Finished for the year!

So we just wrapped up our first year at university. Never thought I’d be there! NEVER! Neither did Vasant- we feel so far from where we were when we tied the knot. When we got married we never knew we’d go back to school, even be looking at grad school, just three/four years later!

Our first quarter in the cinema program has been challenging and exciting. We’re learning to view films and film theory in a new way, and as a film maker and a film buff, it turns us on our head how much we don’t know. The width and depth of what’s available to us in film and story education is mind-boggling. It’s like seeing the ocean for the first time. 

Vasant got a great film internship with a production company in downtown Seattle. The guy has an office here and in LA, and he and Vasant are going to work together next year on film projects, film finance, coordinating festivals and festival submission and coordinating with all manner of production tasks. It’s an unpaid internship on the production task-side of things, but he’ll get paid for any video work he helps out on, which may be a lot. It’s very exciting. 

Christmas is upon us and we’ve got our tree up, our presents bought and I’m in the Christmas mood! It snowed this last weekend and more snow is on the way! My sister is flying out on Christmas Eve, we’re spending Christmas Eve Day with the Samudres, and Christmas Day with ourselves and later on, my family. With the snow on its way, it’s hard to feel out how quickly Christmas is arriving. It’s still a week and a half away, but it feels like it could be tomorrow.

 

The one on the left is ours, and the one on the right is my parent's.

 

 

Winter Quarter is starting January- Vasant will be doing the production internship part-time, and I’ll hopefully finish the book. We’re taking only one class on campus and two online to accomplish all of this. We’re excited for Christmas, but we’re even more excited for 2009. We’ll be in the apartment, taking more exciting classes, finishing my book and Vasant will be in a professional production company.

 

We’re healthy, we’re happy and we’ve got good prospects- and we may have snow ( a lot of snow) on Christmas. It’s shaping up to be a very happy holiday.

 

9 feet of Christmasy magic!

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At last, in our major(s)

I’m feeling really good about we are right now.  Granted the economy is in trouble and could very well screw our future, I’m just feeling confident and trusting I am doing exactly what I need to be doing is a great feeling.

So I shall spend the coming days watching and analyzing movies, learning about the history of cinema and reading literature from all over the world.  I’ve realized the importance of being “well rounded” when constructing any form of art, and hope only to learn more with opportunities to practice.

Here’s to a good school year, at last!

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Fall Quarter Begins

Our first week back in school has ended! And man, what a week. We’ve got a crazy busy quarter, but we’re finally in our Cinema Studies major, and while Creative Writing and Literature is awesome— beginning our film classes is incredible. Our first class is Film Theory: Analysis, a class identical to any literary analysis class you’d take, only it treats film as an art form. Our second class is Film History: 1895-1927. It’s taught by the chair of our department, Jennifer Bean, an acclaimed author and film preservationist. She’s already been amazing inspirational in just our first couple days with her in talking about the birth of cinema and how it changed the art world. 

Our final class is Masterpieces of Scandinavian Literature. Funny, that class has also made a couple people giggle. Seems Scandinavian looks like a really random choice for us, but honestly, Vasant and I want to take as many classes on literature from different cultures as possible. It’s gonna enrich the stories we tell. Our teacher is a visiting professor from Copenhagen. Very cool accent, and he’s a great storyteller. 

Unfortunately, our schedule has us gone all day, every day, Monday through Thursday. No lunch breaks on Monday and Wednesday either. But honestly, it’s so flippin’ worth it. Our film classes are incredible and it’s so exciting working with authors, filmmakers and innovators in film and the study and preservation of cinema. The UW has been alright up until now, but it’s finally feeling amazing, which is what we’ve been hoping and praying for. 

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Vasant and Dad are wiring the apartment and plumbing this next week! They’ll be done in two weeks and then sprinklers get put in, and beginning in November, we’re finally going to get sheet rock! It is finally looking like we’re going to get into the apartment, hopefully by Thanksgiving. Eeep!

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It’s fall. My favorite time of year. The leaves are burnishing red, gold and orange in the slowly changing weather. Starbucks is serving pumpkin flavored items. I’m listening to Thrice’s Water Index whenever it rains or I’m commuting over the 520 Bridge. If you know it, play “The Whaler” whenever you’re around storm chopped, silver water. Le sigh. 

I can’t wait for it to get colder, for the leaves to get brighter and the blue sky to get crisper. This is the most romantic time of year, and I’ve always considered it a season not just for arborial change, but for personal change as well. And the film classes hit that note. It’s a new season and a bright and cheery one at that. 

On that note, I’m gonna get back to homework.

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This September

So it’s the beginning of September. Vasant and I are still in one class, in between quarter’s and Vasant is working hard with my Dad on the construction project. We just celebrated our three year anniversary this last month. Vasant took me to go see Guiseppe Verdi’s Aida, a famous Italian opera. It was only my second experience with live opera and his very first. We both were FLOORED by the performance and Vasant wants us to be dedicated opera patrons from now on. Next opera is in October, Strauss’ Electra (the vengeful daughter of Agamemnon, not the ridiculous comic book character). We’re hoping to make it. 

Summer quarter just ended and, aside from building, we’re going to spend all this next month working on stories and scripts. We have a lot to get through before our fall quarter starts, because when it does, our creative projects have to be put to the side again. The good news is, for those I haven’t told, senior year, our schooling is going to provide 100% funding for our independent film, script revision process and the revision process for my novel. Yay for being Husky Promise students!!!    

On that note, let me just say how happy I am to be in school later in life. As a student married to another student, we receive almost 100% of our school costs from the school and the state. If I’d gone earlier in life, when I was a dependent of my parents, I would’ve had to take out a ton of loans for tuition and books. Not to mention, I didn’t know back then what I wanted out of life. Now that I know, Vasant and I get our dream projects mentored and refined by incredible writers and cinephiles and then get the money to produce our film. None of this would’ve been possible or even imaginable had Vasant and I done the respectable thing of going to college when we were “supposed” to.

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