This entry is less about school and much more about dealing with being here in Alaska while virtually my entire past is 3,800 (+/-) miles away.
A little background: I have been out and "on the road" for some while now. And as I had been living in company housing and did not own a personal vehicle the majority of my belongings had been boxed, crated, etc and in storage with family. From time to time during holiday visits, etc I would gather some additional items and bring them to wherever I was at that point. Living and working for one theatre between Jan 2006 and December 2008 made some of that easier, since I didn't have to worry about having to pack and move everything every three months (or less). Then, after I left that gig and was out of work for the whole year of 2009 (plus a bit) I got used to having simplified access to all the things I had acquired over the last 50 years.
Now, however, I am here. And all the things I didn't have the space/ability to pack in my luggage had to be left in Arkansas. My theatre texts. My art books. My DVD's and music CD's...Not to mention my science fiction library and various gaming items.
My brother will be, with any fortune, shipping me some additional Winter and "shop working clothing" (overalls, boots, etc) plus a majority of my carpentry tools in the near term. So that is something. But.....
Due to various reasons, my brother will (unless something miraculous occurs) be relocating from Arkansas to Virgina within the next week. Not what he or I had planned but the way of the world...Anyway, the thing that has me anxious (lacking any better word) is that, due to space constraints all of my stuff will be joining a significant portion of his stuff in a storage locker. Now, having all of my stuff in a locker somewhere is nothing new. The new thing is that it (my stuff) will be in Arkansas. And any family member who might be able to go and get stuff for me will be in either Virginia or Florida. Which, considering things practically, means that they will not be available at all.
The logical, reasonable portion of me accepts that I probably won't have access to my "stuff" till I go back down to the lower 48 for the Summer. IF I do that. Since it depends on if and/or where I can find Summer work that makes it rather variable. And that is, logically, okay. After all, there are some theatre texts, etc that I have not accessed for a minimum of several years. So why would I want them now?
That's the issue: why do I feel a bit "at sea" knowing that I won't have the security blanket of being able to have someone dig into a box and ship me
something? After all, the stuff is just stuff. Yes, some of it (family photos for example) is irreplaceable. That percentage is understandable. A little part of me says, at least when regarding the theatre texts, that they might prove handy to have available now that I am back in school. True...But the rest of it ? Sigh...
The reasoning portion of my mind says that it is a good lesson in "simplifying my life". And I am working on that......
Sunday, October 17, 2010
Saturday, October 16, 2010
What's A Month, Here Or There?
Well, it's after midterms. Even though I didn't have any in any of my classes this semester. But that's okay...I really don't object. What I do object to is that I have let my adding entries onto this blog lapse a bit. So this entry may be a bit scattered and semi-random (as well as having some kvetching in it) since it will be a "catch up entry" for all that has happened during the last month or so. So be warned.
Let's start with Starvation Gulch. It's an annual event here at UAF that involves bonfires (plural). It was pretty interesting....And I took a bunch of pictures. In fact, there was a photo contest on the UAF Facebook page with some prizes for selected photos and one of my photos was selected as one of the winners. It got me a zip front hooded sweatshirt...and a couple of compliments from the folks at the media office on my images. Which made me feel pretty good.....
And, in the realm of things that made me feel good, I was offered the chance to be involved in designing the Fall mainstage show(s). It's three one acts as an evenings presentation so I am never sure if I should refer to it as singular or plural...But it was cool to think that I was going to get the chance to do a mainstage design gig my first semester here...as well as it being my first semester in school since 1983.
Of course, you may have noticed the "past tenses" in the prior sentences. That is due to the next major event so far this Fall: my spending several days (about a week) dealing with what was diagnosed as a probable kidney stone. I use the word probable because I never "caught it" nor did a stone show up when I finally got a CT done at the ER near the end of the whole situation. But based on all my symptoms, the student health center treated it as a stone: with antibiotics for what seemed signs of infection, pain meds, pushing fluids and with strong recommendations for going to the ER if the pain got beyond a certain point. Being stubborn I lived through most of the discomfort (with some help from the Hydrocodone). Then finally went to the ER. The implication was that I had passed whatever it was by the time of the CT. And I am feeling way better. However, with everything going on I felt that I was not doing a proper service to the production(s) and so I stepped down from the design slot. I am still, however, considered Assistant Scenic Designer and the design will, as far as I have been currently told, be building on what I had accomplished prior to having to deal with the illness. Frustrating. To say the least.
