I'm sitting on my bed in the middle of a room cluttered with clothes and paper. There are probably over a hundred pieces of paper that I can see where I'm sitting, all with line after line of black text. On the foot of my bed. On my floor. On my desk. On my pillow. The good news is, as soon as I get done writing this, I'm going to stand up and throw most of them away.
There's this song playing from an epic album called "Freedom." At various moments of my life when it seems most appropriate, I break out this music and listen to the swelling cello and the trumpet and the beautiful piano melodies. This is one of those times, because now I am free. From school, specifically. At ten this morning, I drove away from Northwestern College, with no homework to do, no classes to dread, no projects to plan. Until August, my mind is free.
And it has been... an epic year. These past three months, especially, have seemed very difficult. As school projects grew and escalated, so my work schedule increased. Add to that the final months of wedding planning and the fact that most of the time I just wanted to be with Sarah, and well... there were many, many days that I found it very difficult to do homework or muster the energy to attend class. But now it's over for this year. And with that comes a very, very real sense of freedom. Not only from the time I had devoted to classes and homework, but from the immense mental and emotional pressure that had weighed so heavily on me recently.
Some people say that it's hard to believe how fast the time has gone. I'm not sure I really feel that way. It has been a good year, but long. When I first came to Northwestern last fall, I entered as a Graphic Design major. After three months in the Art Department, I knew that wasn't for me. I knew it wasn't something I could put my heart and passion into. So over Christmas break, I switched my major to Electronic Communication Arts. That is, film.
Though this has been a long and difficult semester for me, I know that this is what my heat wants to do. I was shooting some video the other day and a group of students asked what I was working on. "Finals", I said. "If you were a film major, you could do this instead of exams too."
Two of the classes had films as the final project. Working in a two- or three-person team, we did both an original short film and a documentary. There's something so cool about working on a project like that, and then seeing it on the screen, and knowing that you did well. Like it's what you're meant to do. The film is called "Thirst", and though it was the last think I did this semester, it seems to be the best moment of all. It end the year on a happy note for me. The weeks of planning and organizing and storyboarding, then two days behind a camera, scrambling and stressing and filming and sweating but knowing that what was happening was very beautiful. Then 25 hours in the basement of Mel Johnson last weekend, editing. It's worth it when people watch it and get chills. Or cry. It's worth it when you know that you did something good, because it's what you were created to do.
A lot of people, I suppose, have bittersweet feelings about the end of the school year, goodbye to their friends and all that. Not so much, for me. I don't have to pack up and move out. I just have to clean my room, and knuckle down on final wedding plans. I don't have to worry about not seeing my friends all summer, because I'm going to be in Ireland all summer on my honeymoon with my best friend. On the other hand, it has been nice to get to know some people at school, if only just a few. Strange, how the random people can become the closest friends. And it seems like only in the last few weeks those friendships have really grown, mostly through working on "Thirst". I'm grateful for that. I won't feel so lost going into school next fall.
I said that I'm done with school for this year, and that's true. I'm free. But I do return to the campus of Northwestern College soon. Exactly forty-four days and one hour, I will be standing at the front of Nazareth Chapel waiting for Sarah to walk down the aisle so I can marry her. Wow, that's exciting!
Now I have been awake for thirty hours straight. And at this point, for some reason, as I lie in my bed with my swollen red eyelids slowly squeezing shut, it seems like a good idea to write some words. I'm not really tired. Not as much as my eyes are just wanting to close. But there's a kind of euphoria which comes with this sleeplessness, of having completed the homework. This tiredness is so much different than the tiredness when you first wake up in the morning and slog through the whole day exhausted. This is a beautiful fuzziness, clarity of thought in slowmotion, noticing things in random ways, fluidity of movement.
This was an assignment for an intro to video class. We were supposed to make a short film on the theme of "Lost and Found." Much thanks to Dan, Jon, EJ, and Josh.
