MOVING ON

New-ness.

Political Mobility

So, who wants to hear my useless, impractical political musings of late?

I was wondering, a bit ago, why -- in my experience anyway -- college student governments have very little to do, why the complaints are usually mild, and why the serious grievences are rare? I thought about this a lot, constantly reading the wonderful student newspaper, skipping, frequently, the watery "political" section. And I kept on coming back to it: why aren't there more things to complain about?

The interesting thing about college communities is that, by and large, everyone wants to be there. This is especially true in expensive private colleges (excluding, for the sake of argument, the questionable group of elite who are either, one, unaffected by the financial input, or, two, pushed into higher education by their elite parents) where the cost of tuition forces college consumers to be extremely wary and hyper sensitive to the nuances of the purchase. I think, therefore, it's safe to jump to the conclusion that the average member of the student body is aware of the particular preoccupations of their particular university, aware of the faults, et cetera (if not before they come to the school, then certainly after a few semesters of presence).

Furthermore, the relative fluidity of the university system (I mean, it is to my understanding that transferring from college to college can be accomplished with relative ease) allows students to flow in and out of an individual college if there particularly preoccupations do not match those of their institution. All of this makes me believe, based on nothing more than idle musing, that, generally, the student body of any given college is relatively happy to be there and, thus, their grievences emergeonly from extreme circumstances and complaints exist at a mild level.

So, now, since my musings are often random. I'm thinking about my distaste for politics-in-general, in the idea of trying to change someone's mind, in winning and argument, in lobbying for one's beliefs over the beliefs of another. Anthropology class does this to me alot too, because it has me constantly thinking that an individual's society often appears to be the superior society to him or her, and it's impossible to accurately and fairly judge one community in the terms of another. I find it very difficult to argue for changes in communities I don't belong to, and even find it difficult to argue for changes in a community I live in. I always think there must be people who are happy with the way the community is, and they probably worked hard to get it the way it is -- I feel terrible for the happiness they lose for the happiness I gain.

It all makes me wish that moving from country to country was as fluid as moving from university to university. If one desires for legalizaton of pot he or she could, instead of trying to force legalization on a community that does not desire it, move to a community (what is it? Amsterdam?) that embraces it. Too many things stand in the way. Citizenship, visas, social taboos, economic difficulties, nationalism, et cetera.

I don't know. This is just what I'm thinking about, and, at this time, I am unwilling to consider the, probably, enormous amount of complicatons to free-flow of citizens and clusters of like-minded individuals...

MIS-ADVENT-TURE

(I wish the title had anything to do with the rest of the post.)

Numerous Revelations to Recount:
I. It's generally accepted that sitcoms shoul have 8-10 jokes per minute.
II. Professional disappointment, unlike other disappointments, tastes much like a liquid iron-covered rice cake.
III. The better a television show, the less likely it is to be profitable, since television audiences perfer to be un-challenged, un-questioned, and asked very little of.
IV. And, contrary to popular belief, I may have a job in this goddamn entertainment world someday.

The events of my past Friday dip quite sharply and quite liberally into the realm of the surreal, lingering in the aforementioned existence for an unbearably lengthy period (read: twenty-four hours), and end quite anti-climatically -- so, don't get your hopes up.

The elevator to the twenty-second floor of 1515 Broadway (the home of MTV, Nickelodeon, and more...) is a fast mother fucker.

Eric and I announced our presence to the guards, who looked past us into a fluxuating vista of confusion, and, after a foolishly extended duration, the main guard (I refer to him as such because he was the one in front of the computer) glanced at the screen: "Go on in."

We were ushered into a conference room, and surrounded by other creative type individuals. Tension was buffered by packaged breakfast items and a thick, greasy layer of sleep deprevation.

We were told that "The N" -- described as a surly, fickle entity -- perfers multicultural casts with strong female protagonists, and strong female role models for said protagonist to emulate. We switched our pitch around to emphasize these qualities, being sell-outs and all, and regaled a panel of executives with our usual self-deprecating, shmaltzy (I don't really know what that means) humor.

The long story short, we sold ourselves without managing to succesfully sell our script. The concept of a "show-within-a-show," by no means revolutionary, is already a significant presence in their new lineup, and they couldn't justify another addition in that vein. On the other hand, the executives loved us as a creative team, and felt it was very important for us "to meet with them again in the future with a new group of ideas," (That is by no means a real quote, but I felt the projection of the statement as exact added unqualified weight).

