Because we can.
Today was quite eventful. I feel like I accomplished so much today that it’s not even funny. Payroll documentation- done. Pre-write exercise to prep me for the rough draft of my semi-research paper- done. Chapters of reading- done. Camera equipment drop off- done. Dropping off paper work- done. Getting plug for dell- done. Full workout- done. Acro class- done. Ballroom get together after acro- done.
I left the house at about 10 this morning having gotten 1 and 2 done, and wondering if I had enough time to get 3, 4 and 5 done before English writing class. Plenty of time. I had some scrambling with the last chapter of one of my books, but I got the gist of what was being said.
English class- had to find out from my professor that Leonard Nimoy passed away. He never made it out of the hospital, apparently. It’s a sad day. Fuck. I admired the guy because his personality didn’t give you any reason to hate him. Shatner, if he died, I think would have less tears shed over him than Nimoy.
So there’s that. I was pretty shaken by that for the moment, but had to go on.
My paper sucks thus far. I would like to get a stronger sense of what I was writing about- but the topic of the paper is so ambiguous. Choose a subject that you believe is a hero in your specific field of study. What type of hero are they? What qualities of their character fit them into that mold? research research research.
And my thesis was thus: blah blah blah Stan Lee is a hero who did this and that and created the world we live in today. He is not a hero as much as he is a king, who has sculpted the very reality in which we live. Give him a crown already.
There’s a thesis in there somewhere, trust me on this. So I’ve got that going, and it’s going well.
My payroll numbers came out ok. It wasn’t as many hours as I thought I worked, but that’s part of the madness around here- time flies by you when you’re having fun. Or working your ass off, however you choose to do with your time.
The camera equipment was the fun shit. Here’s the story:
I get my camera equipment in the morning, around 10:00 on Thursday. I reserved it the night before, cuz there was no way I was going to get all that crap done before class and before the equipment stockroom closed at 1:00. I needed the equipment at 1:00. So, yeah, I went early and got it and lugged it around campus for 3 hours until I needed it. My class is from 1-5pm, and he said that he was going to do a cut-off time (for the classroom) at 3:45. That meant that whatever else we needed to get done had to be done in the lab. So, I’ve got a good 3 hours.
And- O shit- I forgot my portable hard drive. Go home to get it, and do a recording near my house. that puts me near 2:00pm.
O shit #2- I find out the jack going into the camera for the mic isn’t fitting properly. Meaning:- the first clip I got near my house was completely out. I thought maybe I could salvage the footage by turning up some of the sound levels and messing with the mixer a bit. So I go to get a new mic. That takes time. that puts me near 3:00pm. Record 2nd and 3rd stand-ups.
O shit #3- get to the room around 3:30, and only have 15 minutes to upload it to a computer only to have to shut it down and move all my shit to the computer lab. So, lugging all this around to the lab down a few halls over.
O shit #4- After some editing and debating, I decide the first clip wasn’t good enough with the sound quality (although my stand-up was strong) so I decided to go out again and film another clip to replace it. This takes time. So it’s around 4:45 when I get back to the lab after filming in the grove.
O shit #5- I don’t know Adobe Premier as much as I would like to. I can’t find some of the dissolve transition effects for video, and I can’t find the damned fade in/fade out effects. I eventually get some assistance with that, and find some of it on my own, and
O shit #6- I can’t upload the damn thing to Youtube (as required by the prof to get credit for the project) because the file format is not supported. I guess they don’t get *.approj all the time, or whatever the hell file extension it might be. So I’m desperately looking around for something that will change the extension and having no luck.
O shit #7- same guy that helps me with the fade in/fade out effects tells me the Lab closes at 6. It’s 5:55. Fuck.
So I leave, frustrated, and not a damned thing uploaded to Youtube. Plus, both computers in both locations have the video, at different parts of editing (comp 1 barely any, comp 2 all but not the right format), and I resolve to bike my ass home and get this damned thing done.
I go on Youtube, and before I start anything, I look at a video tutorial on how to change the file extension from whatever Adobe makes it into like an avi or a mpeg4. I watch a video that goes through the process very easily, and I’m ready to go.
I download the Adobe Creative Cloud so I could use Adobe Premier and get it done. It downloads, and I yank the camera from the bag and start importing the files to the video program. I use all the tricks that were given to me just hours before, and make the video almost flawlessly, except for that last hiccup, where I realized that most of my stand-ups sucked. Transitions were there though, fade in and fade out, sound levels were okay, and the whole thing took less than 30 minutes to make (once I knew what I was doing). I even converted the file to .avi in less than a minute.
Last thought before I passed out that evening was- “I should’ve just went home and did this shit at 3:45.”
Hence the camera equipment had to come home with me to get the proper upload. If I had gone off of what I did in the labs (and I couldn’t, because my Hard Drive wasn’t formatted correctly or whatever) I could probably get away with not taking the equipment home. But, eh. I took it. And this morning, i returned that shit right the fuck away, because I didn’t want to be lugging that stuff around while riding a bike ever again.
And that’s what my Thursday looked like, in a nutshell. I must’ve been nuts that day, because it seemed like a bunch of stuff just got thrown at me all at once. Today, comparitively, went much smoother. I can’t say whether it was a good day or not- because Leonard Nimoy died, but things went smoothly for me.
A girl cried supposedly because of me in Acro today. Her mother said I wasn’t strong enough. No, my dear, your little girl needs to plie more in her jumps, move forward when I’ve got her, and lock her arms so she might keep her upper body up during the lift. I’ve been busting ass in the gym every day, but it’s not going to help me if we have partners that can’t shift their weight to the appropriate locations when we’re trying to get them up in the air.
Plus, miss dance mom, if you’re such a fucking expert, why don’t you put on some goddamned leotards and start doing this? I’m 33 and lifting teens and young adults. They have a sense of where their weight needs to go- even better than you. Sod off if you don’t like what I have to say.
Went to the ballroom, after a lengthy discussion with my acro teachers. Did the waltz with the birthday girl, and mostly sat my ass down from exhaustion after all was said and done from the aerial studios. Even now, I’m feeling a bit of soreness; but I think a good night’s rest will help me in that arena.
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