New York University Has Raped Me In the Ass

So, it costs 50,000 dollars for next year and they've offered me a grand total of...

Ahem. Drum roll...

9,000 dollars. Woo.

Then I can take out loans from the government for like another 11,000. And to go there I have to take out a 30,000 dollar loan (assuming my parents can sign for it) and be up to my ears in debt for the rest of my life. I don't know what I'm going to do.

Um...not that this will have even the slightest bearing on my decision (well, it might have a slight affect) what would you, the readership of this journal, do in my shoes?

Let me lay it out for you. NYU is like where I picture myself next year. It is so far ahead of every other school I've applied to (in terms of first choice-age) that it's not even really worth comparing. It's exactly what I'm looking for academically. It's the best school in the country to study the kind of filmmaking I want to and, actually, I won't be able to go into filmmaking next year at all if I don't go there. (Unless Emerson's financial aid package turns out to be way better for whatever reason). On the other hand, I'll be paying like 1500 dollar a month loan payments for like ten years and it'll be very difficult to do anything (get a house, enjoy life, etc.) when I get done with school. Plus, the odds of getting a high-paying job in the field. So, have at it. Romantics versus the Pragmatics. Opinions. Now.

Inherit the Wind

We saw Inherit the Wind at Geva today. Without going into too much detail the play is a dramatization of the Scopes trial where they were arguing evolution versus creationism, intelligent design, etc. There's this part where the defense attorney is questioning the prosecution attorney and he's talking about Gensis and he asks him how they defined the first four days of existence if the sun wasn't created until the fifth or whatever. "So the first day of could have lasted, say, ten million years if there was no sun to define it." I've always had a problem with a rigid literal interpretation of the Bible. I think human error, translation issues, cultural bias, and the metaphorical nature of some of the text makes it a tricky document to take word-for-word. I don't know. It was a cool play. Defenitly worth seeing if you're not busy this weekend (It was extended to this weekend, but it's over after the first or second or something. Actually, I suggest making yourself un-busy if you at all can. It's totally worth it. There's a lot I could say about it, but I actually just wrote a critique of it for class and I don't really feel like elaborating anymore.

In other Geva news (like I have that much Geva news), I was getting worried that they didn't pick my script for the Young Writer's Festival thing, but, according to Ms. Baker, my worrying is premature. They haven't made the selections yet. So, I should save my worrying for a week or two when they don't pick it then. Ha.

Today was the second-to-last band concert I'll ever perform in. Haha, remember all those "lasts" I've been experiencing lately? Well, this one doesn't count, obviously. It's second-to-last. It was a memorable concert, though. Let's just say we played a neat arrangement of Jurrassic Park and a certain someone decided to march on stage in an elaborate dinosaur costume. Mr. Hoffman, although he was completely uninformed, didn't even flinch as he was conducting. As a matter of fact we were almost positive he didn't see anything until he mentioned it later in the concert. We were hoping he would watch the tape tomorrow and be totally suprised by it. Oh well. It was still funny. He said he's not sure if he's mad or if he thinks it was funny yet.

I'm excited for tomorrow. I got a lot of homework done so this weekend isn't going to suck as bad as I thought it was going to.

The Weather Called For Photography

Today's weather is why I like Rochester. True, the winter is harsh (although it wasn't this year), but random out-of-nowhere nice days are awesome. I love it when it's snowing one day and sunny and hot the next day. Anyway, I pulled the camera out today and headed to my yard to take some pictures.

My dad pulled all the flowers out of the garden so he could replant the whole thing this year, but I guess he missed a few.

I should've taken a better picture of the flowers in the context of the surroundings because the "garden" looks halarious. It wraps around the entire house but it's all dirt except for two tiny little puffs of flowers.

The shadow on the house is almost intimidating.

These were the only other flowers. I swear they weren't not here yesterday.

Interesting texture? No? I though so...

Green is my favorite color.


I don' care if there are a lot of pictures of the same flowers. No one is forcing you to look at them.

One of these stones is the one I photorgaphed for the picture up ther.e

I checked. There is no bird in there right now.

More stones.

We use those stones over there to hold down the recycling bin on windy days.

We need a new driveway, but I can't pass up the chance to take a picture of my own shadow. I've got an ego. Who cares?

This grass seems a lot greenier than the other patches.

Other than the fact that it was an awesome day, today was pretty chill. I had a bunch of classes outside, which is both awesome and extremely distracting at the same time. Not that I mind get distracted though. I hung out with Dan for a bit afterschool. We're both pumped for Florida. I've got a field trip tomorrow to GEVA to see Inherit the Wind. Should be a good day. I'm up to my ears with homework.