Anyway, they seemed downright desperate. So, while we're not making sweet cash yet, there are still prospects floating, obscured, in the unpleasant, amorphous material ahead. What's that phrase? The one with the door shutting and windows responding somehow? You know the one. That.

We've been sent a certain insider document, a set of "development guidelines," normally reserved for established, working writers hoping to catch a glimpse of the exact specifications any given network is looking for in new shows, and we've been instructed to write a pilot adhering to said materials. Such action is, we're informed, lucrative.

I'm such a fuckin' sell out.

The Year of Our Lord Two-Thousand and Six Retrospective

In actuality this quote-unquote 2006 retrospective will probably only involve the months since I went to school in September with any kind of reasonable detail, but, to humor the idea of a complete overview of an entire year (in retrospect) I'll at least try to start with last January, though, it may take some doing.

January. We spent New Year's at Dan's house, I believe. I remember very distinctly being pleased that I wasn't working (for it was the first year I wasn't manning a shift at a restaurant or something), and, if I recall correctly, it was a very good time. I'd just started really cracking down on a journal again. I can't say I created this journal in January, but I certainly never wrote in it much at all before then. Sandstorm, the movie, was in a strange lull, right before the major push for completion a month or so later, and I was extremely anxious about getting high school over with. I spent hours and hours watching the winter Olympics. I also started getting Netflix and musical practice began for me.

February. We hit Sandstorm pretty hard in February, filming almost every weekend. My grades began to slip as I started to worry about too many things at once: Eagle Scout project, college, etc. I started to love Biology class and hate English, which was a strange, strange. Eric and I spent most of English class reading America: The Book. February, of course, involves musical's Hell Week, so there was, of course, that to deal with. I remember it being particularly low key. It was also when I started actually caring about the show.

March. In early March I completed my first ever sweep of Oscar predictions, which was intensely awesome. I even correctly guessed all the small items based almost completely on luck. Musical was awkward and strange and tense, but things came together, for me at least, during tech week (as they always seem to). College answers started to come in, but no New York University early in the month. There was some nostalgia involved in the last semester of Performing Arts, but mostly I was geared up to start finishing up the goddamn thing. I wrote a play for a contest at Geva that I was really proud of, but it didn't win. The show went amazingly well, I thought. I received a letter in the mail inviting me to a party in New York City for the NYU entering class of 2006, but I never received any acceptance information, which made me a little confused. The real acceptance followed up a little later, but the financial aid was do dismal I didn't think I could go.

April. April was a very exciting month. We started things off right by starting the beginning of the end of senior year with a little skip day we dubbed "V for Vendetta Day." Eric, Dan, Kevin, Tony, Madelyn, and I skipped school and went to the beach, got Thai food, saw V for Vendetta, and had one of the best days of my life. April had many, many fun days including, Orchard Day (which was the discovery of a creepy orchard in Webster and my first cheese Won Tons). I also went to Chicago for the first time with Jazz band, which was a very fun trip. I spent most of the time with Eric and Kevin M. Then there was, of course, the Florida Trip, which had its ups and downs, but I would not trade that spring break for anything. I've never seen that much of the world in such a short amount of time, and have not made more memories in ten days since.

May. Early May was dominated by AP exams, which went moderately well. Sandstorm picked up dramatically as well too. I won a scholarship from the Cox Foundation and got nominated for Best Supporting Actor for Bela Zangler in Crazy For You. The final jazz band concert also took place in May. Jimmy directed us in Bang, Bang Your Dead, but that show was in and out of rehearsal so fast I can barely remember anything. I didn't do as good a job as I could've out of pure laziness, but it was not the only area of my life succumbing to sloth. After AP's were over I pretty much stopped going to school.

June. Sandstorm got down-right stressful, but it was easier to manage with school having become such a joke. The last day of high school was interesting. I won a scholarship from Performing Arts. I started a job working as a production assistant on a local independent film. Graduation was long, boring and extremely awesome. I started to think about my friend Tony joining the army a lot. I tried to re-explore my childhood hometown a lot. Eric and I had a bunch of adventures exploring the places of significance from our youth. I actually developed some sleeping problems. They peaked in late June, but subsided by August. Oh, and graduation parties began to consume my life.

