part one: where i am

You Are Here

To put it as simply as I possibly can, I am so lost. And I also know exactly where I am. And I have no idea what I want to do, but I know exactly where I want to be. But I couldn’t point to it on a map. Who am I kidding? It’s so far from simple. It’s the most complicated thing I’ve ever tried explaining. I’m going to do my best.

Let’s start with something that I said in my last blog post. In my life, I have wanted to be:

Planet. Firefighter. Diva. Singer. Dancer. Actress. Fashion designer. Hairstylist. Therapist. Social worker. Spy. Private investigator. U.S. Marshal. Filmmaker. Photographer. Writer. Journalist. Blogger. Tour manager. Production manager. Nutritionist. 

There are several things on this list that I laugh at myself for ever considering, but there are also some that are still very appealing to me. And that brings me to my first dilemma: how am I supposed to combine being a social worker with being a music journalist with being a photographer with whatever else I may be interested in at any given moment? (And that’s just a few.)

The good news is that it can be easy. You just do it.

The “bad” news is that there’s just not a cover-all degree that I can get in four years that will prepare me to do all of these things as a career. So why am I still looking for one?

Lyrics of "Loved" by FEiN. 

Transparency

To come right out and say it: I will no longer be attending the Savannah College of Art and Design (I guess my first blog title- “confessions of a prospective art school dropout”- was right), or any other school, for that matter, as a full-time student at this point in time. This is the "plan" I (with the help of my family and mentors) have come up with.

This is NEVER something I thought I would be saying. In fact, if I told 8-year-old Perri, or 12-year-old Perri, or 15 or 18 or even 19 years and 7 months and 22 day old Perri that she would be dropping out of college, she would be excited, then she’d be mad, then she’d be confused, panicking, or in a full-blown meltdown (respectively). And now, here I am, 19 year, 8 month, and one day old, finally admitting to myself that maybe just maybe traditional college isn’t the right thing for me right now. I’m still shocked I’m even thinking that.

The Pathway

Today in America, college is pushed on young people more than ever before. When my grandparents graduated from high school, it wasn’t all that common to go on to college. In fact, only one of my biological grandparents has a college education, and she got her two-year nursing degree at age 31. The generation of my parents held more pressure to attend college. My mom always planned to, though it took her a few major changes to decide on what she’d ultimately get her degree in. My dad, on the other hand, was faced with the decision of going to college or “getting out” after he graduated high school. He never planned on college, but seeing that his options were limited, he favored a few more years of education paid for by his parents than leaving home and going to work full time, off to “U-Rock” he went. Several more years of school followed that at UW Madison. Now we live in a generation where college is pushed on every student, and even if it’s not blatantly said, it’s looked down upon by many people when a smart and financially capable young person decides not to pursue further education in a standard college environment. This is why I grew up knowing no alternative to college after high school. This was all well and fine up until I was asked to seriously start thinking about what I might want to go to school for and where I’d like to go.

As I’ve talked about previously on my blog, sophomore year of high school was an incredibly stressful year for me. Coincidentally, this was also the time that my teachers began to introduce the words “ACT”, “admissions”, “transcript”, “career”, and “future” to us. During my mid-youth crisis of 2015, I made the decision that I did NOT want to go to college. Merely thinking about choosing a college brought me so much anxiety that I would immediately start crying at any mention of it. 

Junior year was much better, but I still avoided “college-talk” at all expenses; that is, until my spring break in March 2016. That spring break, I accidentally toured my first college by passing the admissions building in the beautiful city of Savannah, Georgia, while doing some sightseeing. That school was Savannah College of Art and Design. And I FELL IN LOVE. My worries dissolved and anxiety was replaced by excitement. I applied that day (thanks rolling admission). I thought I finally had it figured out.

I'm so grateful for the time I had in Savannah.

The next few months took me back to the drawing board with an acceptance into my safe school (which I so desperately wanted to fall back on - I’ve always had a weakness of taking the comfortable, safe route), and then to the 5-year social work masters program at Loyola University Chicago. I even put down a housing deposit at Loyola. Ultimately, we all know where I was drawn back to…

It felt right at the time. Now, looking at it in retrospect, I think it may have felt right because it was what was expected of me. People were proud of me! I was finally on the right path! I felt good, like I had accomplished something. I was going to college. But not just any college- THE art school of the southeast! A widely known school of art and design with campuses not just in the U.S., but Lacoste and Hong Kong as well. With over 90% of graduates employed within one year of graduating, and 80% working a job directly related to their field of study. I felt like I was set up to succeed.

