Oh FOR THE LOVE of all that's GOOD AND HOLY...

...Wait, what am I talking about? There is nothing good OR holy in this school. ;) (Paraphrasing my dad there, if no one gets the joke...)

So, I have news: I have not only been accepted to not one, not two, but FOUR colleges (McDaniel, Marlborough, DePaul, and Calvin--HECK YEAH!!), but I have also received two offers that have sent me so far over the moon they're going to have to send Neil Armstrong to bring me home: 1) Offer to be Assistant Art Director/Costume Supervisor/Effects Supervisor on a thesis film, and 2) AN OFFER TO CO-DIRECT A FEATURE FILM OVER THE SUMMER.

AND as if THAT is not enough, my indie short is FINALLY continuing with filming, TONIGHT at EIGHT in HEMINGWAY (btw, non-Inty people, that is a dorm. just fyi), with one of my best friends acting for me and ANOTHER very good friend (the one who wants me to co-direct his feature) as my AD.

Holy. Freaking. Cow.

After all my false starts, after all the bachelor-science, after all of the CRAP that I have dealt with, here it is. In the middle of February, no less! Here is the senior year I've been dreaming of. Things are falling into place. I know what I want and I have a plan of how to get it. My days of continuity, audio, and grip are OVER.

(Hopefully.)

On the docket for today:
Physics test
Editing tutorial
SHOOTING WITH ISAAC, ALEX, ANNIE, AND MATTHEW :D
Calling parents
Working on Red Wheelbarrow submission
Laundry
Calling debit card company

...Whew.

You know what? I take back what I said in the last post. The f-word is not Flugelhorn, it is February. But, like the "real" f-word, this word does not have to offend you, hurt you, or wreck your day. This f-word can be tamed, and I plan to do just that.

In other news, we have gone from Tuesday-to-Saturday to Monday-to-Friday for the next three weeks. So when I say "I've had it with this monkey-fighting _____ at this Monday-to-Friday boarding school!" I will be entirely accurate.

Up next: Blogging my Indie Short, part II (letting you know how it all goes, because we will be shooting A LOT this weekend).


STOLEN DIALOGUE:

Person one: Is there anything technological you can't do?
Person two: I'm sure there's a few things...when I find out what those are, I'll just learn how to do them.
Person one: Can you make it look like this movie wasn't edited by a hormonal overemotional teenage girl?
Person two: Sure...but I didn't know you were asking Justin Bieber to edit your movie...

"What happens in Film Genres, stays in Film Genres."

"The level of insanity on this crew is astounding...I LOVE IT."

"I don't know what's scarier: The fact that he was stripping in the commons or the fact that you KNOW he was stripping in the commons."

"Interlochen has coffeehouses and coffee grinds."

[in a ballet class with both guys and girls]
Teacher: Remember when you dance, you have to keep your back straight! Stick your boobies out!

Person one: I've come to the conclusion that no matter how much crew-whoring I do, I will never get higher than audio, grip, or continuity.
Person two: Hey, come on now...first of all, you don't whore, you just be...that's my word of wisdom for the day.

[watching a censored version of The Big Lebowski]
Movie character: Do you see what happens when you FIND a stranger IN THE ALPS? This is what happens when you feed a guy SCRAMBLED EGGS!
Person one: I know what "find a stranger in the alps" was originally...but I don't know about the second one...I don't know what he's supposed to say there.
Person two: I guarantee you it wasn't "scrambled eggs."
Person one: Yeah...it might've been something that turns your brain INTO scrambled eggs...but yeah...probably not actual "scrambled eggs."

"You're supposed to be all 'Grr, badass' but I just want to hug you!"

Person one: You could probably get a take of this shot right now.
Person two: What, while we're all screaming at each other?

Ok, who ordered the drama!

WHAT. THE. [F-WORD].

(And by f-word, I mean Flugelhorn. Duh.)

Okay, guys. I get that February sucks. I get that Winterlochen sucks your soul faster than a starving Dementor. But seriously, people, WHAT IS UP WITH ALL OF THIS [FLUGELHORN]ING DRAMA?!?!?