July. The fourth of July was memorable, but Tony left for the army so it was very sad. I went with Kevin M. to New Hampshire to hike the White Mountains, and, man, we did it. It was tough, long, and grueling, but beautiful and breathtaking. I also had my graduation party, which led me to the purchase of the love of my life, my new computer. Took a trip to visit my brother with Kevin Winters, Caroline, and Dale. It was fun. We saw a great Red Sox game (the only good one in that particular series) and saw Ortiz hit a triple, which was incredible. I edited Sandstorm a lot, but we decided, somewhere in July, that it was not going to finish over the summer. We took a trip to Toronto to see a Blue Jays game, and I played off-and-on in the church softball league. We played a lot of poker and ate a lot of late-night meals. It was a wonderful month.

August. August was tough. Eric left. Dan left. Kevin left. I was getting really sad by the end, and really anxious, and many other things. Finally, finally I left for school, and it was immediately as wonderful as I hoped. I was rooming with my old friend from the summer high school filmmakers workshop, and we got along really well right off the bat. We made friends with two wonderful people whom I wish we saw more often now, but such is life: Alie and Anna, the Brides, as we called them. We reconnected with a bunch of kids from the summer program, but geography got in the way and we don't see them as much anymore either. I started getting adjusted to life and love in New York City, but it would not be for a while that I became fully acclimated.

September. With September came the start of classes. I took Language of Film with Prof. Nick Tanis, Digital Frame & Sequence with CCR, History of Western Art with Prof. Monti, and Writing the Essay with Ethan Youngerman. I was not particularly overwhelmed with work in September, so Eric and I took in a lot of the city. We ate out a lot, and started to work on script (Leonard in Three Acts) ideas with Eric's friend Jeff (who went to Columbia). Time moved quickly. At some point I became really good friends with a bunch of people on my floor, spending a significant amount of free time with them: Alice, Meghan, Yooree, Gabe, Lillian, Mariko, Abby...but we saw Alie and Anna very rarely (which was dramatically sad). I began to worry A LOT about my Eagle project, and had to work way more on it than I would've liked. It had some negative effects on my first semester, but I can't complain. We began to see Alie weekly because of the Studio 60 parties in our room that she attended, but Anna had rehearsals Monday nights so we had to schedule extra events to see her.

October. In October I finished my Eagle Project and wrote a teleplay pilot (Higher Education) with Eric for a contest involving the N (a Viacom-owned preteen network). We began, on the floor, having a really elaborate birthday for everyone, which made several days a week exciting. Tim Wu, another friend of ours from the summer program, asked me to join him crewing on an upperclassman shoot. I needed to fill crew hours, so I happily obliged and met some of the most impressive, influential, and nice people I've ever worked with: Andrew, Matt, Jeff, John, Patrick, Grant, the sound twins, Isaac and Kelly, Campbell, and Goldberg... Tim and I ended up spending almost every weekend helping different members of the group shoot their Junior projects, steadily moving up the ranks. Eric and I continued to plug away at Leonard and we came up with a new idea for a project we want to shoot this summer called A Walden Variation, which I'm writing now. I brought Yooree home with me because Itzhak Perlman was playing a concert in Rochester and her mom got us free plane tickets.

November. Eric and I found out that we were finalists in the contest at the N for Higher Education, which was more than a little exciting. We began to plan out more fully our ideas for the summer shoot in Texas and discussed scheduling and funding a lot. I came home briefly for Thanksgiving, but was a little disappointed by the way things had changed/hadn't changed in Irondequoit. I was also upset that I was home for such a short amount of time. I started to seriously worry about finals, and the weeks after Thanksgiving before the end of the semester were some of the most hellish in my recent memory. DFS became my job and Art History the bane of my existence, but I continued to plug along. We saw Casino Royale and were so inspired to host our own Casino night, which was an exciting, formal event.

