I'm not saying laziness wasn't a factor in my lack of blogging the past few weeks, but several times I've considered it and then stopped because all I want to talk about is relationship problems. Life's really hard!
Anyway, I thought my group's Be Kind Rewind was a big success. The function of the activity certainly has evolved since my sophomore year. The first year we did them, they were all really funny and pretty well done. The past two years, they've been less well done and funny in a different way. This is okay! The past two years, I've gotten a lot out of the projects. My group's movie didn't get a lot of laughs; we ended up coming up with something pretty dark and serious. What's good is it took us only three days in Stac to come up with a pretty solid idea for a movie! Had I just sat around thinking of a movie to make, I might never get an idea so solid. Also, after making a little sketch of the movie, we were already forced to work out some holes. Snow White Trash started out as a Be Kind Rewind, and I think this movie is going to be a good one once we make it!

I'm at one of those crossroad times of my life. I'm starting to feel all the fallbacks of being young. I never thought I'd want to grow up, but fall can't come soon enough, and winter is just as welcome. I started senior year feeling too old to still be here. It's the classic teenage syndrome; we're all trying to grow up too fast. Adults criticize us for it, but I figure if we're all doing it, it can't be all wrong. My boyfriend broke up with me after he left for college. I guess that's adding a lot of fuel to my fire. My mom is hesitant for me to get my driver's license. I understand my curfew, but I don't understand my curfew. A year before I go away to college, I better be able to take care of myself. But if I'm able to take care of myself, why do I have so many people I have to answer to? Again, I get it, but I don't. I'm having a hard time being happy right now. I'll never write somebody off for being dramatic about a breakup. It is quite a fair reason to be upset. One good thing about not being happy is everything is at least a little exciting and different for a while. For example, I've been talking to myself a little more often, and I haven't really done that in a while. I'm even saying all these words as I type them while I listen to some sad music and it's making me feel a little better. We should all learn to be comforted by our own voices because they won't go away, and they are pretty powerful. They remind us that we can create something outside of ourselves, sound, and we can make somebody hear us, which isn't as good as making somebody listen but it's better than not being heard at all. I've also had to be a little more conscious lately because I'm trying to keep some things off of my mind, and I can't do it without putting in some effort. Things I used to dread are now little blessings, like having a lot of homework so that I can distract myself as long as possible. I also get to look at things from a different point of view. The point of view of somebody who is heartbroken turns out to be very different from the point of view of somebody who is really happy and in love, go figure. So nothing is really old anymore, everything is kind of new. Everything evokes different thoughts and feelings than before. I don't like looking at happy couples anymore. You'd be surprised how many there are on TV; I thought that sitcoms focused a little more on the arguments in marriages and relationships. As it turns out, there's a whole lot of happy in there! I hope I can remember that when I start wanting to see happy couples on TV again! They're all over town too, and all around the school.
So I guess the reason people make art when they're sad is because they're seeing everything in a new light, and all of a sudden there are a million things to say and nothing to do but say them.
I'm supposed to be figuring out where I'm going to apply to college now; I don't really know what to do with that. It seems like a big game to me, and I can't really take it seriously. In my Psych class the other day, Mr. McManus had a fake homework quiz in which he gave the directions, "On pages 25, there was a diagram. Try to replicate that diagram on your paper to the best of your ability." The point was, of course, that no one knew it, and after we all talked about how we felt about it. That's how I feel when confronted with this college thing. Are you really asking me to apply to a bunch of futures and then pick one? And do it all over the computer? Right here in my little swivel chair where I'm writing this blog post? It's hard to take it seriously. Something's telling me there's nothing more worthwhile to me right now than listening to jazz and browsing the internet.
I'm not just a thing with tasks, I'm a person, and I know what's best for me, and getting everything done exactly when I'm told to is not always the most important thing. I'm not giving up; I'm still motivated. I'm just trying to relax and make life a little easier. I feel alright right now.

The Perfect Circle!

Doing the mural today, I became aware of whatever fearlessness I've gained since my first year in Stac. I was quick and certain and never once wanted to erase! I even really enjoyed doing it. I actually came to some unexpected endings. I was never one to look back at a free writing exercise and come across things I forgot about writing, but that's what it felt like today. I learned that I connect love to hope to religion and somehow to perfection! Yes, what we did today actually helped me figure out what may be at the core of everything on my mind right now. I'm a perfectionist! I see the world as too complicated for me to handle. I don't modify the world to make it perfect, I modify my mind to believe it already is. On a bigger scale, I'm wondering if we all live in our perfects worlds. Can we survive knowing that the world isn't perfect? Is perfection not the impossible thing, but the only thing?
I'm figuring this out as I go along, and the answer is yes! We are all perfect in our own world. We can't help it. Everything I do changes my world just as everything my world does changes me. This goes on in a perfect circle.

