| perking up |
[Apr. 16th, 2012|02:26 am] |
This past week was super busy, but really rewarding. 2 Saturdays ago, I flew up to Nova Scotia for a quick Easter visit. I mostly hugged my Nana the whole time, which was great. I had to fly back to Rochester for class Wednesday night (my degree is jointly offered by 2 institutions, and their Spring breaks were at different times, so I didn't get a full week off.) Then, I flew to NJ to stay with my Dad and step-mother while attending a conference in New York City. While in the city, I reconnected with some friends and they really got me excited about filmmaking. I've been feeling so stuck & exhausted by school, but they really charged me up. It was a great gift. I am so lucky to have good friends in my life (and if you are reading this, I am definitely including YOU in that statement). My current mood is optimistic, and I'm going to try to be a little more disciplined with my schedule to accomplish more good stuff. |
|
|
| March 4 update |
[Mar. 4th, 2012|07:05 pm] |
I am swimming frantically in the ocean of school. My grades are super high, but my morale is low. The 2nd 1/2 of the year is dominated by individual personal projects that we choose. Most people get one project supervisor, but I got stuck with two. One is great, while the other is the only person in the department who neither knows my name nor responds when I greet him in the hallway. It's pretty bad. I put so much effort into being fully present in the moment, being warm, really getting to know people and looking out for them. Now, I'm saddled with this guy who shares none of those values. Wah! Fortunately for me, most of the world has also had to deal with personality conflicts, so I keep my spirits up by watching motivational videos on YouTube and borrowing books from the business section of the public library (with titles like "Buck Up, Suck Up" and "Maria Bartiromo's 10 Laws of Enduring Success"). My classmates are really supportive and wonderful, and I think my personal project is interesting and worthwhile. So, there is good stuff to enjoy. I just have to deliberately remind myself to focus on the good, and keep on top of all my (many) assigments.
The thrill of this weekend was finding a dollar store within walking distance from my home. Hello, cheap erasers, pens, and dusty Star Trek: The Next Generation trading cards! |
|
|
| January Update |
[Jan. 23rd, 2012|07:23 pm] |
Yay:
+I was really excited about a Douglas Fairbanks matinee screening in Buffalo, NY, that interested none of my classmates, so I went on a solo adventure there by bus and had a great time.
+I've been socializing more with my classmates outside of school and that has been really fun.
+I figured out how to print digital photos at the Rite Aid. My December Daily album WILL be completed!
+This week I get to work in the poster, paper, and still photos vault.
+I've been cooking real meals for myself, and preparing proper left-overs for lunch. Lots of vegetables (admittedly with butter), and local organically-raised meat.
Boo:
-Heaps and heaps of reading homework has me swamped.
-Two of my classmates (over the last 2 weeks) have been overwhelmed by our school and started spontaneously crying.
-My house-cleaning plans have been a miserable failure and I still live in squalor. |
|
|
| Hoo boy |
[Jan. 8th, 2012|08:01 pm] |
What a week! It seems like things have been getting harder to do lately. Are there any astrologers out there who would like to reassure me that something is in retrograde & that's what's causing all this hassle? It must be cosmic. It can't be me.
Everything has been harder this week! Not just keeping up with school, but weird little things, too. When I lived in Halifax, it was really easy to print photos from digital files, and I've had a bear of a time doing it here. My favourite locally owned photo place offers that service, but their software refuses to serve me. After taking pains to individually upload 100 photos because their system refused to upload my photos in batches, it has just refused to process my credit card. So, now, I am re-uploading them to the local chain drug store web-site, which may or may not work. What a pain in the neck! I have such a small amount of free time outside of school that I'm really sensitive to these petty aggravations.
Also, I've been letting the house-keeping fall by the wayside, which buys me a bit of extra time but also visually reminds me that I'm not a functioning human adult. I finally did one sink-full of dishes today, and mopped up the kitchen corner floor. Even though moving those dishes into the sink meant that I uncovered more dirty dishes hiding behind them, it felt good to at least accomplish some small thing.
School is keeping up a pretty high intensity of work. I have a heap of reading to do for tomorrow that I haven't yet begun. Last week was my film inspection rotation (I inspected a Robert Goulet film from the '60s that Leonard Maltin's guide described as "asinine shenanigans", and an Eddie Cantor comedy with a young Veronica Lake). This coming week is editing with Final Cut Pro (In December, I re-created English-language titles for an early silent film that only exists in foreign editions, and now this week I'll use the computer to tuck those titles into a digital copy of the movie.) Whew!
