Nearly There
Life is finally about to get a bit simpler. Tomorrow the final episode of Issues: Season 1 finally goes live. If we go back to Gov. School when Scott brought me on board, I’ve been working on Issues for the last 7 or 8 months straight. Tunnel vision and frustration set in around month 4. (Not long after we wrapped the production phase.) We learned a lot in Season 1 that will make the next season (should we get the funding to make it happen) much smoother. For now, I’m just happy to be walking away from it for a while. It’s never healthy to overexpose yourself to a single project. Between my production class and my own ideas, looking forward to getting some very different projects up into Final Cut soon.
Apple Club!
Well, my training has started. I’ve met a lot of really awesome people so far, including my store managers. It’s a very positive, encouraging atmosphere, just like in the store. And, umm, that’s all I can really say about it. That we’re getting along well. And that being a teacher definitely makes me one of the people in the room most comfortable with speaking in front of all those other people.
Eric jokes around that it’s like I work for the CIA now, with there being parts of my job I can’t talk about. I can say that my availability is in the process of being finalized, and that Sundays should be clear for Issues. As fun as I’m sure production will be on the show, I’m hoping that we’re wrapped in January, in case I not only get into The New School, but end up needing a Saturday class. That way I can exchange Sunday for Saturday morning/night.
Jumping back into work after having the whole summer off is kind of exhausting. While you’re at work everything is new and exciting, but when you get home that crash hits you pretty hard. But you know what’s nice? Now, when I’m ready to crash, I can just go to bed. No lesson plans to tweak, no papers to grade, no parents to call. There’s actually a balance between work and life. I appreciate it now, and I’m sure I’ll appreciate it even more once things really kick into gear.
I’m excited for everything to really start. It’s nice to have a sort of schedule to the next few weeks, even if it’s a somewhat odd schedule based on what I’m used to. Thankfully the days Eric and I have done errands are still fine for now. And if we have to start food shopping on Monday or Thursday instead of Wednesday, fine by me. So long as I don’t walk into Wegmans on a Sunday. What a nightmare.
Oh, and how is this for torture? The end unit townhouse across the street is for sale. I’ve been kind of itching to buy a place for a while because I want to be able to paint, and hang stuff on the walls without worrying about violating a rental agreement. But with two part-time jobs being the source of our income right now, not happening. Plus, you know, we’re still not engaged or in any kind of “officially serious” relationship that would make buying a house realistic.
Oh! I got my email yesterday to configure my Smart Car! I’m trying to decide what to do. I currently have only a part-time job. I really want to make it full-time, but I’m not sure when that will happen. So it’s not like I have a lot of money. But the car is about $13,500. Pretty cheap for a car with way more features than even my Cavalier had. The car probably wouldn’t be ready for 3 to 6 months. And I don’t have to buy it. I can still opt out at any time before the dealer and I sign the sales agreement. That usually happens when the car is a month away. And Smarts are in demand enough that if I opt out, someone else will surely buy it. But I’m not sure when I’ll start brining in enough money to afford a car payment, even a relatively small one of $11,000 or so. (I’d want to put at least $2,000 as a down payment.) So I’m kind of back and forth about it. I’ll try to decide by the end of the weekend. But how cool would it be to drive a Smart Car?
Suspended Animation
I am incredibly antsy right now. So many major things are on the verge of happening, and I want to just be at the point where they happen already. Since I’ve still got about a week of time to kill, I might as well make good on my promises to actually clean up the apartment. So what is up with all the stuff I’ve gotten my hands into over the last month?
Work – Training for Apple starts next Thursday. Don’t know how much I’ll be able to actually say about it, but for the sake of scheduling, I will not be available from 12 p.m. to 9 p.m. on August 28 and 29, as well as September 4 and 5. I will not be around from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. on August 30, September 3 and 6. I will, however, be an absolutely brain-dead zombie after going through seven days of 9 hour training sessions. I still don’t know when the store is set to open, not that I could tell you even if I did. I’ve figured out how much of my pay to route into my 410(k), and am ready to sit down and talk to a financial planner to help me get the most money I can from my meager part-time job into a decent portfolio that stands to make me some money.