And so begins my last year in Stac. It's a stranger feeling than I thought being a senior. I'm half wondering what I'm still doing here, a quarter grateful everything hasn't changed just yet, and a whole lot of a jumbled up mixture of everything that I know would connect if I just took so time to think about it.
I'm at a weird point in my life. I haven't accomplished much over the summer aside from being okay with not accomplishing anything (which for me is an accomplishment). I have this weird new confidence where I'm pretty sure I'm a genius but I don't want to get my hopes up. I think I'm getting something about life that I didn't always get. I have a new philosophy that I haven't quite located yet, a kind of determinism that is not in conflict with free will. I've begun to look at things as though everything is as it should be and nothing can be otherwise. We make decisions, but we could not have decided otherwise because we decide based on who we are and what we've experienced and everything in our lives that has led up to that decision. It's making me a little more alright with the world. It's making me start to love the world.
It's helping the way I look at art. Art requires an acceptance of the way the world is. Everything in the world could not be if it weren't for everything else. So art has to be everything at once. Every piece of art is the entire world, even if it's only addressing one aspect.
I stopped doing my daily practice. This was part of my new religion of acceptance. I had to accept that it was over. The idea of having one goal to begin with each quarter excites me immensely! Since my sophomore year, I've wanted to write and direct a play, and this year I'm going to do it. And I'm saying it so certainly so that if anyone catches me not doing it you can try to help me out by putting me back in line. It's that time of year when I feel that need to make art; I need to get it out of my system, out of my brain and somewhere I can see it.
I'm anxious for this year to be on its way. I hope to get to know all of you soon.

As for a daily practice, I want to read. Suggestions to start off with?

Workshop #2

Monday, we critiqued the work of those who had brought in work to be critiqued. Critiquing other people's writing is a thing I've always enjoyed; it was pointed out to me that I'm good at noticing flaws. I think I have a good ear for good writing. When it comes time to having my own work critiqued, it won't be quite as fun. I don't know why I get such joy in searching for flaws, but since it was addressed, I've noticed that it is a thing I tend to do. I don't think of myself as a negative person anymore. I think I look at the world in an extremely positive way for how realistically I approach it. I don't think I'm predisposed to look for flaws everywhere. I think I look for good things where I think I'm supposed to like it and bad things when I think I'm not. I've noticed lately that I have trouble forming my own opinions on things and filtering out other opinions I've heard of what is biased or up for debate. That sounds really bad. At the same time, I must be forming my own opinions on who is credible who's opinion is worth considering. Still, there was a time a little while ago when two of the people who's opinions I regarded perhaps higher than anyone's disagreed on a topic extremely relevant to me, and since then I've been struggling with this issue of who to listen to and who to trust. The way I've dealt with it is by trying to find uniform factors in both sides so I can try to make sense of it.

Workshop #1

The workshop today was a little slow. We didn't do any writing like I thought we would. Reed seems to have a very different approach to writing than I've seen. He emphasizes entertainment value over meaning. I always think that if the meaning part is nailed, entertainment will come along with it. He also lost me a little when he was talking about how every novel is a mystery novel and started to list novels that have murders in them. That didn't make too much sense to me. It started to make sense to me when he explained that all novels were mystery novels because they all answer the same four questions. Who am I? Why am I here? How did I get here? What does it mean?
His way of finding inspiration was interesting to me too. He uses newspaper stories. This was cool to me. We've learned a lot of ways to come up with ideas in STAC. He had the same attitude that writer's block or any kind of artist's block is just an excuse.
Today was a lot of basic stuff, but I'm really excited to get started with this first chapter assignment. I've never tried writing a novel before, so I'm excited to jump into it.

Lighting Day 5

The fifth lighting workshop was really really fun for me. I love getting specific instructions and knowing exactly what I'm supposed to do. It also gave us a chance to try a bunch of different things, and since this entire time, I've been waiting to get a chance to really get to shoot some photographs, I was super happy to do so. The biggest dilemma Matt and I had was finding a way to photograph the cafeteria for an article about dangerous spills on the floor when there was no spill on the floor. Then we saw a bucket and a mop and figured out how to shoot that, and I was pretty impressed with myself for thinking of it. It's like solving a puzzle. I also really liked shooting the art workshop; people look really interesting when they're working on sculptures. I enjoyed the variety. Even shooting the ceiling was fun.

Lighting Day 4

Friday, we started to learn how to use whatever light available to take a good photo rather than lights we can control. It's the same concept, using exactly what you have. What you have is just different. I like the idea that it is possible to get a photo in ANY location. I thought about it, and this is going to be the most useful to me considering that I will not have a mobile light source or any other equipment when taking most of the photos I will take in my lifetime. I was a little overwhelmed by all of the variables that affect the best way for a portrait to be taken. The shape of the person's face, their eyes, basically every other feature they have, the background, the light, anything interesting that's around. Then there's all of the different things on the camera to adjust and in the layout to adjust to make it all work together. I definitely want a lot more practice with it.

