Where's That Cheese?

This week was definitely one to remember, my school mates would understand why ;)
But all the excitement and 'events' aside, I feel that it's time I commented on a topic that's blatantly taken for granted....

:)

Yes, the smile.
Throughout yesterday and today, I've been in several snaps taken at school...
And damn it, some of those those smiles couldn't get ANY faker -_-
Take the typical scenario - End of the year class photograph.
One of the things I used to do in class after receiving my copy was to sit down and point out how many of those 100 watt bulbs were just glass casings with a coat of white.

Rewind to 7th grade, 
For some "genius" reason our teacher decided to give us our answer scripts right before the photo was taken. 
Now, for anyone who isn't familiar with the mindset of my batch, if you didn't score in the 90th percentile...you were just a personal failure. Quite simple, no?
So we walked towards the props for the photo, dreary, teary-eyed faces et all. I was still trying to console the girl next to me.
We stand in our spots, face the camera...and we each let out this huge fake smile.
That's like mild mental torture. I'm pretty sure all our collective sadness turned to critical anger and was unleashed upon the one creature in our field of vision.
The photographer.
 
Photographers have been the primary target for curse and ridicule alike, at least for us.
9th grade brought us one that set the flash off 15 times before discovering that he forgot to include his roll of film / memory card.
Being rendered temporarily blind is no joke. Even more so if you're standing in the back row. 
By back row, I mean a row of rickety tables, of course.

Now, I really do despise being forced to smile. So, I rely heavily on the class clown or a comedian to lighten the mood. Unfortunately, I also equally despise lame jokes, a speciality of the comedian at that point of time.
I think that they should consider trying -at the very least- to get us to laugh at something.
Not that they would drag a random person in front of us and smash a pie into their face.
[That would warrant laughs though...*gets hit with stray projectile*]

Now, I have come to terms with the fact that I smile too much.
Too often I have landed up in hot water because of my proclivity to crack a wide, dimpled grin...at the wrong moment.

But queue the moment of the forced photograph?
Meh, that thing NEVER comes out.
No, instead I face a backfire. My smile comes out completely weird.
Seeing a weird smile on my face in the photo is as good as a slap on my face.
By weird, I mean I hold a sarcastic, unentertained or critical look on my face, accompanied by an elevation in my left eyebrow.
That's usually attributed to the fact that the photographer said something particularly odd at that point of time. Not odd enough to make my crack a grin, but enough to make me look the way I did.
Yes, I also include the 'i-smile pleaz', 'first, second, thehd' and 'okaiii'. As much as misspelling those words makes me cringe, I do it to give you an idea of the why I might look the way I do.


So next time you find yourself the focus of a camera lens, and feel stoic, I suggest you try your level best to get out that smile...because quite honestly, fake ones just plain suck.


:D