I'm emptying most of my stuff from my apartment today. I tried to clean and pack some of it up last night, but looking around my room right now, it's pretty clear I didn't make any progress whatsoever. I think it might have been the fact that I started watching Arrested Development last night on my computer, thinking I could pack and watch at the same time. But then I ended up just watching without actually packing anything.
There was a pretty amazing storm last night with some nonstop lightning. Too bad I couldn't enjoy it fully since I was too busy watching Arrested Development.
I caught the season finale of Lost, too. It's really interesting, now that I've had even just a tiny bit of experience in shooting a film, to analyze camera angles, movements, and focusing. I never realized just how important all that was. Even with great acting, a show would be awful without some really good camera work. For instance, shooting over someone's shoulder really tightens up a dialogue scene. Cutting to different people's facial expressions during periods of silence is good, too. If only I had a film crew to do all this stuff for me. Dang it, I knew I should have applied to Hollywood School of Medicine. I probably would have been waitlisted, though, for shoddy camerawork.
Saturday, May 31, 2008
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Behind the Scenes
I should just anticipate from now on that any video-related project will take 10 times longer to complete than I think it will. I started editing my music video from scratch last night after I discovered that the file sizes were causing the computer in the IT building to crash after a certain point. So now I'm going through the raw footage again to recut everything and save them as smaller files. My first set of files ranged from about 10 to 60 Mbs each, so this time I'm going to compress them from 4 to 15 Mbs, and hopefully that should solve my issues. If not, I think this video is cursed and just isn't meant to be.
Tonight, we filmed one of the videos we're going to show during the first-year orientation next semester. It took us a couple of hours to film this clip that's going to be about five minutes long. It would have been so much easier if we could have just gotten another videocamera for different angles. I know the acting can be hard, but I discovered just how exhausting it is to direct and work a camera for two hours nonstop. I don't even want to think about how long editing is going to take. Hopefully I'll be able to get a couple of people to edit with me so they can continue doing it after I go abroad, since I kind of doubt I'd be able to finish editing three videos in the next week. I wish I could interface my brain with a computer and have the videos done just the way I picture them in my head in about 15 seconds. I think these clips are going to come together nicely, though, and everyone did a great job acting.
Tonight, we filmed one of the videos we're going to show during the first-year orientation next semester. It took us a couple of hours to film this clip that's going to be about five minutes long. It would have been so much easier if we could have just gotten another videocamera for different angles. I know the acting can be hard, but I discovered just how exhausting it is to direct and work a camera for two hours nonstop. I don't even want to think about how long editing is going to take. Hopefully I'll be able to get a couple of people to edit with me so they can continue doing it after I go abroad, since I kind of doubt I'd be able to finish editing three videos in the next week. I wish I could interface my brain with a computer and have the videos done just the way I picture them in my head in about 15 seconds. I think these clips are going to come together nicely, though, and everyone did a great job acting.
Monday, May 26, 2008
Not Enough Time
I leave for Kenya on Saturday, June 7th, and return to the states on August 8th, the Friday before classes start. The return date isn't what I would call ideal, but it does give us an extra week in Kenya to do whatever we want, it seems. However, with that tiny bit of time before the first week of class, I'll need to move into my new apartment, work on MS1WK1 stuff, get readjusted with the jetlag, and who knows what else since there's gotta be lots of things waiting for you to do after you leave the country for nine weeks. I can't believe I'm leaving in less than two weeks. I'm really looking forward to the trip, but there's still so much I want to get done before I go. And once I'm gone, I know the first thing awaiting my return is classes, so leaving will feel like I'm one step closer to losing my freedom. All the more reasons to enjoy the freedom I have now. But why I do I feel so tied down?
Life Scripted
I just got done with my first three hours of substantial video editing for MD. Thankfully the IT building is open 24 hours a day, including holidays, apparently. I had been there a couple weeks ago to play around with the equipment and see what was available in the multimedia rooms, and I've spent many hours at home cutting raw footage into segments, but tonight was my first time putting the pieces together into one video. I must sound like a giant loser right now. I'm still learning all the quirks of the PC in the multimedia room, but it's still infinitely faster than what I own. There are also a couple of multimedia Macs in the IT lab, and this is one of the first times I've seriously wished I were more familiar with using Macs. There's more user friendly software on them, I think, but I figure with the time it would take me to get used to using the Mac, I'd be done with my video. Another few hours in the lab and I should have a rough, presentable video, but I'm still missing several scenes. Actually, it turns out it's a good thing I haven't finished filming yet, since I've noticed a few scenes that I need to reshoot or can cover up with what I have yet to shoot. I'm going to try to finish shooting everything this week and hopefully have the video entirely done by next weekend. I expect that'll I'll be doing more film editing for a couple of upcoming MSI orientation videos, so I'll try to keep my projects from overlapping too much.