It constantly surprises me how weird everything is this week. It's like a series of short bursts of sound as I flip through the presets on my radio in the morning. First comes the weather. Strange, warm, rainy, grey. It's early February in Minnesota. A week or two ago it was freezing, bitter cold. Now it's 40 degrees and raining. And I love it, though I am wondering why April has showed up in the middle of February, and where the snow went. The ice has melted to huge dirty puddles, and I can't help but think that about the time all the snow get's gone the sky is going to turn cold again and dump snow on us again. I hope so. I'd hate to have grey and rain and no snow for the next three months. But at least it's not so ridiculously far below zero. It's funny how quickly a person can adapt to temperatures, how after just half a winter of below-zero temperatures, thirty degrees really is jacket weather.
Then there's Taylor Swift (not literally) and this stranger-than-TV drama that keeps taking the most bizarre unexpected turns and clogging the air and making everything so odd. These people and questions and songs and tears and accusations and whaaaaat?? I'm so confused most of the time, about what people are thinking, and are they thinking, and what in the world do you expect is going to happen now? I have no idea, it just keeps going around and around in an ever-bigger circle of .... bizarrity. So all that to Taylor Swift, and change channels again.
What's this? Ah, news. Obama is evil. Obama is ruining the country. Obama is a socialist. Wait, that's the radio... but shall we consult the TV? Black is the new green. Obama is the new Jesus Christ. There's nothing a little hope and change can't fix... oh yeah, and enough national debt to be the economy of the entire continent of Africa. So... that's pretty clear now. Obama is strong and brave and beautiful, he's also a bumbling idiot, a radical liberal, a deceitful anti-American. And he's ruining the country. But... he's giving us hope in the process. So that's good, I guess. All us Republican's better go underground and start figuring out what who we even are anyways. Wait... I'm not even a Republican. Ok, so switching stations now... (sorry Rush)
This part of the radio is a commercial. I'm not sure why, because we're in such hard economic times that none of us have any money to buy anything anyways. At least that's what they tell us. I never had much money in the first place anyways. But I still have enough to buy cheeseburgers, and have some left over. I'm not starving, so that's good.
Well, look at that, I'm almost late for school. And it's yet another over-played country song about how he got his heart broke. What a surprise.
Apparently it's been over three months since I've written actual words on my blog, other than captions for pictures. So I will write a few lines before bed; forbid that I should ever forget how to sit down at a typewriter and bleed. Besides, I need to "get ready to write" (according to my soon-to-be professor), because starting in January I will be taking a class called Story Structure. Which is basically an introduction to visual communication, specifically film. You see, after lo these many years I have finally planted a cordial goodbye-kiss upon the cheek of a career in photography, and have turned my noble upward gaze toward the distant foothills than rest in the shadow of that glorious mountain called "cinematography". Which is a long way of saying that I've changed my major from Graphic Design to Electronic Media Arts, which boils down to making movies instead of posters. And with that change has come a huge silent sigh of relief, as I stop trying to convince myself that I want to spend the rest of my life rearranging photoshop layers, and instead allow myself to dream of mixing Premiere layers. To move from photography to film is not really a change, only a progression. It's the addition of sound and motion to photography. And I am very happy about it. So, here I am practicing writing skills again, for behold... I may need them soon (for something other than writing three-page papers about tormented painters).
I'm very tired, I think, and after I get done eating leftover beans and hot dogs and pumpkin cheesecake (yum yum) I will retire to my room, kick all the laundry off my bed onto the floor, burrow under the covers, and sleep. I do so enjoy sleeping, only I feel so lonely sometimes. I've never had my own room before, and while I love being able to have a space that is all my own, it is distinctly quiet going to bed in a room where no other people are. Oh well. Guess I'll remedy that next year. Though it's almost 11 at night, Sarah is still at work. I'm so glad she has a job she loves, but it does stink when we can't spend the evenings together. Eating beans alone in a silent house while blogging is slightly melancholy. Reminds me of Scrooge, who would come home from his counting house and eat gruel while reading the paper. I really do look forward to having my own house to come home too, and another person in that house too. Next year, huh?
Well, this is the notorious part of the school year that they call "finals". It's still not death and devastation for me. I have to finish reading through the Old Testament (i'm in Isaiah), study for tests in Old Testament and in Art, make a presentation on a demented artist, and do two masterfull drawings replete with creativity. I think I can do that in the next two weeks. And find time to work. And use our nifty new season passes that we bought for the nearest snowboarding hill. Battery's almost dead. I guess I'm done.