You know what? I remember last year, about mid-February, there was an "expulsion massacre." It sucked, but we bounced back. We pulled ourselves together, we rallied. This year we get an "expulsion massacre," and not two weeks later, what happens? Someone else is leaving! Neither of the "expulsion massacres" hit me that hard at the time (sorry, expel-ees), namely because usually I had no idea what was going down and I wasn't close to that many people. But that doesn't mean that I didn't see the effect on the school...and the people I was close to, who wound up losing significant numbers of best friends.

And this time it's someone I knew, someone I cared about, and it has a pretty damn wide ripple effect. This time, the expel-ee was not a best friend to me, but a best friend to quite a few really good people who will seriously miss this kid--and I can say from personal experience that this guy had some KICK-ASS TALENT. We will all miss him, some of us more than others, all of us for different reasons.

Added to that, there is some serious dramallama business going down on a smaller scale. I'm talking about that he-said-she-said bachelor-science (sorry, had to throw in the tribute to Mr. Nadji) that EVERY high school faces...but, somehow, at Interlochen everything is magnified, possibly because our school is so freakin' small. Interlochen: Population 500. So tiny that what one person does has an effect on at least twenty people, which in turn effects twenty more people...and so it goes, until the entire school has no freaking clue what is going on and everyone is saying, "When in the purple hell did THAT happen?"

I'm sorry for ranting at you guys, but I'm beyond eloquence tonight. I am, excuse my French, PISSED OFF.

It's not just the expulsion, or the teenage drama (although I could write a blog post each about both of those subjects). It's the cabin fever. It's The Shining set at a flipping boarding school. It's the feeling that you just want to get the heck out of here NOW and you don't care where you go. You're so damn frustrated you could cry. Running through your entire repertoire of profane words helps for a fleeting moment and then it's gone. Screaming, crying, praying, kicking furniture, throwing things, making people feel miserable (although to be fair, most of them already do), taking out your frustration on every human or inanimate object to come your way...it's just that time of year.

I don't know why or how this occurs. All I know is that February is not the root of the problem. It's February after two months of the insanity that is Winterlochen. After three months of snow, ice, and wind, you begin to freak out (unless you are inhuman, in which case I would have to question why in the heck you're at Interlochen in the first place. Get out. We don't need aliens here). After awhile you start to feel trapped. And then you do things that have varying levels of stupidity.

Last month me and some of my friends put a huge banner inscribed with "ART MOVED" across one of the welcome signs. We had fun "rebelling." Wearing sunglasses to community meetings, quoting intense poetry and plays in the hallways, sitting under the table at dinnertime. No one got hurt, no one got high, and no one got in trouble. We were united, close, untouchable. No one could hurt us.

And now we're confused, scattered, afraid. Rumors are flying. "Oh my God, they're going to drug-test us!" "Oh my God, they're going to search our rooms!" "Oh my God, they're going to expel us just for knowing [insert name of expel-ee here]!" "Oh my God, they're going to dorm/suspend/expel us for fake cigarettes/making out/using caffeine after 2 PM!" We are trying to pull ourselves together, to no avail.

Some of us are going nuts over our majors. We can't get jobs on each other's film sets because we aren't popular enough, or because we haven't been here long enough, or because we're under/upperclassmen, or WHATEVER the reason. We've only been in second semester for three weeks and it feels like forever. People are complaining because they can't get into publications or into shows or get first chair in orchestra. People are getting lazy in classes. You know senioritis is running rampant when JUNIORS ARE GETTING IT.

Last year, right after the first big expulsapalooza, my friend Andrew wrote "If the devil had a month, it would be February." At the time I agreed with him. This year I know better. I know that it's not February that's tearing us apart from the inside out. It's us. If we tell ourselves "This is hell," we will fall apart. BUT. If we tell ourselves, "We can do this," we can--hopefully--pull ourselves together enough to get through Winterlochen.

Please, guys, don't be stupid. February at Winterlochen is already worming its way in, making us fight each other, making us fight ourselves. Do not let it tear you apart. This is crazy, you guys...don't let it get crazier.

Help me end the drama. Or, if not, for the love of all that's holy TRY to stop it from spreading.

We can do this.

Right?