 99.2% in the class.

Now if I can pull thru with the final exam, I’ll feel pretty lucky. But most of all, it’s about giving my best shot. That “to me” is more important than “the grade”.

Blessings – Debbie