I guess it’s not a spoiler at this point: Although I had a great freshman year, I didn't stay long enough to find out if I would, in fact, succeed.

I had a really hard time admitting to myself that maybe SCAD wasn’t the place for me. For several months prior to making the decision to leave, questions such as “am I getting enough out of this school with all the money I’m spending?” or “is this really something I can see myself doing for the rest of my life?” crossed my mind. My doubts about my success at SCAD grew almost daily. (That’s not to say I didn't enjoy anything there- my psychology class, public speaking class, and composition class were some of the most fun and useful classes I’ve ever taken) But I kept on pushing those questions to the back of my mind in fear that if I voiced them, all of the pride and happiness that others felt on my behalf would fade fast. I couldn't even think about how horrible I’d feel knowing I’d let people down. Especially people who were (and are) so important to me.

But it got to the point where I couldn’t fake it anymore, even after switching from a film major to a much broader writing major- this isn’t what I want to be doing. 

("Part Two: Why I'm Here" coming soon [to own on DVD and video]) 

i wish i was a fly.

From the time I was little, I've wanted to be a hundred different things "when I [grew] up". My first documented dream job was "a planet", and after that it was "a firefighter, to help blow out fires". Needless to say, I've since set my goals a little lower, but they still seem so far out there that it scares me.

“She was terrified of everything, and terrified to show it.”

— David Foster Wallacce

These days, it seems as if I am afraid of so much more than I was when I was young. My fears have morphed from getting lost in the grocery store to being able to afford groceries. From roller coasters (I almost fell out of one as a child) to a long, flat pathway with no ups or downs. From my dad being mad at me to my dad being disappointed in me. From not having enough time to do everything I wanted to not filling my potential. I do have one fear that has remained the same over the years, though. My parents' basement: when I was young, because of the monsters; now, because I worry I'll be down there until I'm 38. 

a simpler time

Alright, I know I won't really be down there until I'm 38. But I do kind of worry that everything I want to do will fail and I'll end up being reliant on my parents for whatever reason at some point in my life. And logically, I know that's very unrealistic. But it still scares me, and I'm still going to tell myself that my fears are valid even if they seem silly. Because they're my biggest motivation right now.

Unfortunately, that can cause some problems. I think motivation should come from a positive place: a place of inspiration, passion, and joy. Right now for me, it's not. I think that's part of the reason I've felt so stuck over these past few months. Like I'm not in the right place. That's why I changed my major from film to writing. That's why I didn't do as well as I would've liked to on some of my projects over the past year. That's why I'm questioning every choice I've ever made right now. That't why I am asking myself these questions: Am I doing this because it is something I love, or because this is what everyone important to me has showed excitement and interest in me doing? Am I going to be able to do this long term? Am I truly passionate about this? And if so: what am I going to do with this degree?

These questions are hard for me to answer. I don't even really want to admit the true answer to myself. I'm scared to do so. But here goes: a little of both, probably not, sometimes, and I have no idea. 

Here is a list of all the things I wanted to be growing up. Bolded are the things that I still have interest in.

Planet. Firefighter. Diva. Dancer. Actress. Singer. Teacher. Fashion Designer. Hairstylist. Photographer. Independent filmmaker. Therapist. Social worker. Tour manager. Production manager. Roadie. Travel writer. Blogger. Photojournalist. Music journalist. Musician. Nutritionist. 

Now here is the question: how am I supposed to do all of this stuff in my life and still please my parents by getting a degree? What am I even supposed to get a degree in? Writing? Photography? Advertising? Business? Social work? 

See my dilemma?

---

Since just before school ended, I've had a creative block. Maybe creative block isn't even the right word for it. I've had a deficiency of creativity. Absolutely no interest in anything that usually brings me such joy. I couldn't pick up my guitar, I couldn't draft a blog post. I couldn't do a watercolor or take my camera out for photos. I couldn't touch my piano or drums, I couldn't even write in my journal. I just had no desire to do anything. It's like I was drained of all my inspiration and creative urges by the end of my first year of college. I was so empty. So bland. And not even in a way that made me upset: really, I didn't feel much. I don't know what my deal has been the past month, but I really haven't felt much at all. I didn't get frustrated, didn't get excited, didn't feel overjoyed, angry, or sad. Everything was fine.