You Never Listen

I'm pretty nervous about money once again. I think there are like 10 days I can work in the next two weeks before we leave for Florida and I have almost no money saved up for the trip. I have my 70 dollar tax return, of course, but I'm going to need that for Chicago next weekend. What am I going to do? I need to make a lot of money at work, but I called today and they didn't need me. I'd call again tomorrow but we have the chorus concert and it's too risky that I wouldn't get out of work on time to be there. Same thing goes for Thursday with band. I guess I'll work Friday, early on Saturday, and Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday...or as many of those days as I possibly can. If I dry for a significant portion of three or more of those days I should be okay. And I can always work Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and (even possibly) Thursday (Florida Trip Eve) if I really have to.

I'm excited, in any case, for the next couple of weeks. We're going to Chicago with jazz band so I'll be going farther west than I ever have. Florida is the weekend after that so I'll be going more south than I ever have. And we're talking about going to New Orleans over the summer to rebuild a church with youth group, so I guess that is more southwest than I've ever been. Broadening horizons is cool. I really like travelling. I hope we can go to Germany the summer after freshman year like we've been planning. That would be intense, although it might be a problem finanically (not just the expense but the not working aspect too).

I got accepted to Emerson, which increases the confidence level for NYU even more. I just don't get RIT. What didn't they like about me? Whatever. Their loss, right? Financial aid stuff for Emerson is supposed to arrive before April 1 and NYU's acceptances go out on the same day so I hope to know a little bit more about my future this weekend or early next week. My dad is really worried about the financial end. I hope things turn out okay. For both our sakes.

Right now I'm tired and un..inspired. Maybe more tomorrow.

Oh, and Eric started a journal. That's good news. He's got a funny mind.

Random Picture Day

Today is dedicated to random pictures that I feel like posting:

It's weird, yes, but I like it.

Eric at school...

Dan's ear.

Get off the phone!

Here are some pictures from striking the sets on Sunday:

And by pictures of strike I mean pictures of Jimmy and me trying to brugn those evil, evil wigs we had to wear.


It was suprisingly hard to light.

In fact we couldn't get it to catch at all.

Amanda and Tami watching...

Hairspray didn't even help, though I burned my hand enough times.

Crazy For You

So, I'm sure there'll be a ton of entries like this in the various journal/blog cirlces everyone seems to frequent, but, I guess, I'll add my two cents/final thoughts on the musical in retrospect. You'll have to forgive me -- I just woke up from a nap and might lack my usual wit and intellect. Ha.

It's over. I know it's an overused phrase today, but man. It's over. Watching them tear down the sets today during strike was an intense experience. It's gone. We can't do it anymore. We won't perform that show again. We're all going back to our old, musical-free lives. It's been so long I can't really remember what that is like. I've done a lot of shows at Eastridge. I enjoyed every one of them and defenitly got something out of them, but this year was something entirely different. It was a great experience.

I don't usually -- don't usually care about these sort of things. The sort of things that make people say "It's over," "I can't believe it's over," usually don't matter to me. This matters to me, however. A lot. I'm going to miss it. Not so much the beard. But everything else. It's been quite an experience. I wish I had a better memory of all the stuff that has happened this year. Looking back you sort of wish you had pictures and journal entires of every tiny detail to remind yourself of what happened. In the end it's just the sum of your life. The experiences and how they've left you. You can't really hold on to anything else.

Next year is going to be so different. This is just the start of a series of changes that will be sweeping across us the next couple of months. There have been far too many "last times" this year. Now I've got "last highschool musical" to add to the list. Maybe last musical ever. Who knows what I'll have time for in the future?

Everyone was amazing this year. In honesty, I've never surveyed the cast before and found it so flawless. Everyone did their best, I think, and no one stuck out in a negative way or gave a low quality performance. I don't know if I feel like that because it's the last year or because it's acutally true, but I guess in a subjective sort of first-person way it doesn't really matter. We did what we set out to do even though our faith dwindled a lot at times. I know I didn't have much confidence for this year heading in, but it turned out great. Because we wanted it to. Because we really owned it this year. That's how it struck me, anyway.

I'm too much of a cynic to believe that the friendships we made will stay nearly as strong as they were during the show. I know a lot of people really hope that they do and as alluring and desirable as that sounds I try to be realistic. We spent a lot of time together (many hours of the day, many days of the week, many weeks of the months and months we pulled together for) and it's hard to sustain that level of connection when the time spent together is as drastically reduced as it's about to be. I don't know why I'm saying this. Certainly not to depress or frustrate anyway. I feel like it needs to be said before anyone gets their hopes up or to explain myself or whatever. Speaking personally, I'm just not that consistent of a person. I don't really act the same way for very long and almost never act the same in different company. I like change. I practically thrive on it. Stagnation makes me really uncomfortable.