Issues: Dates are being tossed around for a first read-through. At the moment, it’s looking like the 26th, which I’m thrilled for, because I’m actually not training at that point and have free time. Scott and I are also getting ready to shoot some promos. Our lack of cameras as been resolved, as DP Mike has been awesome enough to lend us his XL-1s while he is away visiting the west coast. The next challenge is to make sure the scripts are ready and actually set up a schedule with our actors. Who knows? We might be able to have something in the can by the end of the month. Or the beginning of September at the very latest. But with Scott’s day job finally calming down, we’re actually able to start moving forward again. Soon.
Skin of our Teeth: I now have the music to accompany my slideshow for Act III. The total length of the slides will be much longer that I had first estimated: closer to 3 1/2 minutes instead of the 1 minute I originally figured on. So it’s back to the drawing board to find a lot more images of war, death, and utter destruction. After I get settled on the images, I’ll be able to add some Ken Burns style panning and scanning to make it a little more visually interesting. You know, because dead bodies, bombed out buildings and crazy WWI technology isn’t visual interesting enough on its own. I also need to get my hands on images of turn-of-the century Atlantic City. Don’t worry, not for the same slideshow. AC images are for Act II.
Grad. School: I made massive progress on my New School application yesterday. The actual application has been done for some time. I finished up the draft of my second letter of recommendation and dropped it off to Kevin so he can finish it up. (Don’t ask. My boss has people do their own first drafts before editing it and signing off on it.) I also managed to update my resume, which is much more impressive now that I have actual video projects to put on it. It took major effort to keep it to a single page as requested, but I did it. I also revised and submitted my academic writing sample. I love my paper on building culture in the Soviet Union during the Russian Civil War. A few wording update and some corrected spelling, and it was ready to go. Terry’s letter has been in my possession for some time, as have my undergraduate transcripts. Waiting for Kevin aside, all I need to do is write my statement of purpose, which is much harder than it probably should be. I’m too much of a fucking perfectionist when I write.
Everything else: My sister’s computer is all screwed up again, so I’ll be down in Atco on Saturday to try and fix it. Other than that, nothing to really complain about. I just got a cooling pad and USB hub for my computer, so now I can plug in more stuff and not worry about baking my hard drive to death. Considering how much I investing in this beauty, I want to make sure it’s taken care of. The car has been running fine. Getting rid of the T-Bird in favor of the Escort has proved to be a good decision. I can see the floor of the living room for the first time in months, which makes walking around much easier. I saw Avenue Q for a second time and was happy that it is just as funny the second time around. On the downside, my health insurance disappears in 10 days and money is going to be really tight for a while. Guess there’s not much I can do about that right now. But overall, things are positive, and stuff is happening. I’m happy about that. I can’t stand sitting around with nothing to do. I’d rather be busy any day. Well, time to start looking for more pictures. Update next week when job training starts!
Change of Plans
Well, it’s a good thing I didn’t plan to have my application to The New School submitted already. I’ve been debating the part-time, full-time questions since deciding to apply. Full-time would make it more difficult to work, but would get me my degree faster. Part-time would take longer, but it would be easier to schedule working hours and make enough money to pay for the classes.
What finally decided me was going in only part-time at Apple right now. At almost $1000 per credit, each class at The New School runs about $3000, and a full-time schedule would cost $9000, not figuring in transportation and other costs. I’m still about $20,000 in debt from my undergraduate years. While that’s not a lot of debt on average from a 4-year school, that’s because I used every penny of my savings to pay for 3 of my 4 years. Meaning that I can’t pay off that debt all that quickly. And I don’t really want to add drastically to it. Once electric or air-powered cars are finally on sale, I want to be able to buy one. I want to be able to get a house when Eric and I finally decide we’re ready to buy one. And I don’t want $60,000 in student loans screwing all that up.
So I’ve decided to apply to The New School as a part-time student. I really want to secure a full-time job with Apple, and to keep expanding my certifications in Final Cut Studio (one down, four more to go). The most important parts of the Master’s Program to me are learning the software and completing 2 internships. (Yes, I want two of them.) Since I also need to hold down a paying job, an internship will probably be the only thing I can accomplish in a given semester. So part-time it is. If my situation changes, I’ll see if I can’t manage full-time. But not getting incredibly into debt is important to me, so here we are.
In other news, The Skin of Our Teeth is moving along nicely. Issues is still up in the air right now. I haven’t heard much about it in the last week, and our director/producer is currently unavailable due to work. I swear. If I dropped all this money on my MacBook Pro for a show that doesn’t come together, I may have to ring Scott’s neck. I love this computer, but I could have waited to buy it if I needed to. The whole reason I bought it was for Issues. I hope things come together soon.
