May 29, 2005
Summer VacationWell, I've been home for ten days now, and this is the first opportunity I've had to post. I guess I can say that that's a good thing, as I am now fully reintegrated and and reinvolved with life and people I care about. There are a variety of major things that have happened - a late-night Scrabble game with Alex kicking things off, followed by the Ballston Spa prom, a fire in the outdoor fireplace with Ryan, Darren, Alex, Kate and myself, two games of bowling with Darren followed by a spontaneous midnight trip to Saugerties, Frank's arrival in Bethlehem, a spontaneous trip to Lake George today with Alex followed by a packed drive-in in the rain - but only now am I going to attempt to cover anything. Somethings have changed - Alex is driving, Darren (while still shorter) is now both bigger and stronger than me - while many other things have not. Some relationships have picked up right from where they left off, others have evolved, and some are starting to flicker. But once again I am living a life that I desperately fear losing. As I drove through Lake George and Lake Luzurne with Alex today on the way to the Sacandaga boat launch, I realized just how perfect it is to be back.
posted by Adam at 00:56 |
May 14, 2005
AcceptanceI got into Emerson.
posted by Adam at 04:33 |
May 13, 2005
ConnectionsI just got back from one of the best moments of my R.I.T. career. I was spread out across the leather couches on the forth floor of the Eastman building, but the piano. I'm tackling the Philosophy readings I should have attended to a long time before. As I'm aproaching critical frustration, someone comes out of the elevator and I expect Campus Safety coming to bust me again. But no, it's a kid with a lei around his neck, like those worn at tonight's Senior Night. Coming up the piano, he asks if the piano playing would bother me. To my surprise, I told him it would. So he stared playing as I was reading and a stupendous, peaceful vibe entered the room. Soon the reading started clicking, and all the stress of the current moment slided away. He was a great player, but he didn't need to worry about an audience, so he experimented, making mistakes and correcting them, proceeding through classical pieces, modern fare, and early twentieth century piano music in turn with the same calm, patient persistence. When I finished the reading, I didn't feel like leaving, like joining the cocophony of the outside world, so I started drafting my essay in my notebook via pen and paper. When he left I had two pages, by the time I left I had two and a half. It may very well be the best handwritten writing I have ever produced. When the lights went off the first time and I got up to re-trigger the sensor, he exclaimed something to the tune of 'So that's where the sensor is. I always thought it was up the hallway.' I began to understand that this was perhaps one of his last times at that piano after a great many times at that piano. It was good to spend one of my last R.I.T. moments simultaneously with someone else's last R.I.T. moment. There's something wordless about that feeling, but having a soon to be graduate there made it somehow more potent, more escalated, and yet less threatening and more contemplative. It reminded me of beauty in this world.
Earlier today, I got up early to tackle the Vermonster challenge with my Calc group. They used spoons; the only other non-Calc member and I used hands. It was pure, unblemished fun. As it wrapped up and we washed our hands, I realized with the exception of the aforementioned kid who I'd just met and the kid who always slept through class, I knew everyone there on a personal level. And even with the new kid, I was able to have a decent conversation right out of the blue. It's like whatever stuck in me a while back that pervented me from expanding my circle of acquaintances had come unglued. An aspect of myself that I used to like and had very much missed made a sudden reappearance. It was good to act like children again for a moment.
Last night, I tried to get the orientation group together for one last go. In the end it was just Phil and I, and we had fun. The movie was "Rushmore", which I'd hated the first time through. This time through I connected with it and appreciated it on a much deeper level. And yet it left me depressed, because I realized I had made many of the same mistakes as its characters, locking myself up and isolating myself from the world and people around me. Today was an answer of sorts to that temporary depression.
posted by Adam at 23:11 |
May 12, 2005
Tracfone SucksI was having a pretty damn awesome Wednesday. Slept through most of my final CS3 lesson but slipped in in time for the attendence sheet. Almost certainly aced my Film Arts final. Made plans with Brad for "Rushmore" tomorrow. All caught up on work.
Then I tried buying airtime for my Tracfone. And tried. And tried. And tried. When I finally did, at around 10:27 pm, I called home where I was informed that they were in bed and I would have to wait. Was late for the floor meeting, so don't know the move-out procedures. Splitting migraine was induced.
