Writing in the Dark

IN THE DARK #5

QUESTION:  Think of a time when language (written or spoken) got you something you really, really wanted.  How did you accomplish this task?  What did you learn?

I’m writing this paper “in the dar,k” so bear with me for any grammatical errors. 

One of the most difficult experiences of my life came during senior year in high school.  I was enrolled in a TV Productions course where our year-long goal was to create videos (comedy, school-relatd, etc.) for the “video yearbook.”  I was a dedicated student, taking on internships, joining clubs, and putting lots of effort into everything I did.  Unfortunately, our teacher was downright awful, and for some reason he held a vendetta against me (everyone in the class knew it too).  InDespite my hard work producing a total of six comedy videos, not one of them made it into the video yearbook.  I was not happy, and neither were many others whose hard work was for nothing.  He played many “favorites” in the class which made it impossible for many to our work into the final product (the video yekbook was shown to all the graduating seniors on “senior safe night”).  Me and my close friend Josh had made what we thought were videos worthy of putting in there, so he and I organized a “midnight movie madness,” a video featuring all the “rejected” video yearbook segments to show at midnight on “senior safe night.” 

I had to be as suave as I could to get people to let me do this (you’d think more staff members would WANT to showcase student talents…)  I also shot little interviews with the “rejects” to introduce their videos.  First I had to go up to the TV teacher, caught off guard about the idea, he had no other choice but to say it was “okay”.)  Then I had to go to the dean to see if we could hang up posters for the event.  Because there is such strict policy in schools nowadays, we could not hang up posters until we had a finished movie and our teacher approved it (which basically meant no posters).  Then we had to go to the principal and ask him for permission (after of course we set up an appointment, etc).  He was cautious about the thing, but he gave it an ok. At the end of the day, using very diplomatic language, and non-aggressive tactics, I managed to pull this thing off and I had a good turnout, I think.  Everybody was laughing inside the auditorium and best of all, we got reactions like “how did this not make it in?”  Comments like that affirmed for me that I had not wasted all the hard work I put into that class.