All of that said, I refuse to belittle what we went through the last few months. Before I was talking about the future, certainly not the past. It was truly just as much as any senior could ask for in a final show. I feel like we really went out on top. I don't mean that next year is going to be bad, I simply mean that we got as much out of the cast this year as we could possibly hope for. This year could not really have been any better. Next year better be good if I'm going to come all the way home to see it.

How great is it to work hard on something with other people and feel accomplished at the end? You just can't duplicate that kind of comraderie. It's fucking sweet.

HELP

So, I was kind of bored this morning (yes, bored...you heard me) and I decided to take a look at the general education requirements for film degrees and stuff. Out of like 128 credits 54 are strictly film related (screenwriting, craft, etc.) and 44 are general education. The rest are like electives or whatever else you feel like taking I guess. Within the general education requirements a third are expository writing classes (really annoying from what I heard over the summer), a third are humanities, and a third are sciences. I was sort of skimming the list of what types of courses fit each group and now I'm really annoyed. There are like a ka-billion courses I want to take and I'll have time for like a tenth of them. Maybe not even a tenth.

Here's a list of the categories I'm interested in (just in general education):
AMERICAN STUDIES
CLASSICS
COMPARATIVE LITERATURE
DRAMATIC LITERATURE
ECONOMICS
CREATIVE WRITING
ENGLISH
EUROPEAN STUDIES
FINE ARTS
EARTH AND ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE/GEOLOGY
POLITICS
JOURNALISM
HISTORY
LAW AND SOCIETY
LINGUISTICS
MEDIEVAL/RENAISSANCE STUDIES
PHILOSOPHY
PSYCHOLOGY
RELIGION
SOCIOLOGY
MUSIC
ACTING
DESIGN
DRAMA
DRAMATIC WRITING
CINEMA STUDIES
PHOTOGRAPHY AND IMAGING
HELLENIC STUDIES
RUSSIAN & SLAVIC STUDIES
FRENCH STUDIES

And within each category is like five or so classes that appeal to me. WTF. Why does college have to be so damn cool? Do any of my college-age readers have suggestions to deal with his crazy mess? Or is it simply a losing battle?

Secondly, I watched Spirited Away today. It was really sweet. You can add that to the recommendation list if you haven't already. Now I've got to go add some films to the 'ole Netflix list.

Closing Time

I like that song. I have the entire album on my iPod even though I only listen to that one song because I'm insane and refuse to have just individual songs. Baglio gave me a DVD with maybe a 1,000 songs on it, but they weren't from ablums and they had the band and the song in the title so I couldn't bring myself to upload them to my computer. Yea, weird...

So, last night's show was pretty good. Well, here's the thing, that's what I'm told. I'm not a really good judge of when a show is going well or not, I guess. I completely base it off whether or not something serious goes wrong and that is not really an effective way to tell if a show is good. There are a ton of shows where nothing goes wrong, but the show is still intensely boring or low quality. And since I have no ability to judge the quality of a dance number it makes it almost impossible for me to judge how well our particular show is going. But, everyone says it's good and I'm inclined to agree. I got that vibe.

The last month or so has been interesting. Without offending anyone (like that phrase reallly prevents anyone from being offended anyway), I think I'm ready for a change. I've always been the sort of person that ditests routine; I flee from it without hesitation. The last month is verging on that. I'm really tired of going out to eat, laughing all the time, etc. I don't read anymore. I don't watch nearly as many movies as I used to. I'm sucking hardcore in school. I haven't written anything (outside of this lovely journal) since I don't know when. I miss working on the movie. I miss sleeping. I miss, above all, being bored. So, yea, as fun as musical has been this year and as depressing as it's going to be when it's all over. I'm ready. That probably sounds callous, but whatever. I'm honest.

On the other hand, it's been a lot of fun. I've actually, believe it or not, learned a lot this year in musical. The show is fun to perform. I look forward to being on stage more than I ever have(even though the beard is both a cause for annoyance and concern every night). I'm going to miss the work. Everyone says they'll miss the people but not the work, but while I'll certainly miss the people...I'm going to miss the work. I guess I'll say that until the next show comes along and then I'll be complaining about how annoying it is to be busy all the time, but, hey I can say whatever the hell I want in restrospect and if you have a problem with that then you can keep it quietly and passive-aggresively to yourself until it adds to the stress and worldy-hatred that will explode out of you in your declining years. Thank you.

I get the impression that a lot of people are concerned about awards and this and that. I don't know what to say about that. It seems kind of...I don't know...silly. There are like 800 people in the audience and you're worried about the opinions of a handful of experts? I mean, awards are cool and everything but audience reaction is like ridiculously more important to me than that. "Experts" always run around saying what is the best way to do everything and judging performers (or people in other fields, obviously) based on a set of criteria they've preconceived. But what it really comes down to is that they're just another audience member who happens to know a lot about theatre and happens to be involved in some awards ceremony. Would you still do the musical if there were no awards at all? Of course you would.