December. Once finals were wrapped up, though it's a lot easier to type this than it actually felt, life was so, so good again. Well, my western art final was the day I left for home, but before that I had several days to myself as Eric had left for Texas (his finals ended earlier than mine). I studied for art, reconnected with a lot of people I didn't have time to hang out with too much (due to other final projects) and slowly packed my things. It was anxious about home. There was a fun wrap party for all the Junior projects we worked on, which was a super way to round out the semester. I headed home after doing moderately decent on the art final and, the next day, passed my Eagle Scout board of review. The next few weeks was a whirlwind of reunions, holiday celebrations, and some, though not much, relaxation. I started working for my uncle again to make a little extra spending money, and celebrated the New Year with some of my favorite people, enjoying, among other things, the beautiful Nintendo Wii.

It's been a wonderful year.

Wholesome

Today is a nice, wholesome day. The whole suite is home, it's freezing outside, and we're all just gathered around, watching movies, writing papers, playing video games, and eating in the warmth of the apartment. I feel really happy. This has been a great semester; just as good as I had hoped for, and I've gotten through the hardest work, I think. Classes end Wednesday. I have to write another draft of an essay. Finish up my photo project. Study for a handful exams.

This week was horrendous, but it's been surpassed. I've never worked so hard, so long, and so ceaslessly in my entire academic career, but it's done, done, done, done, done. I slept early yesterday, woke up, and have been at home all day. I'm relaxed, recovered, comfortable, warm, listening to Radiohead. It's nice. Going to watch Mulan later. Going to write a bit later. Going to edit some photos later.

I'm looking forward to Christmas. I'm looking forward to spending a lot of time writing and finishing drafts of the screenplays we're working on. I'm looking forward to the meeting with the N. I'm reading a play by Ben Johnson, a contemporary of Shakespeare,Volpone, because Eric and I want to adapt it into a film. Things are going pretty well. I'm happy with the way this semester shaped itself out. I'm not entirely in the clear yet, but one way or another, the end is nearing. It'll be nice to rest and work leisurely for a few weeks.

I love the winter.

Ah, Whatever.

There is a solid, tangible reason I haven't been taking/posting pictures of my new surroundings, friends, experiences, what have you...

The reason may sound lame as hell, but it's the truth. Photography is like my job now. Ha. I have this six-hour photography class every Friday and huge photography assignments every week, which leaves me with like no desire to take a photograph outside of that. And, well, you know how that is. Whatever.

Similarly I can't really read for pleasure anymore. Maybe it's typical of college -- I don't know -- but I have so much reading to do for class that I lack time to read anything else. Especially with all the procrastinating I do. There is time where I could read, I guess, but it's only when I'm putting off doing reading I really have to do. And by that point I figure if I'm going to read I should be reading about art history or film language or something major-related.

My roommate and I decided -- I'm sorry this post is going to be tangent-based -- that we're going to take an internship at the BBC in London in junior year. I'm only speaking about it because the application process starts soon. We get to take 18 credits at a satellite school in London and do television production on a BBC show. Furthermore, I've pretty much decided that I want to be a television writer. It's sort of developed out of my experiences the last few weeks.

I'm minoring in psychology. It's super easy to do. One class a year -- not even semester. I may pick up another minor if their is space/desire. Oh, before I forget, I'm going to be home for Columbus Day weekend. That should be nifty.

It's been like a month, I guess. There is this weird time compression effect going on apparently. Who can explain it? Solitude is not something typical to my college experience. It's starting to grate on me ever-so-slightly. It comes, mostly, from having a roommate and over-zealous drama kids as friends. There is just no way to do anything without explaining yourself to someone and -- if my post-Florida trip rants weren't indication enough of this -- I really hate having to do that all the time. Sometimes a kid just wants to leave the building without a ten-minute explanation. However, this bothers more infrequently than I make it seem.

Coppery Goodness

I am getting the academic snot beaten out of me and I love it. I think I'm some type of masochist when it comes to education, but I am being pushed -- really hard -- to expand my horizons and my abilities in a way I never imagined in high school. It hurts. I'm frustrated and constantly cursing the amount of reading I have to do. I love it.

High school never even gave me a glimpse of this kind of work. I don't feel ill-prepared or anything. I feel like there was no preperation possible. I'm glad I've been blind-sided. It wouldn't have been nearly as effective, this higher level educaton thing, if I knew it was coming. School makes me feel like there is figurative blood in my mouth. It's coppery goodness.

That's all there's time for.