Welcome to The SoapBox!! This is the freedom of speech page.. or the "SoapBox" welcome!.. obviously you dropped by because you figured... hey, I need to see how messed up this person is... well here we go... I went through my four years at high school, not to learn so much, but rather to understand more fully the real world and how it works... anyone that says highschool was the best years of there life, probably were assholes during there reign of the school. Highschool is just like life, you have the assholes who run the show, the jocks, who think they're the best, the cheerleaders, who act stupid because they want the jocks, the geeks, who pour themselves over technology and science, the wannabes, who wannabe someone else, and the others... they get along fine, but they scrape some people the wrong way... I was an "other"... I did my time, I didn't clash with many people, I was somewhat liked I believe.. but it was not, I repeat NOT, the best years of my life... filled with standarized tests that measured what you could imitate rather than what you learned, teachers that didn't care much for the students and the student body that had there own cliques... Like I was saying though, I didn't clash with many people, but I knew my place.. I wasn't anything, I had no cliques, I had no people I hung out with in particular... so that made me able to hang out anywhere, it didn't matter, no one really cared... so in effect I had no friends, but I was a friend to everyone... Being in a situation where people actually knew me as a good person was a good thing.. after an incident where someone put me out of school for a year and a permanent scar on my head... I learned that his car was totalled by the student population.. it made me feel good... I never thought anyone cared about me.. it validated some of my life... This incident, showed that like the real world, people still have there own agendas with everything, and even though we may think we know how a person is.. it isn't until a crisis or a situation where someone we know or care for is in trouble do we understand what a person is capable... I look at high school and I'm disgusted by it all.... Disgusted by what the younger generation has become and disgusted by what the people I've seen turn out to aspire to... After Highschool, I left my past and people I knew behind me... I was better than all that crap.. I was better and I knew it.. my own need for improvement, my want to reach new heights and goals pushed me away from the stupidity of it all.. and so college beckoned... College showed me what became of people that graduated from highschool... it left them broken... with no real skills it seems that everyone wants to become a graphic designer... let me tell you now... alot of people were not meant to take art as a career choice... I've seen some people from beginning to end and I see that they weren't meant for it.. it's not what they're good at.. but they'll persist and try anyway, and ultimately fail... Highschool did this to them, with all there math, science, english, and other crap.. these people were not prepared to learn a trade... highschool makes idiots out of those with nothing to gain from the knowledge... when graphic design becomes a last resort and after you graduate you decide bartender is a good choice?... yeah.. you wasted the colleges' time and your money... Luckily after college I learned of different places I could upload my art... I was pretty bad at my drawing.. which is funny, cause I was in the top part of my class when it came to art.. I graduated Magna Cum Laude... that's gotta account for something.. anyway.. I went to Playmouse.. god knows it was a good step, but that was back in the day when it accepted good art or rather aspiring artists... Playmouse now accepts any crap it can find... it seems they're desperate for content.. It's sad really, it's becoming more like deviant art with the speed of vcl... Anyone from Playmouse reading this.. guess what.. it may not be today, it may not be this week, or month, but eventually you'll drown under the waves of your own sea of crappy art... But anyway, I was saying I was there before it got really bad, luckily I was rescued before the wave of horrible drawings and talentless people dragged me down and out of the light... and just like highschool, Playmouse was more like the teachers of the world, they may say they care for the students but they have there own agendas, and there own lesson plans, they are the school officials who buy new cars for the teachers while the students get 10 year old math books.... And just like High school, I left it behind, I left that which hindered my progress and advanced to a better crowd of people... people that I can consider equals or rivals... mainly rivals, as otherwise I would doom myself to complacency, and eventually become stagnant and useless.... The people I correspond with on a regular basis are better people than those I had to deal with... whether it was highschool, or playmouse (same difference) I advanced to a better crowd of people.. people who weren't petty or overly insipid and convoluted with there own agendas... I've met better people, people I respect and actually give a damn what's happening to them... I can say for sure that back in the day at PM... it was hostile territory.. and even when I left.. it was an act of futility.. but damn them... I got them to remove my art regardless... and that's that... to hell with the rest of it... Eventually I will act upon my prior commitments and serve justice where there was no viable outlet before.. I will not be stopped, I will proceed and become better than I am... and as I journey I hope that the people I care about grow with me, and that I can keep up with them... I say this because I am an artist... and by that right alone.. I can never be content with my art.. to choose to be less than what I can be, would make me sick.. and if I'm disgusted with myself... what a sad existence it would be... for me, and the people that once saw me as a rival or equal... OMGTKB (Ben) Y'know what? Come back next week to see if I really give a damn...