Then, June 30th rolled around. The day that I had been anticipating for months. It didn't even feel real until a few hours before when we were on our way to Chicago. I saw Kacey Musgraves and Harry Styles perform at the United Center. And it was like something woke me up. There is something so reviving to me about concerts. Being able to feel the bass vibrate through my chest... it's a feeling like no other. It was as if I was being pumped full of energy, new inspiration, and excitement. I left the show that night on cloud 9. I felt so good. And so inspired. 

I came home that night and my mind raced. I'm surprised I was even able to sleep. The next morning I woke up and played guitar ALL DAY. My fingers were stinging and my back ached from my poor posture, but it didn't stop me. The following day I banged on the drums, trying to find where my old skills had hidden themselves away in my memory. And then I tried to write. I wanted to write a song. But for some reason, that's where I once again got stuck. Then I got frustrated. I got so discouraged. And I put the pen down. 

Then today, I began thinking about going back to school in the fall. And let's just say that all those emotions that had been hidden behind a facade for the past month were unmasked. I cried for hours. I thought long and hard and came up with nothing. I finally was able to write though. My hand still hurts from how badly it cramped as I scrawled illegible sentences across the pages of my journal. Then I cried some more because I knew that no matter what I did, I would never be able to write like Harry, or like any of the artists that I'd seen and felt the same way with after their shows. I would never be anything like them.

This is what I struggle with, a lot. And how vain of me! How egocentric, how arrogant! Do I really think that the only way that I'll be able to feel fulfilled, accomplished, happy is to be as successful as one of the biggest names in music? No, not really. I've grown out of the desire to be known as myself. That desire has turned into one to have my work widely known. To inspire others. To make a difference in this huge, highly corrupt, absolutely unfair, screwed up, potential-ridden world. I'll let these old poems of mine better describe what I mean.

“If a man can bridge the gap between life and death, if he can live after he’s dead, then maybe he was a great man. Immortality is the only true success.”

— James Dean

“I think that my biggest fear at fifteen… is that I was gonna be some sort of like, failure, or, or stuck being invisible, um- and not making an impact and ya know [...] meeting somebody who you love more than anything else in the whole world and wanting to get married- I think a fifteen year old me would have never thought that possible, so, I think he’d be happy to know that it all works out in the end.”

— Gerard Way

Catching my drift? I feel like I need to do something that will be remembered. Today (as opposed to 2015 when these were written) I'm more focused on making something that will be remembered and that will evoke inspiration rather than BEING someone that does so. But the fears remain. I still frequently find myself doubting that I'll be able to achieve what I dream of. I worry that my existence will mean nothing. And I worry so much about fulfillment. About feeling good about my life in my last days. About having regrets.

To the right is a photo from my last photo project this past year. The project, titled "Latency", consisted of found photographs paired with a segment of text from Dr. Eric Berne's book What Do You Say After You Say Hello?  This one, in particular, is the one that I resonate the most with. A combination of what I always pictured my life would be (9-5 in an office) juxtaposed with a statement that I hope I'll one day believe. 

I wish I had some sort of positive way to close this post, but unfortunately, things just aren't feeling particularly positive for me right now. Today, I thought about how I would have been liked to be born as a fly. It would have been so much simpler. But here I am, a human, privledged enough to have been born in America and provided with a world of opportunity. I guess I'll just have to figure something out.

priester's service center

My second photo assignment had just as loose of guidelines as the last: take images that represent the themes in chapters 2-4 in The Photograph as Contemporary Art. These chapters are as follows:

Chapter Two: Once Upon a Time

This chapter explores "tableau" photography, or photography in which an entire narrative has been condensed into one single image. This style of photography often includes images constructed by the photographer and requires a preconceived idea of what will be photographed.

Chapter Three: Deadpan

Deadpan photography cares more about aesthetic than meaning in an image. Deadpan photos are crisp, clear, large images of scenes that lack narrative, detail, or drama. They tend to be detached and cool, with no deeper meaning.

