The frazzled photographer

My camera still hasn't come.

I'm so frustrated. At this moment I just want to drop out of college because I have hundreds of pages of reading for my government class and it's just not me. Why did I sign up for this class? Why did I ever think I like politics? I don't. It's tedious and boring and long and annoying. I've fallen so far behind I just want to cry.

Honestly, I'm on the verge of tears at this point because I've spent half the day looking at camera lenses online and I want them all but I have absolutely no money and no one even understands how much I want to take pictures for a living. Since I was a kid I've adored nature and landscapes and I spend a good chunk of my time immersing myself in all of it on nice days.

All I think of is traveling the world and going to isolated places that people don't go to and just throwing myself into all of it. Spending an entire day on a rocky coast in Ireland. Exploring a jungle in South America. Standing in a vast field of green hills in New Zealand. All of it. Just all of it.

And I can't have that. I have government reading instead.

What do you do when all you've dreamt of isn't within your reach? When it never will be?

Not mine. Courtesy of flickr. Inspiration stuff.

I can make movies. I love that. I love short artistic films where the cinematography is more important than the story, because I love being behind the camera more than anything. But movies are tough. You have to rely on other people. It's not just you doing it. It involves the actors, the sound person, the extras, the slate person. I'm not used to relying on other people. That's why I love my camera so much. It's just me and my camera.

It's also why I love nature and landscape photography. There isn't a subject. There isn't a model or a group of people. Nature is just there. It's not there for you. You can't tell a mountain what to do. You work with what you've got. No one frowns at you. And I love it. I love it with every fiber of my being.

I'll be alright.

What. Is. This. Post.

Blarghargah! I feel so inspired right now, but I can't do anything about it.

I could paint or draw right now, but my art supplies are all back in my dorm and I'm home for Thanksgiving.

I could write, but everyone in the world knows my love-hate relationship with writing. Right now, writing feels like a girl you can't stand but for some reason you still spend your time with her, because she's actually lots of fun. Bad analogy? You know it.

I want to take pictures right now, but it's night and I'm in my bedroom. What am I going to take pictures of, a lamp? (I've done it before. It's a sad day when all you can think of photographing is your lamp.) Plus, my film camera is back in my dorm room, and the digital SLR I ordered online is still on its way.

Oh, did I tell you I bought a fancy digital camera? I bought it with my birthday money.

Oh, did I forget to tell you it was my birthday? The 18th of November. I was going to write a blog post but I was busy being busy. It was a hectic day. Anyway, I'm 18 now. I turned 18 the 18th. Isn't that cool? It's exciting to finally be a legal adult. I can now vote (not like it matters at this point, because I missed the US election by 2 weeks. It's a touchy subject).

Why don't I ever bring my art supplies home with me?

Guys, I can't wait till my camera comes in. Then I can become one of those blogs that posts pretty pictures along with well-written blog posts. Well, almost. I follow lots of those blogs though, and I really like their style.

I'm listening to Frank Sinatra and he just said "damn". I'm very confused. I don't know why.

My head is just so full right now I can't even control myself. I need to watch Scrubs. It calms me down. Look for a really inspired post full of pseudo-artistic thoughts soon. COMING SOON TO A THEATRE NEAR YOU.

This has been a mess of rambles courtesy of Yana. I hope you enjoyed it. Have a nice day!

The Pauper...ish

I'm going to be really personal today. Really. This has been bothering me for a while, but it's honestly not something you can talk about to, well, anyone.

Today I'm going to talk about how uncomfortable it feels being a poor kid in a rich-kid school.

It seems like everyone at Cornell is super-rich. And why wouldn't they be? I mean, the Ivy League has always been the hub for children of aristocrats. That's the way it's always been. These colleges have been doing a good job of opening up to lower-income families by offering generous financial aid and covering expenses, but that doesn't make it any less uncomfortable to be surrounded by rich kids.

I've met several children of millionaires in the past couple of months. That's a big deal for me because, where I'm from, no one was anything above upper middle class.

I also checked the statistics, and only 14% of the Cornell student body receives Pell Grants. For those outside of the United States, Pell Grants are financial grants the government gives to low-income students. I'm going to generalize a bit, but this basically means that the majority of students pay full tuition, or close to that.

I guess the question here is so what? So what if everyone at Cornell is rich? Why should that matter? Why does it bother me? I guess the only answer I have is: I don't know why it bothers me. It shouldn't, I know that. But it makes me uncomfortable. It makes me feel insecure when someone talks to me about how they have a summer home in the mountains or how they paid $3,000 for their laptop. The worst was when a conversation came up about parents' incomes, and one kid said "yeah, my dad doesn't make that much. Only like $250,000 a year."

I'm sorry, but that's a lot to me.

I sincerely hope that this post doesn't offend anyone. In no way do I dislike those from high-income families. I mean, if you're nice, I'll like you. I won't judge you based on your income or how you dress or the things that you own or don't own. That's my philosophy. Just being around it so much and having people assume that you can relate to that kind of lifestyle makes me a little insecure.Yeah.