Steven

All my roomies are back! Or at least will be back by tonight. It’s nice not having an empty house. I don’t think I would do very well living alone.

My friend Hannah visited from UW Mon/Tues. That was really fun, we just hung out and watched movies.

Speaking of movies, I saw Public Enemy the other day with my friends Dave and Jake. I was super excited because the previews looked so good and the cast was promising. Major disappointment. Christian Bale sucked, although I almost don’t blame him because the writing was really bad and there was no character development and nothing for him to work off of. It was shot in digital – which is cool, that’s not something that happens often – but it looked a little off, especially for a period piece. AND shaky cam is SO annoying! The one thing I did like was that all of the car chases and gun fights and stuff looked and sounded like they were using legitimate period cars and actually shooting old tommy guns and stuff. There were so many gun fights but somehow it still managed to be boring. I would not recommend seeing in theaters but it might be worth getting it from netflix, it was definitely cool to see a period piece in digital.

What a way to spend the 4^th of July then to leave the country. This weekend I spent up in Vancouver, BC with my family visiting my Grandma and doing touristy things. We spent a lot of time in Stanley Park and on the waterfront which was, of course, super amazing. I also hit up the Vancouver Art Gallery and saw the Vermeer and Rembrandt exhibit they had. SOOOO amazing. Man, some of those paintings are just breathtaking. They also had some awesome photography by Andreas Gursky (definitely google his work right now). I can’t even explain how cool they were, you have to just go and look it up. There was also this installation piece by Reece Terris called “Ought Apartment” which was a tall stack of “apartment” style rooms and every floor you went up it was the next generation. I think it starts in the 50s and gets all the way to today. Each floor was decorated and furnished and had props in it from that generation, it was really, really well done.

I am kind of sad I didn’t get to see any fireworks but it was definitely worth it. No happenings this next weekend, in terms of travelling at least. I think one of my roommates will be back late this week which will be nice. Hopefully then my house will feel less empty.

End school. Start work. I am working in the admissions office this summer, giving tours and working with Diane filling letters and other misc. office stuff. I will be outside while working most of the time which will be really nice. I also got hired to make some new recruitment videos for Evergreen so that will also be really fun.

I have found some time to have real summer fun. Last weekend I went up to Seattle for the pride parade with some friends from high school which was super fun. Not only was the parade/aftermath really awesome but it was nice to see some of my old friends who I went to school with for 7 years. This next weekend I will be spending with my family up in Vancouver, BC. It will be nice to hang out with all of them since I haven’t seen my sister in a while and she is leaving for foreign exchange to Taiwan for a whole year at the end of the summer.

How has it already been several weeks of summer already??

Anyway, to catch you all up:

Spring quarter turned out really well, I finished both my internship and my installation piece. The installation was REALLY fun and I think everyone liked it. I built a small fort and then had the television inside with my piece playing on a loop. I’ll try to upload pictures later. Here is the video:

My internship was really good too. I finished reviewing all of the footage and made a short cut of some good shots that I liked and would work well in the final piece.

Hey everyone, be sure to check out my production blog where I am writing about the progress on my Mediaworks project (there are sone AWESOME pictures!) and you can also check out my internship blog (there are less pictures but it’s still pretty interesting.)

Here is another comment from a blog reader

Please give me the 3 things you like most about Evergreen and the 3 things you dislike most about Evergreen.

-Ridhi

Hi Ridhi,

So, the graduate studies are a little bit different at Evergreen and since I am just an undergrad and have little to no interaction with the graduate studies, this will be from an undergrad perspective.

The main reason I chose to come to Evergreen was because of the way the curriculum is set up. To me, it makes no sense to take math or science or anything if you’re not constantly making connections to the real world and making what you’re learning applicable. Not only do you learn better making these connections but real life is not separated out into calculus and physics and history so why teach it that way?

I am very interested in media studies, specifically film and video, and have been since high school so this was something I was looking for when I was applying to schools. Many of the schools I was looking at that had big film programs were pretty much introductory courses for Hollywood. Evergreen, however, really focused on teaching experimental film and using the film as a medium and an art form. There are also no prerequisites in the traditional sense so I could come to Evergreen and do film and video studies right off the bat.

The availability of equipment is also super nice. I can go to media loan and check out a 16mm camera, a DV camera, lighting equipment, speakers, still cameras, mics, anything. For free. Anytime. It is the most amazing thing ever and anyone can use it.

I could go on and on about the things I love about Evergreen so if you want more, let me know.

One thing that is kind of annoying here is that you only take one program at a time (for the most part). I want to take a lot of different things because they all look really amazing but I have to choose one. This has its good sides too though. It means I don’t have any distractions and I can focus on the one program and be invested.

The weather can be a big bummer. Cloudy and gloomy weather dominates winter and so it can get a bit tough to stay motivated and upbeat when it’s nasty outside. However, all of the rain makes everything green and this time of the year is gorgeous! It’s also nice to have seasons, the bad just makes the good even better.

The third thing that I dislike about Evergreen is the upcoming budget cuts. This is a nationwide thing which is affecting pretty much every single school but it still sucks as a student trying to pay their own way thorough school. In-state, undergrad tuition is going up something like 14% for the next 2 years which REALLY sucks. They are also laying a lot of people off and a few programs are getting cut.

Hopefully this is helpful, and I apologize for the slightly delayed response.

Steven

Here is a question from Jen that I thought might be good to pass along:

Wow,

I haven’t blogged here in a very long time! I appologize for that. Hopefully you have been reading my production blog (Here).

School has been crazy. My internship is taking up minimal freetime and so I have been watching footage from China every second I get a chance. My project is going well, I have finished the melting and am now moving on to the part where I have to find footage to put behind the melting.

Procession of the Species was a couple weeks ago. I am glad it’s out of the way but sad it’s over. It was SO much fun! Check out the pictures from that weekend on Photoland’s blog here.

I have also made a few trips up to Vancouver, BC in the past month. I have been cleaning out my grandma’s apartment so that she doesn’t get evicted. Yikes. That has been a LOT of work. She is a packrat and keeps every single little thing, including everything from her 100 toothpaste tubes to the empty toilet paper rolls and hundreds and hundreds of plastic bags.

I hope this good karma helps me get a summer job…

Hey everyone!

Sorry it’s ben so long since I posted. My life is crazy! I have been doing 10 hours a week of my internship, working 20 hours a week, and doing my normal program project! Yikes! I’m also taking the neon sign making class though so that’s a nice break from my normal work time. The Procession of the Species is coming up so I have been trying to find time to head down to the studio and work on our long shark (I think Cameron has done most of the work so far though). 

If you guys want to read about what I am doing this quarter for my program I am writing a production blog for my program activites. Check it out: http://blogs.evergreen.edu/icariin/

Here is another question I got from a blog reader!

Steven, I wanted to ask you how much of a problem drop-outs are freshman year. Are there a lot of people who are not cut out for Evergreen crashing and burning? Do they drag down other students? It seems like there is a high rate of attrition but maybe it’s not that noticeable?
Anyways, thanks for being a good tour guide and thanks in advance for any perspective you can give me.
Peace.

Hi Sandy,

-Steven