Things I’m Doing
Spreading myself too thin.
But that's OK, because I take pride and joy in all of the work I do. Sometimes, I feel like I'm not doing enough work, to which my close friends call me insane for thinking. Here's what I've been doing with my time aside from blogging here.
(Note: I normally don't do this whole ''Sorry for all the lack of updating omglol" because I know no one cares about how infrequently I update or every little thing I'm doing with my life, but I felt compelled.)
Low clouds and remnant snow define this winter landscape of NAU's central campus.
Just My Luck
My Friday was all planned out. Three hours of photo printing and matting in the morning. Lunch. Teaching people how to do stuff. Quizzes and exams. A freelance project in its final stages. It was solid and going to put me ahead of schedule.
But then there's the idea of covering a funeral for a fallen fire fighter. They ask who can shoot it, no one responds. They look at me, I say "previous plans." So one of the most emotional stories of the year is slated to go untold by us. Bullshit.
I pushed photo back in my head. Then the exam. And the freelance project. I'll make time for it, I guess.
After spending a couple hours updating our website with video, I grabbed the equipment I needed and headed home ready to crash. Then I realized I should grab a wireless mic kit to make the shoot easier. A trip back to the communication building revealed that there are no usable batteries for the wireless kits. There were two on the charger. Not nearly enough, and one was an Alkaline - as in the kind that aren't rechargeable. Dumbass bastards. It was time to go buy some new batteries.
Off to Wal-Mart. I scanned the BATTERY CENTER for the cheapest double-As. "You could win $500,000 instantly!" claimed one 12 pack priced the same as all the others. "Why not," I thought. "At least I have a chance at making this evening worthwhile." I checked out with the cells and an 8-pack of oatmeal cremes.
I settled in to my car and as soon as the BBC world service began, so did a knock on my window. At first glance, I thought it was a person I know, but once my window was half-way down, I realized it was not.
"How ya doin' tonight?" the young black woman asked as she handed me a home-laminated card with columns of words I didn't read. "Do you like cologne and perfumes?"
"No. They're a waste of money," I replied.
"Don't you got a girlfriend or a wife?"
"No."
"Oh. Well try a sample. Give me your wrist." And I did. "Smell good for the rest of the night." This wonderful night.
"If you want some just let me know, ok?"
"Ok."
"Have a good night."
"Sorry. Take care," I meagerly wished.
"You too!" she said, though in a genuine fashion as if no one had ever given her such a salutation.
I opened the packaging and spill the batteries into my lap. A dollar sign. One. Dollar off. Good for your next purchase. Shit.
The Black and White
There are an alarming number of people who come to college and become completely disinterested with the amount of resources and information available to them. Going to every class is a chore rather than an experience. Instead of being excited, some choose to be bored. They feel like there is something better they could be doing. Well, I wish to assure them there isn't.
Imagine life without having obligations to attend class and complete assignments. Most people would probably do what I tended to do over the summer when I had such a schedule: nothing. There was no compelling reason for me to do anything with my time. Despite vowing to not waste this summer, great though it was, I failed in that regard.
NAU photography instructor Sam Minkler gets it. "Think about how much time in life you enjoy," he said during class this morning. "This 90 seconds [of exposure]," he suggested, is an incredible amount of time. It was his way of telling the several groups of people who spent the entire class texting, sighing and watching the broken clock: Look at how amazing this shit is. You are using light, paper and plastic to make god damn beautiful pictures, and all you care to do is not care.
Now that NAZ Today has started up again for the semester (watch the shows here), my days are typically 8-13 hours long, and I come home with far more energy than I should, bugging the hell out of my roommate. But that's good. It's very good. Compare the lifestyle of video editing, making black and white photos, directing a live newscast, watching classic films, and meeting new people then making new things to the one where I plant my ass on the sofa and catch the afternoon daypart on cable television.
The careless students around here, probably riding on scholarship or parents' money, are as black and white as the photographs Minkler inspired me to try to make today. (For the curious: The contact sheet looks ok, but the enlargement I tried had extremely low contrast, and is therefore unsatisfactory.)
I use TextEdit to write the drafts of pretty much anything. It's my favorite word processor for Mac. This morning, I took a much closer look at the application's icon, and this is what it said: "Here's to the crazy ones. The misfits. The revels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They're not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. you can praise them, disagree with them, quote them, disbelieve them, glorify them or vilify them. About the only thing you can't do is ignore them. Because they change things."
And that's what I wish everyone could be.