Lighting Day 3

Today, none of our equipment was up to par. We didn't have a camera, so we used a video camera. Our lights were weak. Our reflector was just a big white board. We didn't have a "gobo," so we hung a board and a jacket from hangers. The only real piece of equipment we did have was a round reflector, and it was all old and flimsy. And it couldn't have been cooler when we got a decent photo out of it! It was a great way to get an idea of the difference between what we as people see and what the camera sees. We saw a big old blanket being held up behind a model with hangers balancing on poles all around her, but the camera sees just her face with a dark background. I like the control that we had, and how easy it was to attain with whatever resources we had at hand.

Lighting Day 2

The most important thing I'll probably have gotten out of the second day of the workshop is knowing what F stop and shutter speed do and how to use them. I never thought of a camera as a brain so much as I did on Friday. It's not exactly like a human brain, but it is like a brain! It does far more things than I realized it could. You have to know how to work with it and also how to trick it because, like human brains, they can be fooled! They are intended to be tricked. Having known nothing about cameras before, I was happy to learn some of the basics and try to put them into practice.

Lighting Day 1

I found the basic lighting stuff we learned today remarkably interesting. I've seen a million lights in my lifetime, but it turned out I didn't really know a thing about them. Just the technical stuff like how to make a light harsher or softer and that quantity of light doesn't make a difference really interested me. It was amazing how dramatically lights affect a picture. Later, I was sitting in my living room and looking up at the chandelier, and I started to wonder why a light fixture would be designed to be so stationary when placement and arrangement of how a light is set up could give a room so many different personalities or feelings. What also interested me was how each technique and each principle could be explained with what the sun does. Photography, and especially lighting in photography, is just like what I always say about poetry. It mimics nature; the best poem represents something just as it is, staying as close to nature as possible, and a good photograph does the same. I don't mean the best photographs are of birds in trees; I hope I'm explaining this well. Anyway, I'm genuinely excited for the next workshop!

ROB

Rob Goldman is a noted photographer who's been published internationally. He is also the author of the book
Shooting From the Heart: Creating Passion and Purpose in Your Life and Work. Many big magazines such as Cosmopolitan and Time have contained his work. Rob has organized personal development programs with a focus on the artist and the person as a whole. His workshops are typically conducted for the education, business, art, and yoga communities. In these programs, he explores the integration of the energies of the body, mind, and spirit. Rob also serves on the board of Photographic Imaging Program at Suffolk Community college and is co-founder of Oyster Bay Gallery Art That Matters.

Dancing...

I don't have any complaints about having to dance. It's not my favorite thing, of course, but it doesn't hurt to do something that throws me a little out of my comfort zone. It's also fun. I guess my only problem with it is that I can't contribute much to it other than doing it. It doesn't work my mind too hard, which is nice, but not so rewarding. I guess the real challenge will come when actually doing it in front of an audience and struggling through my own shame and insecurities.
As for Stac Live as a whole, I hope everyone realizes how amazing it will be if we get to do everything we want to. I'm incredibly determined to make it all happen. I think that even though it will be difficult, it will be small compared to how much credit we'll get from the school for pulling it off. Everyone has to do everything they can to make sure this works as well as it can.

Starting Over & Black Swan

Lately, everything is circling around the idea of starting over. Shosta-tree-tree and New Years and just having this break to get myself together. Normally, I'm a cynic and am very aware that resolutions are seldom carried through. Well I still am, but I don't see any reason that Stac can't start fresh and with a clean slate. If anyone can do it, Stac can do it because despite our opinions of each other, one thing we always have going for us is that we're on the same page about what's going on and what we want to happen.
But starting over doesn't interest me all that much. January is June is December and I could start my year on any day I want and the rest of the world won't listen anyway.
I saw Black Swan. Twice actually. It was pretty great. I was jealous of how well the dance scenes were filmed. I found it especially interesting when Nina would be off and on stage in the same shot. That was really cool and it went along with the idea of oneness and not being able to separate out the different parts of you, the good and the bad. It was also extremely Brecht. The push pull effect was clearly evident. The lowest tension moments would end with something bloody or horrifying and then it would cut to a scene in the studio. I was constantly moving from the edge of my seat to the back of it. I tried talking to my brother about the movie and he said it could have been better because you know exactly what's going to happen at the end, and I explained that it wasn't by accident. Especially seeing it twice, I was able to try and figure out why things were happening instead of what was going to happen next. I was very impressed. And it was just as good the second time.