In the end it's the individuals choice. There is some appeal to being the common person's performer and there is some appeal to being the critic's performer, sophisticated, self-aware, etc. But the way I see it...there's a lot more "common people" (people who consider theatre to be an evening out, not a career or life pursuit -- certainly not high, noble art where every actor must have something to say and must be changing the field) than there are critics. A greater proportion of ticket sales go to those type of people than critics. Actually, in our specific case critics don't buy tickets at all. They're just taking up seats! So, yea, I don't remember how I got on this rant, but I think it's sufficiently elaborated on.

Oh, and so I don't sound like a hypocrite later, awards are really cool too. I mean, if you can have the audience and the critics -- well, that just rocks. Who doesn't want to please everyone?

Good luck everyone (yea, none of that "break a leg" shit -- I'm not superstitious).

Macbeth, macbeth, macbeth!

For Shame

A lot of posts today, sorry. I think anti-homeless laws are really, really sad. When rich, comfortable people start making it hard for people to partake in life-sustaining practices simply because it's visually unattractive or slightly inconvienent, you know their is a problem. It makes me angry. Anyway, article.

That's all.

Other News

My lovely little sister, Jordan, got a haircut. This is a big deal. Her hair used to be 10 billion feet long. It now extends less than twelve hyperbole-less inches.

See?

It's short.

Not as short as Walts...

I've never gotten this many unobstructed pictures of Jordan.

She looks!


Aww, snap. Head turn and everything.


And for all those concerned, Alexa is still cute.


And I've never put a picture of my dog on here. Shadow meet the internet. Internet, be careful. He bites.

3,129,462,000 Beats

Breakfast: Nothing.
Lunch: Half a banana.
Dinner: Cheese, perogies, Snapple.

Mr. Borland said todaythat the average number of heart beats in the lifetime of any mammal is approximately the same. So, like a mouse, whose heart beats about two-hundred times a minute, dies much faster than a human, whose heart beats about eighty times a minute. I've just been thinking, since then, that we only have so many heart beats. It's like a countdown and it seems foolish to waste them worrying or being stressed. You think of life and time as being this infinite thing. There are times when you want time to move faster. You want to waste time because of boredom or some unpleasant situation! For me at least, when I think about time being limited (as personified by a specific number of heart beats) I can't even imagine wanting to waste time. There is so much to do, to see, to experience and we've so little time to do it.

EDIT: I have just recently been informed, by reliable sources, that Mr. Borland's description of mammal heart beats is greatly exaggereated. Yes, there is a correlation between heart rate and life span, but it is not a 1 to 1 correlation like he made it sound. That only makes sense mathematically. A shrew's heart would have to beat 2800 times a minute to reach the 3 billion mark in its average lifespan. Not 200.

I wonder how this affects my way of thinking.

Void

You know what? I don't care how much I'll regret this or how uncomfortable I'll make everyone feel by saying it. I am really quite tired of being too worried about depressing people to let anything out.

No matter how great things seem lately, how everything seems to be working out in an earthly, pragmatic sort of way, I hate my life. I hate it because I miss Liz and every day when I wake up I feel like I'm going to die. It hasn't gotten any easier. I don't feel any better. I can't breathe. I am numb. I am dead. Nothing is growing here anymore. Who thought I was handling it well? I'm not.

And if I believe in God I hate him and if I don't then I have absolutely nothing to look forward to.I hate how I feel stupid saying this when it's pretty much the most honest thing I've ever said.

I'm sorry. But not really. I'm not really ashamed.

Breakfast: Nothing.
Lunch: Peanutbutter & Jelly, Chips, Cookies, Snapple.
Dinner: Cheese, Chips, Grilled Cheese, French Fries, Water.

Um...

On a strange side note, I'm trying to keep a record of what I eat in any given week because I was trying to figure out what sort of food I've eaten in the past couple of weeks and I couldn't even vaguely remember. So, yea...

Breakfast: Nothing.
Lunch: Some of Kevin's cookies, a few crackers...
Dinner: Cheese and crackers, three cheese sticks, some macaroni & cheese...and a lot of Snapple.

Oh my God. I don't eat. I should probably fix that.

Purple

Life is quickly balancing itself again. I'm getting caught up on homework tonight (I have two Bio essays done and I'm working on a study guide for Great Works) and I've decided to hold off on the English essay until this weekend. It's just not happing. There's Biology homework due Thursday and Friday and I've got no idea when I'll do it, but it doesn't matter. Mr. Borland was very upset with us when we didn't hand in the essay today, but he did this really annoying passive-aggressive thing. Am I supposed to feel guilty? I've made my priorities and I'm sticking to them. I needed some sleep yesterday and I refuse to feel bad about that choice.

