Fucking fucking fuck.
So pissed off.
Today was ANNOYING.
I had multimedia today with Tony, who's my tutor. I knew that we'd be doing a lesson on cutting and pasting things and sure enough, that's what the lesson was. It was basically a Mr Potato head in digital form, except it wasn't a Mr Potator head, but rather, a melon for a head, and various other fruit pieces for the features of the face, all on one image.
For the first ten minutes, he told us just to mess about while the rest of the people arrived.
"Ok", I thought to myself, "I can do this in five minutes", and so I got to work cutting and pasting the various parts to form an 'amusing' face. All done in five or ten minutes.
"Ok", Tony said to everyone "close down your file and open up a new one". A little frustrated, since I'd just spent time creating what we were about to do. But, not to fear, I am a patient person and did as he said.
He told us the dimensions of the new file and the name of it. I accidentally made a mistake and went to correct it using another method. He saw this. "Can you do it the way I've just said", he told me.
Still not too angry. Yet.
So he began telling the class how to cut and copy pieces of the fruits onto a new document to make this face. I was quite willing to keep at a slow snail-like pace, since no one besides me has much experience with Photoshop. I understand this.
I got to work once more on creating my face and once again, within ten minutes I'd done it, however, this time, I minimised it so he couldn't see it. Didn't want him telling me to do it all again, again.
He told us all to use a specific tool to select a piece of fruit and I obliged, pretending to follow his lead, when I'd already done it. I watched Leanne do it, who was sitting next to me and though she was doing it as she said, I showed her an easier way to do it.
By 10:30am I was ready for scratching my eyes out, due to the slowness of the lesson and Tony's use of 'Do us a favour', every time he wanted someone to do something. I think he's incapable of asking someone to do it without adding that to the beginning.
Back at 10:50am and it was back to this oh so hard work. Or not.
Since my pieces were all already on the new document, I was moving them around and Tony saw that I had a piece on there that he hadn't told us to move over yet.
"Can you delete that one?", he told me, before taking the mouse and deleting it himself.
"Why are you deleting it?", I asked, completely confused, since it was exactly what he'd wanted, just not that piece yet.
"I wanna see you select it", he replied, before walking off, leaving me to reselect it and move it across, LIKE I'D JUST DONE. Not that he was watching of course. By this point I was getting annoyed because he'd done a few variations of telling me to do things again, only to tell everyone at the same time to do it anyway. I don't like repeating what I don't need to do!
Tony told us all to name each selection and he described how to go about doing it. I'd already named mine like thirty minutes ago. The guy sitting next to me was doing it as Tony instructed. However, there was a much simpler way to do it than how he told everyone and it's how I do it every single time I use Photoshop and I told the guy next to me how to do it. The guy next to him heard and he done it as well and thirty seconds later it had gotten half way round the room about this easier way how to do it. Tony saw one of them do it and told him not to, but to do it the way he'd just said. The guy said that he'd heard me tell him how to do it.
"Right, can I have everyone's attention for a minute please?", he said.
Then, Tony came over to me and put his hand on my shoulder. Ears were burning, heart started beating faster. I mean, it wasn't a light tap on the shoulder, it was a kind of a thud on it all of a sudden.
"What's your name mate?", he asked
"Neil"
"Don't worry, i'm not embarassing you"
"Right, now Neil's been doing Photoshop for a while now and a few of you have been naming your layers like he's said, but if you go into a studio and they only have Photoshop 5.5 you can't do it in 5.5 so you'd have to do it the way I've been telling you. So instead of doing it the easy way, do it the hard way for us so you know how to do it."
...and all this time i'm sitting there, looking at my screen, a little frozen. "Don't worry, i'm not embarassing you"?!...well fuck.
So then everyone started doing it his way again and by this point, I think Tony was getting fed up of me trying to help people, even though I was actually giving helpful advice.
I mean, take the guy next to me. When Tony found out that he was doing it my way instead of his, he said "Can you do it the way I've told you mate, cos what if you forget the way he's [meaning me] just told you? You won't know how to do it, but if you do it my way you'll know it then"
There's a few discrepancies with that comment, no?
Why would he forget my way of doing something, but not the way Tony had told him, when my way is actually easier?
For those who actually know how to use Photoshop (even basically), here's his way and my way of naming a layer:
His way: Click the layer you want to name, click on Layer in the menu, select Layer Properties, enter the name, click ok.
My way: Double click the layer's title you want to name, enter the name.
Now, though it may not seem a huge difference, it saves a lot of time doing it my way, as i'm sure those of you who use PS know.
So we all go back to work, me now feeling a bit shamed, very angry, and wanting to go home because the lesson was pissing me off a lot by this point.
After the little announcement by him, I was pretty damn wary of saying anything to anyone to help them. It's hard not to though, when you know how to do something easier.
By the end of the lesson, we were finally up to putting the fucking ears on this stupid thing. 30 seconds and I'd done mine. But Tony come over again. "Delete one of them please", he told me. WHY! Argh. Fucking hell.
I didn't ask why, I just done it, only to put it back when he'd left me the fuck alone.
Because most people had gotten the hang of dragging and dropping stuff, pretty much everyone had both ears on their document, but Tony didn't like this and made everyone delete one ear. Why the fuck!?
To top that, he then says "Ok, select the piece of fruit again, but don't drag it to your document yet". Fair enough, if he wants to do something else, that's ok. However, after a minute of helping someone he then says "Ok, you can move it over now".
POINTLESSNESS
I left that lesson feeling like I really wanted to say something to Tony. Hell, I felt like hitting something. So much anger. I walked to the station with such a need to express all this emotion, but of course the only way I can express all the anger is here, in my diary.
Fucking shit day.
On the way back to the station, I stopped in the print shop to get a copy of the poster I designed last year as part of my media studies course. The aim was to design an awareness poster for a charity of your choice. It had to be eye catching and give some sort of information.
This is what I came up with. I spent 16 hours on it and I liked how it turned out.
I got a nice big copy of it on A3 and tomorrow, I'm going to show Dave, who is my Photography teacher. Unlike Tony, Dave is a great teacher, because he's only 25 and seems on everyone's level. Tony, on the other hand seems to just want to teach what's on the syllabus and get the fuck out of there. He may teach what needs to be taught, but he has no personality towards us all. I mean, he didn't even introduce himself when we were first in his lesson, nor did he this time. So we were a little unsure as to what to call him at first, meaning that those who wanted help didn't get it from him. I don't like him. You can understand why.
I also have a multimedia teacher called Brian Johnson on a Thursday. He's a great teacher. Laughs and jokes with everyone, extremely supportive, energetic about the course, helps in any way he can. Great teacher. I'm going to show him my poster too. Infact, i'm going to show every teacher I've got because I want them to see what i'm capable of. I'd show it to Tony, but he'd only say 'Oh, that's nice', not meaning it, not being interested really, then still try to teach me how to drag and drop things and name layers. Yeah, real clever.
Also tomorrow, I have an appointment with James, which means I will get out of photography 90 minutes early.
Fuck, that was a long, long rant, but it had to be done. No doubt there will be another of this magnitude next Tuesday too, if he fucks about again.
I need a hug.