Chapter Four: Something Or Nothing

This chapter focuses on turning everyday objects into art. The seemingly banal, boring subject matter of the images is what makes them so striking: who'd think to photograph a pile of dirty laundry, a banana peel, or a half burned out light up sign? This style of photography takes ordinarily ignored subject matter and brings it into the light.

For my project, I took photos of Preister's Service Center on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. It seems that the gas station has been abandoned for at least thirty years. I've driven past the lot on which the crumbling structure sits almost every day since I started school here in September. Hundreds of other people- locals, students, and tourists pass this decaying sight every day and don't even take the time to bat an eye or turn a head. However, the service center caught my eye the first time I drove past it and I had been looking for an excuse to get off the bus in that part of town to photograph it for months. Here's how it turned out when I finally did.

click right on photos below to scroll.

The photos are taken at different times of the day, from early morning just before sunrise, to high noon, to dinner time, to after sunset. As seen in the photos, nothing about the landscape changes in the 14 hours that pass between photographs. No matter what the time of day- early commute, lunch break, rush hour, or bedtime- the gas station remains lifeless and ignored. That is, until a SCAD kid decided to go back not once, but four times to shoot photos.

wasn't too much fun at all

cool moment #582 on @perrimoran's page: roommates on a sand dune 

Okay, so I'm not gonna lie... I really wish I had the life of Instagram user @perrimoran. She seems so happy. It seems like she loves school and like she has so much fun living in Savannah. She doesn't seem to have a hard time being away from home at all! She must be having such a great time at an art school; it must be so easy... she was just at the beach the other day! How does she have time for that?! She has amazing friends and she's so close with her family and she loves her job. She's also so passionate about her lifestyle. She always posts the coolest pictures of all the stuff she does. I seriously wish I had her life.

Well, here's the thing. I do have @perrimoran's life. I have all that happiness and fun. I'm so lucky to go to such a great school in such a beautiful part of the country. I seriously have the best friends and my family is more than I could ever ask for. I get so much fulfillment from my job and my babysitting jobs, I'm very passionate about animals and am lucky enough to spend a fair amount of time around them, and I do enjoy documenting and sharing all of these great moments, of which I have plenty. And on the other hand, I do not share the less great moments. 

I don't post about the crippling anxiety that rolls around every so often or the occasional night that I cry myself to sleep. I don't show my followers the days that I lay in bed with an open textbook and blank notebook page staring at the ceiling because I can't get myself to focus on art history for more than four minutes at a time. I don't talk about how incredibly homesick I get or how much I miss my family and friends. I avoid showing the fact that I haven't made more than one new friend this year outside of my dorm. And I certainly don't talk about the fact that I hate all of this about myself.

Not a lot of other people talk about these unappealing things either. I'd like to change that.

Logically, I know that nobody has a perfect life. I think we all know this. We know that everyone struggles with something, or with multiple things. Yet somehow, we fall for the idea that the people on our Instagram feeds have better lives than we do because of the constructed image of what they want their lives to look like. I think that even if we know that our feed isn't always 100% accurate to reality, it can be damaging just to see all of the great things that other people are doing and we are not. It makes us compare ourselves to others. Others who have seemingly perfect lives. Others who make us feel subconsciously inadequate and bad about our own lives, no matter how lucky we are. To feel better, we post pictures of something fun we did to show off that our lives are exciting too. And without even realizing it, we could be making them feel the same exact way. It's a series of positive feedback loops. (And that is not necessarily a good thing.)

uninstagrammed moment #4801: this is how a day in my college life really looks.

Here's how that works. Using the example from before: I post a picture of myself at the beach on my day off. My follower sees that and envies how much fun I'm having, and begins to feel inadequate and unhappy with their banal routine. So they go back and find an image of a group of friends at a waterpark from a few weeks ago and post it to show the followers how much fun they're having. Then I see that waterpark post while I'm sitting on my bed scrolling mindlessly to avoid homework. I wish that I could be at a waterpark and have time to go do fun stuff with a group of friends like that. I compare and get down on myself, and in order to bring my own self-worth back up, I need some validation that my life is interesting and fun, so I find another picture of me looking really happy with a $10 smoothie bowl I got like two weeks ago and post that. The likes roll in from all of my followers. I feel good until I see their posts that one up mine. It goes on.