We settled the Florida trip today. We even called to make reservations at the campsites. The final trip looks like this:

April 14-23
Friday --> Leave my house for my Aunt's house in Washington, DC. Arrive there midafternoon.
Saturday--> Head to Tony's Grandparents' Cabin in North Carolina in the morning.
Sunday --> Drive to Myrtle Beach State Park early, spend the day at the beach, and campout overnight.
Monday --> Leave for Tony's grandparent's house and arrive sometime in the evening. Spend the night.
Tuesday--> Leave early to get to Miami. Leave for the Everglades in the evening. Camp there.
Wednesday--> Hang out in the Everglades until the afternoon and then drive to Joe's place in Sanibel. Spend the night there.
Thursday--> Head back to Tony's grandparent's house sometime in the afternoon.
Friday--> Hang out in Tampa or whatever. Spend the night there or head back to Tony's grandparent's cabin depending on how we feel.
Saturday--> Either drive to Tony's grandparent's cabin or (if we're already there) spend the day there.
Sunday--> Drive the rest of the way home.

It should be a lot of fun if we don't kill each other, right? Although I suspect we'll have a great many of misadventures to recount. I'm defenitley going to update this while we're away using wireless internet connections in fast food restraunts and what not.

In other news, I think I got into NYU. The reason I say think is because when my dad called today the lady said "we can't officially say anything about it until April 1, but if you recieved an invitation to the event it's cause to be optimistic. Very optimistic. Wink, wink." So that's good. If financial aid works out then I finally know what I'm doing next year. It feels good to have the future in a bit of perspective. That alone has decreased the stress enormously. I have been so back and forth emotionally the last forty-eight hours.

I also figured out the schedule for the movie and, looking at the days ahead, I'll have plenty of time to both work and make an excellent movie. If I still have a job that is. That's the only piece of the puzzle left to eliminate my troubles and then I'm temporarily content. I'm hoping I can get to Wednesday without any more stress and maybe I'll have a day or two with nothing to worry about. I'm going to miss musical a lot. But holy crap I want some free time.

Oh, and today was Alexa's eight birthday. Pictures:

"Ahhh! I'm eight! I'm going to eat you!" That's a quote.

Walt, Mom, Alexa (in some order)


Jordan and Alexa getting stuff.


Alexa getting earrings or something.


Mom, Walt the Present, and Jordan


I took about thirty pictures of Jordan and this is pretty much the only one where she wasn't covering her face.


Alexa's loot.


Cake.


Candles.


That blurry object is a knife. Kinda scary.


Victory.

Well, that's it. I have more homework to finish so I'm off to do that. I've got musical practice tomorrow. Hopefully work on Wednesday and shows Thursday, Friday, Saturday. So I probably won't update until Sunday. No big loss.

Timeless

I feel like my life is in complete disarray at the moment. So much is sort of "up in the air"--or at least that's how I feel.

#1: I don't know if I have a job and I need money-- a lot of it--for the upcoming months: Chicago, Florida, the computer I'll have to buy, and whatever...I was going to see if I could go into work tomorrow, but Alexa's having her birthday party tomorrow and it's been so long since I've seen my sisters or even been to my mom's house that I'd feel really awful to miss it. And since we have practice on Tuesday, for whatever reason, I guess I'll have to wait until Wednesday to call in to work. On Wednesday, no exceptions, I'm calling in at 2:30 and praying that there's no problem.

#2: We are so behind on the movie and I don't really have a plan to get caught back up. There is so, so much to do -- including hospital scenes -- and I don't know when I'll have the time or energy to figure it all out. I guess a week from Monday we'll start working on it a lot more (hopefully everyday afterschool), but if I'm trying to make money with a real job and everything it's going to be tricky. Real tricky.

#3: We still have to figure out what we're going to do exactly for the Florida trip. Maybe tomorrow, after Alexa's party, I'll sit down and make all the necessary phone calls. Everything is worked out with my Aunt and Tony's grandparents though, so at least we have that.

#4: My grades are really low, the homework keeps on piling up, and I feel like I'm going to explode. I can't wait until AP tests are over, but mostly I can't wait until the Florida trip. I'm so beat. Musical has my work ethic and energy level really diminished.

That's pretty much it. I'm glad I can group my relatively trivial problems into four categories. All I need to fix everything (mostly) is time, and what am I doing? Wasting it talking about the problems I should be fixing. Excellent.

Maybe I'll go look at the movie schedule right now...

I'm in such a different mood than this morning. Odd.

Ladies and Gentlemen...