I got almost halfway through with the video tonight, but as I was importing one of the final clips of the night, Adobe Premiere gave me a low memory warning. I'm hoping this doesn't mean the demise of my ability to edit the rest of my video, since I clearly still have many more clips to import. I'm really happy with the way it's turning out so far, even though the video looks like it could have been put together by a five-year-old. Sure, I wish I had shot some scenes differently, with different angles, different lighting, different zoom, whatever, but there's so much to like about the video that I can overlook its faults. Whenever I watch these scenes, I'm reminded of how much fun it was to shoot each of them and how great it was that whoever was in the scene volunteered to be in it. And for the people who honestly had trouble in front of the camera, I'm trying to make them look as good as possible through clever editing. It's the least I can do for them for agreeing to take part in this insane project.
As for the MSI orientation videos I mentioned earlier, those are still in the scripting and casting stages. One video will be educational, and another will be downright useless but fun. The educational one will be fun, too, but educational fun could never beat useless fun. It's like comparing Number Munchers to Grand Theft Auto. Number Munchers could be just as fun as GTA, but it's adulterated with intelligence and doesn't have enough explosions. Of course, I finished the script for the useless video first, and I'm still working on the educational one. Both are parodies of TV shows since I'm clearly not capable of crafting original, creative works from scratch. I've never written a script like these before. The closest I've come was when my friends and I filmed "MacBeth Meets His MacDeath" in 11th grade, but that involved plagiarizing Billy Shakespeare. I think I would enjoy being a scriptwriter in another life. I don't mind putting words in people's mouths and making them do my bidding. Mwahahaha.
I got almost halfway through with the video tonight, but as I was importing one of the final clips of the night, Adobe Premiere gave me a low memory warning. I'm hoping this doesn't mean the demise of my ability to edit the rest of my video, since I clearly still have many more clips to import. I'm really happy with the way it's turning out so far, even though the video looks like it could have been put together by a five-year-old. Sure, I wish I had shot some scenes differently, with different angles, different lighting, different zoom, whatever, but there's so much to like about the video that I can overlook its faults. Whenever I watch these scenes, I'm reminded of how much fun it was to shoot each of them and how great it was that whoever was in the scene volunteered to be in it. And for the people who honestly had trouble in front of the camera, I'm trying to make them look as good as possible through clever editing. It's the least I can do for them for agreeing to take part in this insane project.
As for the MSI orientation videos I mentioned earlier, those are still in the scripting and casting stages. One video will be educational, and another will be downright useless but fun. The educational one will be fun, too, but educational fun could never beat useless fun. It's like comparing Number Munchers to Grand Theft Auto. Number Munchers could be just as fun as GTA, but it's adulterated with intelligence and doesn't have enough explosions. Of course, I finished the script for the useless video first, and I'm still working on the educational one. Both are parodies of TV shows since I'm clearly not capable of crafting original, creative works from scratch. I've never written a script like these before. The closest I've come was when my friends and I filmed "MacBeth Meets His MacDeath" in 11th grade, but that involved plagiarizing Billy Shakespeare. I think I would enjoy being a scriptwriter in another life. I don't mind putting words in people's mouths and making them do my bidding. Mwahahaha.
Monday, May 19, 2008
Catch My Disease
Being sick right now is more miserable than any day of studying this past year. I made it through a full day of work and meetings thanks to a bunch of pills. I probably shouldn't have gone in to work in the first place, but I would have been far more miserable sitting at home doing nothing. I should have known better than to expose everyone else to whatever I have, though. I'm a terrible person when I'm sick.
