Tumultuously Happy Beginnings

Today was the final day of the most important class at the school, Final Project. Everything we've been going to school for, summed up in one thirty-second to two minute package. A demo reel. It's important! A visual resume; look what I can do. 

Our ideas, abilities and pieces of our lives wrapped up and delivered, today... at 10:00am... no... 10:15am? uh huh... instructor has yet to arrive come 10:30am. How delusional we all are, thinking that maybe we would put something forth that was worthwhile. Maybe there would be something to be excited about, to be moved by, to at least show up on time for.

The inability of key people to 'stick around' long enough to view everyone's work spoke volumes. One by one we laid our dreams at their feet. One by one they apologetically left the room. It's boring and redundant, but at the very least feigned interest would have been a better end to our school career.

I've been on the verge of several emotions, instead of choosing one, I'm experiencing them all at once. On the edge of extreme emotions. Petrified between two emotions. Excitement wrestling just behind my eyes with tears of sorrow. Paranoid stress holding prolonged discussions with flawless contentment. Maybe it's just me. Maybe it's the surge of true and utter passion to experience all emotions so extremely, all at once, you can't focus. Maybe it's the lack of sleep. Maybe it's my world mingling with reality, disorienting me. In either case, I am distracted, sensitive and tired. But it wasn't just me. I wasn't the only one hurt and for once I wasn't the only one to notice it.

I wonder if I should be thankful of the disinterest experienced. The school has always excused its odd hours, as preparation for the work environment. The key people have been around the school long enough to know what gets produced by it. They would know if it was worthwhile to stick around for the entire class' demo reels. Perhaps they were just preparing me for what it is really like to package my passion, and creativity and then peddle it out, asking busy people for thirty seconds of their time...

I am not so bitter, promise I'm still sweet. I'm happy and impressed with my first draft. I'm not going to let it bother me that other's don't necessarily see it worthwhile enough to spend forty seconds of their life with. Who am I to blame them, it's only a first draft and it's not like they have any reason to care specifically about me. The people that matter to me think it's trippy, interesting, amazing, and leaves them wanting to see more. Which is precisely what this trippy, interesting artist desires! 

Then occupied with the act of making art, I was unable to sleep, now I find myself unable to sleep, because I'm full of ideas with where to take this first draft, so that it'll become a second.

-> i wrote this June 26, 2008