This is the part where you breathe a sigh of relief -- because the show was amazing. Then, about two seconds later, you realize how much stuff you've been neglecting and how behind you are on everything and how little time is left in the year. It's all good for now, though. Homework comes and goes. It either gets done or it doesn't. I need to start working again...if I still have a job. It's such a funny dilemma that it doesn't even bother me. What a weird place to work. What was I supposed to do? They never gave me a schedule and I never even met my boss. Worse case scenario: I still have a 200 dollar pay check to pick up. Best case: I can start working a lot in the next three weeks before Chicago and Florida. If I can't there are going to be some issues. I don't know how I'll find another job and make enough money fast enough to be financially suited for the trip. I need to hash out the last minute plans for the trip and -- God yes -- I can start working on my movie again. Life is good.

That wasn't sarcasm.

But that was.

Oh, and I got invited to a party in New York City for "outstanding members of the 2006 entering class" at NYU. The only little blip is that the invitation was the first notice that I'd even been accepted into the class. I haven't recieved any other information. I'm going to call the admissions office on Monday and see what's up. I'm excited, obviously, but I'm trying to keep my hopes down until I get a firmer acceptance. What-so-ever. I can't wait until financial aid is the only thing up in the air. Haha.

I'm very excited for Tony's Eagle Ceremony/Party today. So excited that I can't do any homework right now. That's going to be a problem around eleven o'clock tonight, I think. I could really use some sleep too. Oh well. No big deal. I can do the biology essay in lunch tomorrow and we don't even have English tomorrow, right? Safe.

This show is very exciting to perform. I mean, the last big part I had was Jack in Into the Woods and, I mean, while it's fun -- the whole second act is extremely depressing. In comparrison, it seems like every five seconds in Crazy For You there is a laugh line or an exciting dance move or something. I'm glad Dan came to the show. I know how much he loves musical theatre, but I really appreciated it.

This is going to be a good week.

Fool's Gold

So, the show is going to be fine. Great, even. I'm excited for that.

I got home today, from rehearsal, just now to find an RIT acceptance package. It seemed okay until I realized that I was only in for the regular school, not the film program. So, my thinking is that if I can't get into RIT's program there is no way in hell I can get into NYU's program. So, yea...

What am I going to do next year?

Whoa!

Everyone seems extremely stressed out about this show, so I think I'll be the voice of reason that, for some reason, doesn't otherwise exist.

The show is fine. The only things that are still chaotic are the things that are always chaotic until the last minute. I think I heard someone say that the light cues were rough. They were programmed that afternoon! From what I saw they were pretty tight for the first run through. Don't let things like that worry you and add up to immesnse chaos. The orchestra does worry me, but it always worries me...it worried me last year and it turned out fine. Everyone needs to reeeeelax. The only major problem with the show is the lack of energy on stage and that is beacause everyone is so stressed out they can't think straight. Please, everyone, just breathe, and take ownership of what you do.

It's going to be great. Just get excited. Come on!

Runners Take Your Marks

Sunday is rapidly becoming my favorite day of the week, only because it stands out. I'm busy every day of the week with a hundred things to do, except Sunday. On Sunday I do nothing. The hilight of the day? I bought blank CDs. I also watched three movies: Spartan, The Verdict, and Vanilla Sky (I'm trying to catch up on all the movies I haven't watched thanks to musical).

It's finally here: real tech week. The last highschool tech week. Eerie. Three weeks from yesterday and my highschool musical career is over. Mixed emotions, of course. I like tech week beacuse you can really plug in to what you're doing. It's so rare in life that there's only one thing going on, but tech week is so time-consuming that it really is the only thing one can focus on. It's quite pleasant, for me at least. I don't have the luxury of worrying about other things so there's very little to think about. I'm such an un-focused person most of the time that it's nice to have one week out of the year with intense focus.

What to say? What to say? Interesting weekend. I didn't really do anything at musical on Saturday, except singing with Messmer for a few minutes. I don't mind not doing anything at musical. I like to walk around seeing what's going on, watching different people's styles of directing, observing everything coming together. I just pace back and forth between the auditorium and the dance studio to see who's doing what.

I don't know. Weekends don't really exist anymore. I vaguely remember the feeling of boredom, but it's been so long since I've felt it it's very hard to recall. Whenever I would'vebeen bored in the past I just sleep now. It works out rather nicely.

Too tired for philosophy or meaningful writing so I'm off to bed.

Three Moods

I've been trying to finish this play all morning. I've been writing it for this contest at Geva where the winners get a stage reading of their play. There's no other prize, I don't think, but that is more than enough for me. It makes me want to pursue writing more than I used to. I mean, writing is the part I'm really good at it. Or at least, the part that I'm best at, even if to say I'm good at it is a stretch. Everything else, in regards to filmmaking for me, is made up for by the writing. It only makes sense that I should pursue the writing aspect more than anything else. We'll see. I might end up transferring to the dramatic writing program at the colleges I've applied to.

