The new quarter's begun, and not a moment too soon: I think around 1030 this morning as I got my ass out of bed, I finally shook the last vestiges of my fall quarter hangover. Every quarter my ass gets handed to me, I always think that's going to be the worst of it, and man is it ever downhill from here! Well, of course, I've had about five or six such moments over the last two years, and last quarter was definitely the heaviest of them. So it's likely that this quarter will be worse, yeah? I'm okay with that though, if I know that going in. And honestly, all it's going to compel me to do is manage my time more effectively...(which I just had trouble doing)...but more on that later.
The hard work was worth it though. I earned the highest GPA I've gotten since high school. Maybe higher than high school. But I also got more out of last quarter than I've yet gotten out of any quarter at UW. To wit: I went from zero knowledge of Maya to being somewhat comfortable with it; I co-animated a short animated film; I wrote and designed 5+ stories-for-film/animation; I made two videos--one vignette and one short film; I finally created a website for myself; and I wrote 5 prose short stories in the span of about three days. Now that it's all listed out and I can take a look at it--it's really not bad. Really, really not bad, what I accomplished in the span of two-and-a-half months.
But lets not start sucking each other's dicks--er, rather, my own--just yet. As I said, a new quarter's just begun. And it's likely to get more difficult, not less. So no dick sucking for me.
Speaking of this quarter, I got back-doored into English 384 "The Craft of Prose" literally just before I started this post. It's the next step up from English 284, the short story class I enrolled in last summer, took an incomplete in so I could go get fired off of a film in New York (still worth it though), and then finished up in a mad dash of writing this last quarter so as not to get a 0.0--which an INC converts to if it's not completed by the end of the following quarter. I'm actually looking forward to 384 quite a bit. It should be quite challenging, but when it comes to writing I'm not one to shake in my boots at a challenge--it's my natural talent. Still, my main concern is that it's going to be difficult and coupled with my computer animation class, I could have very, very little free time (a.k.a. sleep time) this quarter.
-- Just cut-off my first real time management violation. Typed the URL chud.com and hit ENTER. But I managed to cut myself off just before the page finished loading. I dig the website, and find the writer's opinions entertaining and sometimes even enlightening, but the days where the words of critics were gospel to my sensibilities is over. And incessantly checking their site for updates over and over again does not get me any closer toward being a good filmmaker. If anything, it deters me by forcing my to give up sleep and TLC with my lady in favor of a website that I can handily check once a day for a few minutes and get all the info I need from it. Instead, my habits tend toward the "Let's see, I'm getting bored with my current activity, I'll take a quick break." Except that this habit is so ingrained, the afore-written thought-process is barely an after thought now.
This is surely the scatter-shot epicenter of my time mismanagement tumor, and one of my primary goals this quarter is to surgically remove it from my afflicted habits.
Speaking of goals, let's talk tangibles (in no particular order):
1. Continue my exercise/diet routine
2. Manage my time more effectively by cutting out needless internet surfing
3. Narrow-in on improving my fiction writing
4. Regularly take notes in my notebook
5. Maintain my website
6. Post regularly in this blog
7. Pace myself in terms of homework, doing more now so I can do less later
8. Take the initiative to pro-actively engage with the learning opportunities presented to me this quarter regardless of their apparent degree of relevance to my cinematic pursuits (e.g. Maya minutia, prosaic writing (as opposed to image writing), non-cinematic digital and experimental arts
9. Being when it's time to be, doing when it's time to do--and knowing which is appropriate for when
10. As always: BECOME A BETTER FILMMAKER
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