Secrets to Better Photography

That’s the name of the online course that I’m enrolled in at the moment. I’m taking them all out of order and am now finding out that this one should have been in second place, the one I’m signed up for next should have been first and the previous course that I finished should have been last. That’s pretty much how I got through college, too. The academic advisors caught up with me when I was trying to declare my major thinking I could squeak by without taking all of the prerequisites.

Did you have a course or college requirement that you wanted to avoid? I did. You see, all the people in my circle of college friends were warning me that the English Proficiency Exam would set me back and I’d end up having to take an additional English or writing course. They all had to. Now, to set the scene I must say that all of my circle of friends were guys who were more into the spring break vacations and getting to their weekend parties than writing courses.

The day came when I had to spend two hours in the auditorium with a whole bunch of other students who were looking way more nervous that I was feeling. The instructions were that we had to take the sample paragraph that the instructors had cut from newspapers and expound on what is in front of us. I looked around the room and saw a whole lot of students doing nothing, no writing, just stressing. My topic was about the FBI proposing the use of spying on cell phones in the solving of crimes. This was back in 1995 that I took this exam. It was easy. So easy that I received a 100% on my score when my results arrived in the mail. How did I do that? The first thought that came into my head was that they didn’t want us to explore the subject, research the topic, or debate. They wanted to know if we could write 400 words using grammar and show the ability to express our thoughts coherently.

I wrote a short story about two FBI agents. Yes, it’s all about applying one’s imagination in a tight spot such as the English Proficiency Exam.

The assignment that Yoda ended up appearing in was to take our DSLR outside in natural light and focus on a subject as clearly as we can using all auto settings. I see now that Yoda needs his face washed.