Day 5: Storms
Ah, the beginning of relief from the oppressive heat. A couple passing storms dropped a little bit of rain over us. The first just made everything hot AND humid – humidity had been low during the 100 degree temperatures – but the second actually cooled things off. Today brought a trip to Barnes and Noble to buy a present for Eric’s cousin’s daughter, who turns 2 sometime this week. Little Chloe is adorable and completely spoiled, so we figured it best not to try and compete with those so intent on spoiling her. We settled on introducing her to good music and educational programming with the They Might Be Giants album Here Come the 1, 2, 3s.
We happend to be out at Barnes and Noble when Passing Storm #2 came by. A casual glance out the front window revealed sheets of rain and shoppers running for dry ground. Just as quickly as it had started it stopped, and when we finished shopping and browsing, we found a cooler afternoon waiting for us.
Lazy
I’ve been a complete lazy bum today, other than going food shopping. Well, I guess it wasn’t lazy. Took another look at all my fiances today, which took most of the day. In other news…
I want. I want so badly. A tapeless HD camera for less than a grand? You must be kidding me. If Issues is going to ComicCon, Eric and I will acquire this camera. Far too much hilarity would ensue to ever allow us to leave the camera at home.
I’m ready for a snow storm. I only wish it was happening on Saturday instead of Friday so that Mike and I could have our snowball fight to the death like we’ve been talking about. As it is, I’m debating trying to head out the mall early tomorrow morning to do a little bit of Christmas shopping. We’ll see. I do like sleeping in on my days off.
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!
General Update
Well, it has been a relaxing week so far while home for the Easter holiday. I haven’t seen my students since Friday and still have two more solid days of no school. That being said, I don’t especially want to go back on Monday. I’d rather have year-round school with longer breaks spread throughout the year. The prospect of only having a single day off between now and June 20th is not appealing.
Today was rather exciting, albeit a bit stressful. After getting lost in West Orange, I finally arrived at my destination and took the GRE exam. While I won’t know my final score for 2-3 weeks, I was able to view my Verbal and Quantitative scores while at the testing center. My verbal was right where it should be given my previous testing history, and while my math is a bit lower than I would like, it is also in an acceptable range. I think that I’ll invest some more time in studying my math and schedule to take the test again in April or May. I’ve submitted my scores to Rutgers Newark for consideration. My hope is to start graduate school there in September. I really miss being in a classroom.
In the past day I’ve also gotten a bike. This is the first bike I’ve owned since middle school, when my old, but trusty bike (formerly belonging to my mother) was stolen out of it’s home in our next-door neighbor’s garage. My family never bought me another bike, and now that I’m on my own, living in a small town with lots of the places I need to go (bank, drug store, etc.,) nearby, a bike seemed like the way to go. It fits comfortably in the apartment by its very nature as a folding bike – a Dahon to be exact. Eric is jealous of me, as I’ve essentially bought the bike he has wanted for a number of years. After taking it out for a lengthy spin yesterday my rear is a bit sore, but it was worth it. It amazes me how riding a bike seems to become part of us. Neither Eric nor I has ridden a bike in years, yet once the chain relaxed itself, neither of us had any problem.
Finally, my last bid to help our economy by spending my hard-earned money was a splurge on first mezzanine seats to see Eddie Izzard at Raido City in June. I first discovered Eddie’s comedy while hanging around with my off-color crowd from high school. Since then, I’ve enjoyed his comedy through DVDs and CDs, but never thinking that I would see him live. Fast forward to my weekly Ticketmaster promo e-mail, and who’s name is at the bottom of the page, but my favorite comedian’s. $150 dollars poorer, but worth every penny, the tickets are now sitting on my desk until the distant day of June 29th when I can actually use them. I can’t wait to see him sell out Radio City. It’s been done before, and I’m sure it will be again.
Well, not really much else going on. I’ll be down at Eric’s parent’s house for most of Easter, although I’ve not yet decided how exactly I’ll get out of attending Easter mass. (It’s none too attractive to see me developing a twitch 30 seconds into the priest’s homily.) The very real excuse of needing to get my paperwork ready for the next day may prevail. For now, though, I think I’m going to stretch out on the sofa and be a lazy bum. Test taking is an exhausting thing.
