Italian-American Cinema…
… is going to be an awesome class. The first week is going to be about spaghetti westerns (Leone’s stuff, for the most part), but the rest of the quarter is going to focus on gangster films from directors like Scorsese, Coppola, De Niro and Tarantino. Have I ever mentioned that I love gangster films? Can’t get much better than that.
Last night, the Entertainment Council held a screening of ‘Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2’…
In anticipation of a large crowd, because it is Harry Potter, we reserved the largest lecture hall on campus to show it in. The building seats 500 people. We showed it nine days before it’s released on DVD (we got a licensed pre-release copy of it) and we only charged $2 to get in. An awesome deal, right? Well, only about 240 people showed up. Apparently, there aren’t as many mega-fans around campus as we had hoped, or midterms are just brutal this quarter or something. Kinda disappointing, but it was still fun, and we made a lot of people’s night pretty awesome. Those who did show up were pretty stoked about it. Plus, I had never seen it before and got in for free because I’m the cinema intern, so there’s that.
"It feels like my spine is about to snap in two, but it feels amazing."
-My thoughts on stretching and popping my back after sitting in a broken chair all day working on a paper.Alright, no more screwing around.
I need to read about 300 pages today, so I can start my history paper tomorrow. So, I’m gonna shut the computer down until it’s done so I can focus. Wish me luck, guys.
Busy, Busy, Busy…
The only drawback to getting a job and an internship at the same time is that until recently, I never had much to do and could afford to be lazy. Now, I’ve got a lot to do, so I’m exhausted by the time I get home. The Entertainment Council is having a series of small lunch time concerts this fall, so this morning I helped set up the portable stage and all the speakers, amps, etc. for that. Then, I realized I forgot to print a paper that was due today, so I ran home, proofread it, printed it, and grabbed some leftovers for lunch. Then, I ran back to school, helped dismantle the stage and cleanup after the show, went to a meeting for my internship, started working for my internship, went to a 3 hour class, and then came home. Since I’ve been home, I’ve drifted between dozing on the couch and working on my internship, simply because it’s the busiest day I’ve had in a long time. I’ve got 3 papers due before Wednesday, an application and personal statement to finish for a special filmmaking class, job training later this week, and more internship stuff. It’s gonna be a looong week, but I’m not complaining. I’m thrilled to be doing stuff I like while being productive, and I’m thankful to have a job. Life is looking up.
EDIT: Also, to all wishing me congrats on that last post, thanks!
Last week, I got a job. This week, I got an internship.
Specifically, I’m the ASUCD Entertainment Council Cinema Coordinator Intern, as of today. I am on a roll!
A moment in my "America in the 1960s" class...
Student: "Sir, I was wondering what you thought of–"Professor: "Stop. You're going to have to stop calling me 'sir'. It's weirding me out. This is a class about the sixties, man. C'mon, man!"
I was spacing out during my “film as narrative” class today when I noticed the guy next to me slowly slipping an old iPod Mini out of his pocket…
I continued to watch him out of the corner of my eye as he slowly unraveled the headphones and put them in his ears. Then, he hit the play button, and just sat there with his hands to his ears, as if the headphones were gonna fall out, for a solid 10 minutes or so. At the end of that time span, he slowly pulled the headphones out and sat them down on the desk in front of him, as he continued to stare blankly at the professor. I think he might have been stoned.
I can honestly say that I’ve never had the urge to listen to a song so bad that I just whipped out my iPod in the middle of a lecture, haha. I mean, I can understand that a 3 hour lecture can be painful to sit through, but it’s hard to imagine needing a break after only 20 minutes. I’m glad I’ve got at least one large class this quarter, because I miss seeing weird shit like this every day. You just don’t get that in smaller classes like the ones I’ve had for the past couple years.
So, I just got back from a 3 mile run…
… and it felt pretty good. I’ve never been much of a runner, but lately I’ve been stepping it up and running further. Today, I ran through the UC Davis Arboretum. It was pretty cool running around the waterways and through the different gardens there. There was lots of cool nature and wildlife to look at, like ducks, geese, turtles, fish, rabbits, etc. I might run there more often once school gets going again.
Despite the fact that I’m really looking forward to graduating in a year, there are definitely things I’m gonna miss about the campus one day. The Arboretum is one of them.
Apparently my body is still on a school sleep schedule…
I randomly passed out before midnight last night, and woke up and 7am, wide awake. Not cool… I was hoping to sleep the morning away.
When art/film majors hang out with engineers…
I hate to stereotype a whole group of people, but based on a few recent experiences, I’m starting to think that engineering majors just really suck to party with (with the exception of a few). Last week, Deniz and I (one of the few engineers I know that are fun to hang out with) were roaming Davis on Friday night, looking for something to do. One of his other engineering friends told him he was at a party. However, this was at 11:45pm, and they said the part was going to be over at midnight. Who ends a party at midnight? The night is just starting at that point. Then, when their party was over, they tried meeting up with us to tag along. We told them to meet up with us downtown so we could figure out something to do, but when they realized we had no plan for them to tag along with, they decided to go home and go to bed. Ooook?
Fast forward to last night. Sam, Veerpal and I went to see Thor, like I mentioned. Afterwards, Sam and I went to meet up with Deniz, who was at a party for an engineering club he’s in. When Sam and I finally got there, we found them all awkwardly and drunkenly dancing out in a completely dark living room to some poorly put-together list of bad techno songs. Sam and I wandered to the kitchen, since we (A) Didn’t really know anybody there, and (B) Couldn’t really see anyone anyway because it was so dark in there. We stood around in the kitchen for the next half hour, trying to decide whether it was worth staying at the party and having awkward conversations with random people that walked up to us (Random guy: “Hi, I’m Adam.” Me: “Hey, I’m Sean. Nice to meet you, dude.” “Random guy: “Uuh, yeah.” *walks away* Me: “…the fuck?”). After hanging around for an hour, the whole group of them decided to go swimming in a cold, unheated pool, so Sam and I followed them out and slipped out the side and just went home. Today, Deniz came over to get some help on a research paper, and he told me that as he sobered up last night, he realized how lame the party really was. It sounds like most of them just showed up without any real plan, and got drunk as quickly as possible. That’s cool, I suppose, but not for those who show up sober and can’t drink because they have to drive. Sooo… yeah.
TL;DR: My first couple of experiences trying to party with a group of engineers turned out being incredibly boring. Some people say that people’s personalities fit their majors. I don’t know if this is true, but if it is, maybe that is why I always felt out of place when I was in the engineering department my freshman year doing computer science. The liberal arts crowd definitely interests me a lot more, and I feel most at home in the art department where my major is located. However, some of my closest friends are science and engineering majors. Weird stuff, eh? So, who knows.
Don’t mind me. I’m just bitching about school.
How hard is it to make the syllabus match what’s actually due in class? I just realized I missed a reading assignment last week in my experimental film class, because it wasn’t on the syllabus. And yet, it wasn’t announced in class either. Why not? Now, there is supposedly reading due tomorrow (according to the syllabus), but no place to respond to it on the website. So, am I supposed to do it or not? Why is this so unclear!?
WHAT. THE. FUCK.
This professor is so damn disorganized. I’m so glad I’ll never have a class with her after this quarter is over. Three classes with one professor is enough…
