[Vocaloid]: Tranquility

My first serious digital art attempt. Wow. I'm getting shivers here, guys.

So. A little about this, I guess? Essentially, here are the basics:
1. I like Vocaloid. I love Vocaloid. Vocaloid has been my friend since like seventh grade. It's made me feel all sorts of colors.
2. I hate grades. I love learning, but I hate grades. Whoever made GPA, AP, IB, all that kinda crap? Whoever made it important? Stop. You make me sick. You made me hate what I loved.

And this picture is a culmination of those sentiments. The education system tells us that if we fight, and we work hard, and we do our jobs as students, then we have a chance at the American Dream that is apparently now a global phenomenon. But it doesn't work that way. Not anymore. I am watching my fellow sophomores at high school kill themselves over grades. 4 hours of sleep is standard; 7 is a luxury. We deny ourselves our time, our lives, simply for the sake of this thing they call "applications." For a chance. For a single chance, we are ruining our personalities, lying to our friends, transforming a high school into something more similar to the Hunger Games. 

We are now defined by cold, inky numbers and the looming prospect of failure. 

Whoever said that high school is the time of an individual's life is either outdated, a liar, or both. 

Disgusting. 

What I want to express in this painting is that we walk among our own hope, our own promise, while surrounded by an inky depth of unending fear of failure, to what we believe is the light. But we cannot see what is that light. It is blank, so far away -- and yet we keep walking. As we walk, we let go of ourselves, now too distant to be anything worth noting. But sometimes, we look back. And we smile. Smiles that leak of words like "goodbye" and "forever." An underlying message of regret before we turn away and continue towards the endless void.

This is life, and this is reality. Please spread this image, and help spread the word. We need this to end. 

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Also, please support my original project, titled Lithia. Now that I have a tablet, I should be getting started on it soon. But after -- and only after -- I finish my exams of the 4 AP courses and 2 honors classes that I decided to take, because I am an intelligent human being who thinks for her future