But three Advil took care of that. Got into the Reading Room by the grace of God, and had a nice quiet evening looking up some songs, chatting on AIM, and watching the latest "Scrubs" and "Malcolm". I'm calm now. But all in all, Tracfone still sucks. Less than one week to go.
posted by Adam at 03:44 |
May 09, 2005
"You can't spell 'manslaughter' without laughter"That was on the white board when I left the CS Labs tonight around midnight. Says all it needs to about the mentality around here right now. Project was going good until I hit a road block that had be stuck until probably past ten. Got back and onto the ground floor hallway. Darren was on and had the first good talk with him since he moved back home. He had a vague idea of a song that was bugging him, and he hummed it to me over Skype. Took a little digging, but I managed to find it - "Roll to Me" by Del Amitri. It put a lively, optimistic spin on my night after the burnout from the project.
Down to the home stretch now. Tomorrow (well, technically today) marks single digits until I leave. That makes the whole thing far less soul-crushing.
This week was actually pretty smooth-sailing. I lost my eye mask a couple days ago and didn't find it until this morning. After two nights of getting woken up by him and then not being able to get back to sleep easily because of the light, I finally decided to get a new one from Wegman's last night on a bus that picked me up five minutes from midnight. The bus driver's wife tracked him down and brought him food. I was the only passenger on the bus so it was just me and this big black guy, cruising through the night illuminated by the harsh artifical light of the bus. His last week for the wicked night shift is this week coming up, and he really got the issues that I've struggled with. Here's another man who values his privacy. It's good to have a great conversation with a stranger sometimes. The only thing that gave me pause was the face that he knew all of my dorm-specific issues so well. If he went to college, I have to wonder how he ended up pulling a night shift for the city bus system. Nothing dishonorable about driving buses for a living, but I just hope I'm not paying thirty grand a year to end up with that eventuality. Shit, I could damn near do that right now.
posted by Adam at 03:18 |
May 07, 2005
Love Is All AroundHere I am, it's a quarter after four in the morning and I'm set up on a tray table and a lawn chair in a closed off hallway on the ground level of Kate Gleason Hall, posting this very message through the sheer wonders of that marvelous technology they call Wi-Fi which I just within the past week learned how to use.
Love Actually was a film I obtained very close to when I first signed on to the Hub. As space issues became a growing concern, I chose to delete it, telling myself that when I had an evening to blow, I could always just obtain it again. Well, as I embark on the second to last Saturday of my R.I.T. experience, I'm running out of such evenings.
So obtain again I did. There was some inconcistencies between the two files I downloaded which resulted in a chunk from the middle of the film being missing. How much, I do not know. It doesn't matter. The film worked it's magic anyway.
How spectacular that Britain, known for being very closed off and reserved, should make a movie so gloriously focused, celebratory, and all-consumed by love. Characters are hurt by it, characters are healed by it, characters are formed by it. Most romantic comedies will have one scene for a most outright riddiculous grand and sweeping persuit of love. This movie has probably six or seven, maybe more. Characters throw everything on the line for it, do things real people would never possibly do for anything in the pursuit of love. I think that's wonderful. It our cynical, closed-off, self-contained, and self-focused world how spectacular for a movie to just place the most risky and personal of emotions on a petistal. Some will call it hopelessly naive. It is. Some will call it depressing. It is. Some will call it uplighting. Again, it is. Some will call it shallow. It is. Some will call it broad, and it is - most gloriously so. But for what it's worth, it got me cheering for these characters, got me to connect to something from within the heart of R.I.T. and it's soul-crushing flavor. To me, that signals some sort of miracle.
posted by Adam at 04:33 |
May 02, 2005
Crime AlertsWhile I was home that last weekend, I heard news ranging from a shooting to a pistol whipping that had occured on my floor. A couple days afterwards, there were crime alerts posted throughout the residential side of campus. Thought I'd add it to the blog:
In other news, my second to last week of classes begins when I wake up in a few hours.
posted by Adam at 03:08 |
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Adam Freelance Film Critic
Albany, NY
Boston, MA
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