Musical has been weird. I want to say it's improving, but it's really hard to tell. Yesterday was pretty good (the pit joined us finally) but everyone is so anxious and stressed out of their minds that it's hard to exist without upsetting someone. I'm content with it. I was about to say that I'm looking forward to it being over, but I'm not entirely. I still have the desire to do a really outstanding job, and I'm going to need all the days I can get to work towards that. Any more days than we currently have and I think I'd just run out of steam. I'm tired, burned out, and the work from other aspects of my life is piling around me just waiting for musical to be done.

The one thing that I really like about musical is that it really passes the time between February and April very quickly. It's so busy that you don't have time to wish school was almost over. Then there's Chicago to look forward to, then Florida, then working on the movie. This year is pretty much over. I can't wait for it to be July, editing leisurely, working a little bit, golfing, writing a lot, knowing where I'm going to college.

I'm pretty nervous about the movie. We're very far behind on schedule and we haven't really gotten together to plan anything out for the weeks after musical is over. We're going to have to explode out of the gate to get this thing done on time and there are still some tricky scenes to organize. We've all gotten, myself more than anyone, very lazy about it to the point where whole days go by that I don't even think about it. I want it to be good, but I just don't have the energy to consider that too. I want to play piano more too, but I think that's out of the question at the moment.

But I'm really proud of this play. I don't think of my self as a social commentator, but I should because it's all I ever seem to do. I hope it gets picked. That'd be a nice confidence booster, I guess. We'll see...it won't make or break me either way. I still feel like the three characters are just the same person in three different moods, if that makes any sense. That's how it reads to me. I'll keep on trying to fix it, but if I can't whatever. I'm young I still have a lot of time to get good at this stuff. At least I'm worried about it, right?

No Day

So, I want to go to school. I mean...not high school. More than ever today. I want to focus on writing and stuff. Academic stuff is starting to bore me. Not too much. I mean I love studying humanities and stuff, but I can't wait for it to be a sort of supplimentary sort of thing. Practice was good today. A nice solid run through so I can judge where I'm at. I actually got some nice comments from Mr. Smith. Apparently my posture and pace is pretty good. If you asked me yesterday I would've said those were my two problem areas. Maybe I've fixed them? Whatever.

I have to work on some major fundamental stuff now. I think now that I've got the technical stuff relatively figured out I can start really getting into character. Focus is still a major issue, but that usually clears itself up come performance time. On the other hand, I don't want to be unsure of how I'm going to perform until the last minute. Some pre-show focus would be nice.

Whatever. This is a waste of time right now considering how little sleep I'm running on.

Red

This is weird. Practice was relatively short today in the sense that it ended at 7 o'clock instead of 9. So, here I am, just wrote an essay for English class and it's not even 9 now. Normally I'd be just getting out of practice and then we'd be going out somewhere to eat. I'd get home at 10 or 11, do some homework then, watch a movie and fall asleep. Netflix got messed up by a day (I forgot to put one in the mailbox a few days ago) so now I don't even have a movie to watch. I'm going to bed! This rocks!

Today was relatively uneventful. Had a biology test, which went more or less okay. I'm so glad to be done with botany. I think we're on to zoology now. I was just thinking today that I'm glad I have one difficult class or my ability to work on academic stuff would be totally gone for next year. I said that in class, but I think Mr. Borland took it the wrong way. Maybe.

I got my financial aid stuff for Geneseo today. It's pretty much the same price as Wells, and, therfore, slightly more expensive than Fredonia. I want to hear about NYU. I'm tired of waiting. I can't wait until April. I want to know now. I've been trying out this karma thing (trying to be nicer to people and relax more) but it's just ending up making me angrier than I usually am. The end result is worse than the original problem, I guess. I was just hoping to get myself some bonus points to use on financial aid. The only thing my Dad and I ever talk about is money for college. It's annoying. I need to save money from Chicago and Florida too. Sweet...at least I'm expanidng my horizons, right?

Musical is weird. Some things are getting better for me and some things are getting worse. I don't know what to say. I want some attention. I want some real feedback from the directors. I want to know what I'm doing wrong and what I'm doing right. Something besides "pacing" and "diction." I can fix that. I know how to fix that. It just takes a little focus and it's fine. I need real feedback. I want to do well and everything. I'm probably a perfectionist so I'm trying to make every line exactly right, but even then it won't be as seemless and I want it to be. And let's not even get started on the physicality. I hate theatre. It's hard. It's too fast. Too live. It's must harder to direct yourself.

Gyah! We'll see. Next week will be better. I'll focus. I'm really at the point where I need things to move forward. I need some more energy. I'm pretty much tapped. I need some of that crazy collective cast energy and I can't wait until opening night because it'll be too late to experiment. I don't know what I'm saying anymore. Maybe sleep will fix all my problems.