All that not withstanding I am also pleased to report that I was hired into the scene shop as a student worker. And I made a contact with the supervisor at a local off campus venue and was placed on the call list for gigs there. Thankfully my being sick has not (so far as I can determine) affected those positions. Yea! And I have been told that I have a chance for designing the Student Drama Association one acts that will be coming up in February. Which, if I am selected, will give me a thing or two for my portfolio from this academic year...
In other "good news": going by the online grade estimates that I have access to, my current academic progress is pretty good. I am pulling down mid level A and mid level B grades in all four classes. My anxiety about the grade I got for my first theatre history essay has pretty well passed. Since then I have been getting better results on the weekly essays. Significantly better in fact. Hurray!
I have to say that I am pleased by my current grades for a variety of reasons. One of them is that it gives me a bit of hope that a current "wild idea" that keeps going through my mind might not be an impossibility after all. The "wild idea?" Me going on to seek my MFA after graduation here. You might be thinking, Why? Why go for the advanced degree? Well, if I do end up attempting to teach it would be better to have an MFA than just a BA. And depending on what all I get to design while in school here having the chances for design slots that would be part of grad school could be a definite help finding design gigs in the "real world". I will say that, when I threw the idea out as a "passing comment" to my academic adviser his reaction seemed one of surprise. Still have to find out why....Sigh.
Well, I guess that just about covers all the major happenings over the last month. There might be a point or two I've missed but then that is what new entries are for, isn't it?
Let's start with Starvation Gulch. It's an annual event here at UAF that involves bonfires (plural). It was pretty interesting....And I took a bunch of pictures. In fact, there was a photo contest on the UAF Facebook page with some prizes for selected photos and one of my photos was selected as one of the winners. It got me a zip front hooded sweatshirt...and a couple of compliments from the folks at the media office on my images. Which made me feel pretty good.....
And, in the realm of things that made me feel good, I was offered the chance to be involved in designing the Fall mainstage show(s). It's three one acts as an evenings presentation so I am never sure if I should refer to it as singular or plural...But it was cool to think that I was going to get the chance to do a mainstage design gig my first semester here...as well as it being my first semester in school since 1983.
Of course, you may have noticed the "past tenses" in the prior sentences. That is due to the next major event so far this Fall: my spending several days (about a week) dealing with what was diagnosed as a probable kidney stone. I use the word probable because I never "caught it" nor did a stone show up when I finally got a CT done at the ER near the end of the whole situation. But based on all my symptoms, the student health center treated it as a stone: with antibiotics for what seemed signs of infection, pain meds, pushing fluids and with strong recommendations for going to the ER if the pain got beyond a certain point. Being stubborn I lived through most of the discomfort (with some help from the Hydrocodone). Then finally went to the ER. The implication was that I had passed whatever it was by the time of the CT. And I am feeling way better. However, with everything going on I felt that I was not doing a proper service to the production(s) and so I stepped down from the design slot. I am still, however, considered Assistant Scenic Designer and the design will, as far as I have been currently told, be building on what I had accomplished prior to having to deal with the illness. Frustrating. To say the least.
All that not withstanding I am also pleased to report that I was hired into the scene shop as a student worker. And I made a contact with the supervisor at a local off campus venue and was placed on the call list for gigs there. Thankfully my being sick has not (so far as I can determine) affected those positions. Yea! And I have been told that I have a chance for designing the Student Drama Association one acts that will be coming up in February. Which, if I am selected, will give me a thing or two for my portfolio from this academic year...
In other "good news": going by the online grade estimates that I have access to, my current academic progress is pretty good. I am pulling down mid level A and mid level B grades in all four classes. My anxiety about the grade I got for my first theatre history essay has pretty well passed. Since then I have been getting better results on the weekly essays. Significantly better in fact. Hurray!
I have to say that I am pleased by my current grades for a variety of reasons. One of them is that it gives me a bit of hope that a current "wild idea" that keeps going through my mind might not be an impossibility after all. The "wild idea?" Me going on to seek my MFA after graduation here. You might be thinking, Why? Why go for the advanced degree? Well, if I do end up attempting to teach it would be better to have an MFA than just a BA. And depending on what all I get to design while in school here having the chances for design slots that would be part of grad school could be a definite help finding design gigs in the "real world". I will say that, when I threw the idea out as a "passing comment" to my academic adviser his reaction seemed one of surprise. Still have to find out why....Sigh.
Well, I guess that just about covers all the major happenings over the last month. There might be a point or two I've missed but then that is what new entries are for, isn't it?
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