It first got bad yesterday. I started feeling a little sick last Thursday, and I don't think playing redneck golf in the rain and Mario Kart Wii until 3 am on Sunday morning helped much (great fun, though, Steve, thanks!). During the day on Sunday, I helped my brother install drywall in our dining room ceiling, and I put together an old bunkbed so that my brother and I have somewhere to sleep when we're both at home. The bed still has a bunch of "I've been Krogering" and dinosaur stickers from my youth stuck on it. Anyway, that physical labor pretty much killed me, and I felt like poo when I went to sleep last night. I wish I could diagnose myself. I still get the cold and flu confused. All I know is that the Cocksackie viruses are transmitted via the fecal-oral route primarily in the summertime, and norovirus causes explosive diarrhea. Too bad I have neither.
My dad just called me to see if I'm still sick. I love how my parents still tell me to put on a jacket when it's cold out as if it's some amazing revelation. And by love, I mean hate. It's like I'm trying my hardest to catch a cold. Man, if only people would wear jackets more frequently, no one would ever get sick. Jackets would put doctors out of business.
I think I have yellow fever.
It first got bad yesterday. I started feeling a little sick last Thursday, and I don't think playing redneck golf in the rain and Mario Kart Wii until 3 am on Sunday morning helped much (great fun, though, Steve, thanks!). During the day on Sunday, I helped my brother install drywall in our dining room ceiling, and I put together an old bunkbed so that my brother and I have somewhere to sleep when we're both at home. The bed still has a bunch of "I've been Krogering" and dinosaur stickers from my youth stuck on it. Anyway, that physical labor pretty much killed me, and I felt like poo when I went to sleep last night. I wish I could diagnose myself. I still get the cold and flu confused. All I know is that the Cocksackie viruses are transmitted via the fecal-oral route primarily in the summertime, and norovirus causes explosive diarrhea. Too bad I have neither.
My dad just called me to see if I'm still sick. I love how my parents still tell me to put on a jacket when it's cold out as if it's some amazing revelation. And by love, I mean hate. It's like I'm trying my hardest to catch a cold. Man, if only people would wear jackets more frequently, no one would ever get sick. Jackets would put doctors out of business.
I think I have yellow fever.
Thursday, May 15, 2008
Kenya Krash Kourse
We had our Kenya orientation today. There are four of us in the Slemenda Scholars program, where we serve as ambassadors of sorts between Indiana University and Moi University in Kenya. The other students in the program are pretty cool. Our orientation wasn't quite what I expected, though. Most programs don't let you choose whatever travel dates you want and how much time you want to spend in the field. It's nice to have that kind of flexibility, but we almost felt like we weren't given enough guidelines and restrictions. I guess my mentality was that the program directors know about the program, whereas we don't, so they should have had more details in place for us by this point (e.g. travel dates).
We tried to use that flexibility to our advantage, though, since they originally proposed June 15th for our departure. The four of us spent some time deliberating on how to fit an extra week into schedule without disrupting the flow of the program, so we can travel, climb Mt. Kilimanjaro, go on a safari, etc. We could have gone a week early and traveled during that week, but we any attempt to climb a mountain that early without acclimatizing would have killed us. We could have stayed a week later, but then that would put us extremely close to the start of school, and it'd be beneficial to have some time to unwind, readjust to jetlag, etc. Luckily, I was in the presence of smart people, and Andrew suggested that we go a week early, start our program a week early, and travel a few weeks into our stay at a natural break point in the program. So that's what we decided on. I imagine we'll come back with about a week to spare before classes start, so that should work out pretty well and give us a full eight weeks in Kenya. [Edit: We're getting a full nine weeks! See entry on 5-26.]
During our orientation, we watched a video (which I had seen a couple times before, unfortunately, but it's a great video) about the IU-Kenya AMPATH (Academic Model for the Prevention and Treatment of HIV/AIDS) program. We also did a couple of educational activities, went through the typical precautions and expectations runthrough, and got our vaccinations. All this time I had thought that I would need to arrange my own shots through my doctor, so this was a relief. Yeah, I've never been so happy to get shots. We got four today: HepA, polio, meningitis, and yellow fever. The doctor was just waiting for us with all his needles lined up. It was a good bonding experience for us. We also got oral typhoid fever vaccine, which is supposed to be kept refrigerated. But because we got our vaccinations and then sat through another few hours of orientation, the typhoid vaccine also sat out for a bit. Here's to hoping there's still some residual immunogenicity. Ron, the IU-Kenya program manager, said that we got about $850 worth of vaccines today. It turns out yellow fever is a pretty big deal, since we got "yellow cards" that show our date of vaccination, which are necessary for travel into the country.