You can see how this consistent game of comparison quickly turns into a vicious cycle, right? It happens to so many people and most of us aren't even aware that we're playing this little game inside our minds. But you know what they say, admitting the problem is the first step towards recovery... I am totally guilty of feeling bad about myself and my life based on what other people post on social media. And that's kinda messed up. The good thing is, there are a few ways to change the way I see other people's posts, the way they make me feel, and the way that people see mine... here's what I'm gonna start doing.

yup. proud to say that a combination of really good skincare and prescription medication have made this *almost* go away

Recognize that everyone struggles.

Whether or not they're comfortable showing it, everybody, literally everybody, struggles with something. Whether it be their confidence, their happiness, their job, their schoolwork, their relationships... nobody has a perfect life all around. But of course, we want it to appear that way. A lot of people tend to be embarrassed by the struggles that they encounter on a day to day basis. When I say struggles, this could be anything from feeling super down for no reason to being mortified by the way we look. I, for one, only post pictures of myself in which my skin looks good. This tends to be a common one. A lot of people wear makeup, use Facetune, or throw up a peace sign to hide their acne in photographs that end up going online. I'm definitely guilty of all those things and let me tell you, that's just not how I look all the time. I've struggled with acne for so long and just now after MONTHS of red, inflamed, cystic, hormonal acne, it's just starting to clear up due to prescription medication. But scroll through my Instagram feed from the past few months and any picture of me will look like I have a naturally flawless complexion. I see the same thing on the pages of so many other girls and am consistently comparing myself to how they look. Even if they cake on concealer, overuse the blur feature to smooth their skin, or are covering half their face, I find myself feeling bad as I look at the picture. And logically I KNOW that everyone gets pimples, probably even these people. But I still feel bad about myself as I sit there and run my fingers over my bumpy skin. 

We have to convince ourselves- we have to believe the fact that everyone does struggle with something. The things we see on Instagram are not carbon copies of our real lives. They are just windows that we peek through every once in a while to get a glimpse of what our friends and family are doing. Most of the time, the blinds on those windows are shut. That doesn't mean that life isn't continuing on the other side of that windowpane, it simply means it's too boring or private or uncomfortable to share. We only open the blinds when we have something we want others to make judgements about us based on.

Live for the pleasure, not for the picture.

Me and my dad on a walk in Seattle, 2016. This is one of my favorite pictures from that trip. 

I can't tell you how much I have grown to hate the phase "let's take a picture for Insta". Now more than ever, people my age are obsessed with creating an image for themselves. Everything revolves around what people think of you, not what you think of you. I have literally heard the phrase "my goal tonight is to get a cute IG to post." I overheard this at my school on a weekend around the time that everyone started leaving the dorms to go to parties. (The reason I was out was to go get dinner... not a big partier myself) It made me so frustrated, so annoyed, but also kind of sad. Although I'm sure she wasn't completely serious, I didn't doubt that it sincerely was one of this girl's top priorities to take a picture that showed how much fun she was having with her friends or how glamorous her college social life was. I do recognize that I am making assumptions about this particular scenario. Maybe this girl had another specific and valid reason other than constructing an image of herself to be posting a party picture on Instagram. I can't say. But what I do know is that so many people take pictures purely for the response that they'll get on social media and that little jolt of dopamine they'll receive when the notification pops up: "@usernamehere liked your photo." Not to mention, posting that picture of your best times will make you life look more appealing, and by extension, it'll make YOU look more appealing. I mean, come on. Who wouldn't wanna be friends with someone who has such an interesting and fun life?

It's all good fun until we realize how much we're missing out on. We're sacrificing the real, physical experience for a staged version that we instead look at through a lens and projected onto a screen. I can't speak for everyone else, but I almost always have the most fun when my phone is in my pocket and not in my hand. I think that we should start living for the pleasure of the opportunity we have for a great time, and not living for the post about it. Of course, as I'm sure most of you know, I love photography and capturing moments, so I may seem to be contradicting myself here. Let me make it clear that I am not saying to stop taking photos. Photos are an incredibly meaningful way to document special experiences and one-time moments that we want to remember. By all means, take your pictures! I just hope that we can all get on the same page and agree that constructing the image with intent for it to look real doesn't make it real. Do you think kids would know to smile for pictures if adults didn't train them to? Document. Don't direct. And don't do it for the intent of showing off. Do it for the memory.