Hope everyone reading this is having an easier time of it than I am! |
|
|
| Happy New Year! |
[Jan. 2nd, 2012|08:29 pm] |
Here's a photo I took of my Nana when we were going out for ice cream last week. At 101, she's pretty keen to stay alive and see what happens in 2012. I hope it brings great things for all of us. |
|
|
| cool yule |
[Dec. 28th, 2011|12:49 am] |
In Halifax for the holidays- my grandmother is miraculously still here but much weaker than the last time I saw her. She is sleeping almost all of the time, and recovering from a fall. She was knocked over by her caregiver in an exasperating story that ends with my mother saying, "But Nana loves her cooking!" I would not say that my mother is handling things with grace, dignity, and composure, but it is still good to be here.
I've had a little bit of time to reconnect with friends, and that has been really special. I bought the fantastic new ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=92.1) beatonna book at my favourite comic store in the world, and later that night I went to see the new Tintin movie at Park Lane with a gang of people from the store. My visit coincided with a show by littlegirltoast and his friends, and that was super-fun. I endorse his new record, which you can get here: http://dangerously.bandcamp.com/releases
By the end of this week, I'll be back in Rochester, and classes start next week. My program runs Monday to Friday from nine to five, but because I'm in the master's program, I have to take an evening elective on top of that. Last term, it was Early Cinema, a class that ended each week in my school's movie theater, listening to my professor perform live piano soundtracks to early feature films. This coming term, I have to haul myself over to the University of Rochester campus on Wednesday nights for "Films of the 1930s". The elective ends in April, while the rest of my program runs all the way to the end of June. I have to take a deep breath and jump back into it.
( ...and even more gabbing ) |
|
|
| (no subject) |
[Nov. 28th, 2011|05:02 pm] |
I wrote my 1st quarter midterm this morning, and I think it went well. I think the whole class is doing fine, which is a big relief. We all went out for lunch after we finished to celebrate being done.
Here's something sweet: last Friday night, I went to see the documentary "Being Elmo" about Muppeteer Kevin Clash. It was really charming, and I actually cried with joy watching that little red guy interact with children. If you get a chance to see it, it's a pretty great picture. |
|
|
| 3 goals for December |
[Nov. 25th, 2011|12:08 am] |
Last week, I went to Texas for a conference, and really enjoyed myself. Austin is a beautiful city. I met so many warm & friendly people who work in film preservation, too. I met the fellow who runs the vaults at Universal, and he said that if I ever came out to LA, he'd spend some time with me. That's a sweet offer, and a good incentive to FINALLY finish editing my lady animator documentary. So, I really want to make time for that project in the coming weeks.
Another thing that has been on my mind lately is friends. Moving away for school has been lonelier than I expected. I thought that by now I'd have a circle of friends at school and a circle of friends outside school. Then, I could try to balance the two while cultivating a life outside of school. However, I've found it really hard to meet new people in Rochester. I go to art exhibits, record stores, and other places where I usually make friends in other cities, but it hasn't worked. Fortunately, I really like the people I've met at school, and they've been great. I need to focus more on appreciating them.
The last thing I want to accomplish in December is making a little December Daily scrapbook to document my life next month. Artist Ali Edwards has such fun ideas for this project, I want to try it out (though mine will be much simpler and smaller than hers. I made a 4" by 6" ring-bound album with cardboard and a hole punch. At least half the pages will just be photos printed that size). I especially like the idea of a daily journal that has a definite end date after a few weeks. Out of all 3 of my goals, this one is most likely to fall off the rails, but that's OK. |
|
|
| (no subject) |
[Nov. 14th, 2011|01:43 pm] |
School is kicking my butt! I spent the whole morning trying to find contemporary newspaper reviews of a movie released in 1912. Ugh! I don't know if I can do it.
On Wednesday, I fly to Austin Texas for a conference. My goal is to find the perfect balance of networking/learning/discovering the community/vacationing/eating tacos. That's the plan! |
|
|
| (no subject) |
[Oct. 22nd, 2011|07:59 pm] |
I rarely wish I had a car, but I am presently within an hour's drive from several corn maize mazes, and I can't get to any of them! I may have to sweet talk my classmates into visiting one of them. I want to experience a corn maze!
Even though I get a Thanksgiving break, it's right before a major mid-term. I need to stay in and study, so I won't be getting back to Nova Scotia until December. I just made that decision today, and I'm a little blue about it, but I know I'd feel worse if I burned myself out & didn't prepare for school. Sigh.
This coming week promises to be a fun one. It is getting cold in upstate New York, but the theaters are staying warm. I saw great projections of Dodsworth (in Syracuse) and The Prisoner of Second Avenue (here in Rochester) this week. Next weekend my dad & his wife are driving up to visit me, and they claim to be bringing lots of new furniture for me. Hmm. I didn't ask for new furniture, but it will probably be really helpful, right? I hope I like it. Has anyone else ever been given surprise furniture? Did you accept it graciously? |
|
|
| navigation |
| [ |
viewing |
| |
most recent entries |
] |
| [ |
go |
| |
earlier |
] |
| |
|
|