And I got hit in the head with a giant rubber mallet. Damn.

All We Have Is -- Crash?

So, all I've got to say is that my Oscar preferences were much more accurate than my Oscar predicitions. Mayb e I should learn to trust my insticts and not be so damn cynical about award ceremonies.

My predictions were right for Leading Actor, Supporting Actor, Leading Actress, Animated Feature, Art Direction, Costume Design, Directing, Documentary Feature, Film Editing, Makeup, Music, Animated Short, Sound Mixing, Visual Effects, Adapted Screenplay, and Original Screenplay.

Wait. Cinematography and Best Picture were the only ones that I had the right preference but the wrong prediction so please feel free to disregard the blatant lie that is the first paragraph.

The only one I got outright wrong was Sound Editing, but, come one...sound editing? Give me a break.

I'm really happy for John Canemaker whose film won in the Animated Short category. I had the opportunity to watch his film over the summer at NYU (he works there) and was blown away by it. I got really invested in that category so I think that if anythine else had won I would've launched a brick at the television screen. My father, the owner of the aforementioned television, would like to thank the Academy for all their efforts to cricumvent its destruction.

I think it's time to return to my bland, but healthy/inexpensive diet. I've been going out to eat too much and I'm getting an unpleasant combination of sick and poor.

Sang the national anthem at some convention yesterday. It was weird. Went out for breakfast afterwards.

In the thick of tech week now and the homework keeps on piling up. My english grade went from a 102 last marking period to a 52 this marking period. I'm not even upset...just impressed. That's an awesome drop. Not doing homework is so tempting.

I wish there were some awards for Good Night and Good Luck...

And take that Brokeback Mountain.

The Oscars Are My Super Bowl

I wonder if I could write a post right now that didn't involve musical in one way or another...

Today we had a meeting to figure out everything for the big spring break trip and things went really well. I think everyone is pretty much on board. We're staying with some of my relatives, some of Tony's relatives, swinging by Joe's. It's going to be excellent. It's pretty much squared up completely. I just have to make a few campsite reservations and we'll be good to go. We're borrowing Tony's Mom's van and driving all together. Only five weeks to go. I'm just as excited about this as I was for Indy this time last year. Everyone's pumped. I'm going to make a playlist on my iPod that'll last the entire trip. Hopefully I can get it to sync up in halarious and appropriate ways. Can you believe I've never been to Florida before? Weird.

Watching the Oscars right now. I'm completely content with whatever happens because John Canemaker won for Best Animated Short. I know it's strange, but that was the only award I really cared about...and nobody gives a damn about that one but me. And maybe John Canemaker.

I'm very complacent right now. I'm a little too content with what's going on around me. I'm not used to it. It's starting to make me edgy. I better snap out of it soon. I have lots of work to do on the movie and I need to kick up musical another notch. Shit. It's really difficult not to mention something when you spend all your freetime involved in it. Well, now that it's mentioned. I'm extremely excited going into the first tech week. I really enjoy being totally immersed in stuff, being able to (forced to) devote myself to one thing and one thing only. After it's over I'm going to focus on school just enough to get by, anxiously await college acceptances and financial aid estimates, work nonstop on the movie, and try and make money for the trip. So, oddly enough, I'm kind of savoring this hectic musical time. It's rather relaxing in comparrison.

What did I even do all week? I think we had Masterminds recently, but I can't remember if that was last week. Was last week break? I'm really fuzzy on this stuff at the moment. Thursday was jazz band. I haven't worked in forever. I hope it's not a problem when I try to go back. I defenitly need to get in some hours this upcoming weekend so they don't forget I exist. I'd really like to at least tell them that I'm not able to work during the week because of musical. I tried, half-heartedly, to call in a few times, but it was late enough in the day that they didn't need me. This whole having-a-job-without-a-set schedule thing is really not the best idea. I have no motivation.

I was talking to my dad about NYU. He pretty much said I can't go if it costs more than 20,000 dollars a year after loans. On the other hand, glass half-full perspective, I only have to get 50% of tuition paid for by aid and loans to be able to go. I have to get in first too. I keep on forgetting they haven't actually accepted me yet and at this rate karma is going to kick me in the ass. I spend too much money. I should be hording it. I hope my Mom helps me pay for college. I don't think my Dad thinks she will, but she acts like she is going to. Whatever.

This is my favorite time of year, in between February break and Spring break. After spring break sucks...but maybe it won't this year. I think after AP tests are over I'll be doing nothing but working on the movie. I can't waaaait until the movie is finished. That is going to be the best feeling in the world. I feel like this is going to be the hardest movie I'll ever have to make. Next time I try to make a feature it will be with a budget and a crew and a producer. And I won't have to juggle school with it at the same time. It'll be my job. Dude. That's sweet.