Lindsey and me laughing about our double chins. This is as real as it gets.

Start being real.

That brings me to the next change I'll make to reduce this Instagram envy I feel so often... Start being real on social media. Not glorifying anything. If I'm gonna post, I'm gonna post the good, the bad, and the grey area in between. Not everything has to be so glorious! And it's not! The idea of leaving out parts of my life to make it appear better than it really just feels like lying to me. I'm not at all saying that I don't have a great life or that I'm not lucky to be where I am or anything, but even down here in Savannah where it's been 80 degrees for a month and I haven't yet had a single test this year, I still encounter situations and feelings that are less than ideal. On Monday I woke up at 7:00 am for the fourth day in a row despite the fact that I didn't have an alarm set and didn't have class until 5:00 pm. I was unable to fall back asleep (per usual) and spent the whole day dragging my feet and getting grumpier and grumpier with every minute that ticked by. I eventually crawled back into bed and spent 45 minutes watching youtube videos to pass the time and disassociate myself from what I was feeling in real life at that moment. I scrolled through my camera roll to try to find a cute picture to post to get some validation. I couldn't find one and got even more sorry for myself. Then I dragged my feet to class at 4:30 pm and spent the next 3 hours drifting in and out of consciousness as my teacher droned on about photoshop features that I'll never use. It wasn't a great day. And that is okay.

We have this idea that all of our days need to look a certain way to be worth posting and all of our posts need to get a certain response in order to be worth sharing, but I'd like to challenge this. My life just doesn't always look like my Instagram feed does, it's as simple as that. But with Instagram being such a big way that we keep up with our friends' and family's lives today, especially in college when I'm thousands of miles away from home. And I don't wanna pretend that college is all fun and games anymore.

ok so I did go to the beach today but this was the only documentation of it. my life is great but i don't NEED to show it off to validate that fact!

Going Forward...

There are plenty of great days and just as many shitty ones. There are a LOT of just okay days too. I deleted Instagram (and Snapchat) on the 1st of May with the intent of keeping the app(s) off my phone until the 1st of June. I just want to stop living for the Instagram picture and start living for the memory. If I'm not having a good day I'm gonna write about it and if I have a great day then I'll do the same. Maybe after a month-long cleanse from comparing my life to that of others, I'll be able to believe that not everything I see online is how things really are, and be able to be more real without caring so much about the response I'm gonna get in my notifications tab. I have high hopes for this month, and high hopes for this movement of being real.

image of me above by Olivia Joyner

As I mentioned in a previous post, I am now in an intro level photography class. Here are some things about it:

1. My teacher is big into "the photograph as contemporary art". And this means that the whole class is based around the opposite of what I want to do. Josh likes the idea of the photographer fabricating an image and creating it for the purpose of art. I like the idea of capturing and documenting what is already there, and not interfering with it in the process of doing so.

2. My teacher is also colorblind.

3. We just finished critiquing our first projects. That is why I am writing this.

Our instruction for this project was vague; all we were really told was to construct an image and photograph it, and if needed, pull inspiration from our textbook: Charlotte Cotton's The Photograph as Contemporary Art. Here is what I came up with.

People Biting Lemons. 

I wanted to do something that fit the criteria of the assignment (a constructed image) but at the same time was a spontaneous action that I was documenting. These people (likely) wouldn't have been biting into slices of lemons on a sunny day in Forsyth park without being asked to do so, therefore, it is "constructed". On the other hand, I wasn't telling these people what to do besides "bite into the lemon". The way that they did it, how long they did it, what faces they made, etc. was up to them. I simply captured what was in front of me.

Here is a sliding gallery. Click on the right side of the image to see more.

As this is my first project of this year (and in a while) I'm trying to be easy on myself. I pushed myself to talk to strangers (not easy for me) and not only talk to them, but also to let me take a portrait of them while they bit a lemon... I tried to compose the photographs well and edit accordingly. Of course, going back, there are some things that I certainly would have done differently, but it's a learning experience. Overall, I'm happy with how this one turned out.

More projects to come...