My computer is officially driving me nuts. I’ve wanted to murder it quite a number of times. Despite its shiny screen and the cute-seeming façade it puts up… it’s really crappy. No memory, no hard drive space — crap, and in the useless, outdated way. Hell, just to write this I’ve had several freeze-ups and near crashes. I can’t wait to get a new desktop. That will be a brilliant day! The day of a quick boot-up, the day of Office 2007! A brilliant, excellent day.
I’m almost done. And by that I mean I still have my screenplay for Sharon’s class and I’ve been avoiding writing it for ages. It’s the last assignment I have for my entire college career and I can’t do it early. Some part of me wants to write until like 4am tonight to try to finish it and screw it all and pretend it’s due tomorrow (when realistically it’s due ASAP, but by Tuesday the latest).
What’s most annoying about finishing that script is firstly the formatting. I can copy and paste novel or story chunks like it’s nothing, but with screenplay you have that whole crazy formatting business. Yucky. Secondly, I’m stalling because I need to wholly rewrite a vast chunk of the script. Vast. Well, rewrite and actually write the other vast chunk of it. The story I had vaguely envisioned will be different than the story I’m going to be writing in the next 48 hours. A few scenes will likely be the same, but ultimately different. Rick, whom I’d originally planned not to really use as a main character other than as Tara’s supporter, is now suddenly framed (for a crime I haven’t decided upon yet) and Tara’s gotten a lot more complex (and very different from the character I based her on!) and Edie has really grown and become interesting. Ben… well, we’ll have to deal with him, too; I’m not sure how to deal with rich kids in early 20th century America. I read Gatsby, and that’s all I’ve got on high society. Bah.
I’m so eager to write it, you see?
Well, in the meanwhile, I can probably talk some about the last weeks’ events — you haven’t heard much in the way of things from me for a while.
The Meeting of the Minds went off very well! My parents came in late Tuesday night and came over to the apartment early on Wednesday to help us pack up all of our crap in their minivan for transport to NY. We got rid of a LOT of stuff. In addition to that, we sold the mattress and bedframe on Tuesday (the 8th) and then the desk on Friday (the 11th), giving the living room (with the absence of the dining table, Papasian chair, etc.) a terrible, hollow feeling. But anyhoo. Back to Meeting of the Minds. We had lunch with the parents and came over to campus, did the registration thing, and then went up to my assigned room. Firstly, they had a computer and screen rigged up. Jen, one of the coordinators of the day, had told me that I could not — under a vehement “NO circumstances” — have a projector in the Peter Room. What complete bull. I was so furious! As a result I had to put my notes on top of the computer keyboard (how umcomfortable!) and I had to turn off the projector (at the request of this, the official time keeper guy was reluctant to turn it off and seemed really pissed off and incredulous that I couldn’t work with a bright screen aimed at my eyes). Finally, though, I got that worked out and managed to present without shaking as terribly badly as I had been at the CAS. I was actually really getting into it in a way I really hadn’t been able to at the CAS — maybe it was the presence of my friends and family? — and I think that really showed. At any rate I got some good questions afterward (which I fielded awkwardly! But decently, I suppose) and felt very… elated. Thrilled! To be done.
After that I bid goodbye to my parents then went to see all my friends’ presentations. They were terrific! What a great afternoon. People are so talented and passionate here at CMU — I’m going to miss that concentrated passion so much. We’re all nerds here at CMU because of that ferocious obsessive love of something we all have — be it writing, reading, 18th century something or other… it’s amazing.
Well, after the presentations, a bunch of us crowded into McConomy auditorium for the awards ceremony. What was kind of depressing about the day was the fact that about, well, 90% of the awards are for purely technical or scientific things. So we all sat through those awards generally moaning, “Sigh, why can’t we have more awards?” Until finally they announced the one Humanities/Arts award we’d all applied to. They split the award into two categories: creative projects and research-based projects — and I won one of the two research awards! (Two of my friends won the two creative awards!) I was elated and went home and emailed Peggy immediately, a crazy email of many exclamation points (you know me and over-punctuation by now) and she did something I had not expected — she forwarded that same email to the English faculty list. I got four emails from professors I’d had (and hadn’t; how odd!) saying “Congratulations! Sorry we missed it!” and then one of the professors, the coordinator for the English BA degree actually asked if I would speak at the English department graduation ceremony on Saturday and give a 2 minute speech on behalf of the EBAs. “WHAT?” I immediately emailed back, “Sure, I’d love to! What are the details?” but I haven’t yet heard back. What does one say in 2 minutes to one’s peers? How does one represent a degree? I gave the Salutatory address at my high school commencement, so I get how the whole deal works, I suppose, and I do have an entire week to actually come up with something, so it’s not quite time to freak out yet, but… Wow.
Anyway. Back to screenwriting! Bah.