As for what we'll be doing in Kenya, I'm still not 100% sure. What I know is that the COBES (Community Outreach Based Education and Service) program that goes on every year was pushed back about a month due to the post-election violence earlier this year. Because of that violence, Kenyans and the AMPATH program are still recovering and rebuilding. When we first get to Kenya, we'll travel from Nairobi to Eldoret, which is where Moi University and the IU House are located. The four of us will rotate through to see different aspects of the AMPATH program for about two weeks. Then, per our own plans, we'll take a week "off" to do whatever. When we come back, we'll start COBES, assuming classes procede as scheduled. This entails a week or two of classes which are historically boring to us foreigners. I don't say that to be disrespectful, but it's just the truth from every first-hand source I've asked. It's just the nature of the class, since the teacher is teaching what we learned as MSIs as well as some things that don't pertain too much to us, like how to build a well. On top of that, Kenyans are soft-spoken, so traveling students couldn't hear much anyway. Our participation in the class is to help integrate us with the other Kenyan students, to experience their educational system, and so that when we go into the field with them later, they know who we are. After the classes, we will be integrated into community groups with the Kenyans and live in a remote site for a few weeks. What we do there I'm not entirely sure, but I think it involves learning about and helping the local community with healthcare projects and otherwise. I must sound awful not knowing that much about what I'm doing in Kenya. I don't mean to sound like I don't care or anything, but there really are a lot of questions we won't have answered until we step foot in Kenya. To loosely quote one of the partnership founders, the Slemenda program has always always been really flexible, but this will be its most "fluid" year ever, mostly because of what happened this year. Good thing I work all right with or without a schedule. Besides, it's summertime. Summers and schedules don't get along very well, anyway.
We tried to use that flexibility to our advantage, though, since they originally proposed June 15th for our departure. The four of us spent some time deliberating on how to fit an extra week into schedule without disrupting the flow of the program, so we can travel, climb Mt. Kilimanjaro, go on a safari, etc. We could have gone a week early and traveled during that week, but we any attempt to climb a mountain that early without acclimatizing would have killed us. We could have stayed a week later, but then that would put us extremely close to the start of school, and it'd be beneficial to have some time to unwind, readjust to jetlag, etc. Luckily, I was in the presence of smart people, and Andrew suggested that we go a week early, start our program a week early, and travel a few weeks into our stay at a natural break point in the program. So that's what we decided on. I imagine we'll come back with about a week to spare before classes start, so that should work out pretty well and give us a full eight weeks in Kenya. [Edit: We're getting a full nine weeks! See entry on 5-26.]
During our orientation, we watched a video (which I had seen a couple times before, unfortunately, but it's a great video) about the IU-Kenya AMPATH (Academic Model for the Prevention and Treatment of HIV/AIDS) program. We also did a couple of educational activities, went through the typical precautions and expectations runthrough, and got our vaccinations. All this time I had thought that I would need to arrange my own shots through my doctor, so this was a relief. Yeah, I've never been so happy to get shots. We got four today: HepA, polio, meningitis, and yellow fever. The doctor was just waiting for us with all his needles lined up. It was a good bonding experience for us. We also got oral typhoid fever vaccine, which is supposed to be kept refrigerated. But because we got our vaccinations and then sat through another few hours of orientation, the typhoid vaccine also sat out for a bit. Here's to hoping there's still some residual immunogenicity. Ron, the IU-Kenya program manager, said that we got about $850 worth of vaccines today. It turns out yellow fever is a pretty big deal, since we got "yellow cards" that show our date of vaccination, which are necessary for travel into the country.
As for what we'll be doing in Kenya, I'm still not 100% sure. What I know is that the COBES (Community Outreach Based Education and Service) program that goes on every year was pushed back about a month due to the post-election violence earlier this year. Because of that violence, Kenyans and the AMPATH program are still recovering and rebuilding. When we first get to Kenya, we'll travel from Nairobi to Eldoret, which is where Moi University and the IU House are located. The four of us will rotate through to see different aspects of the AMPATH program for about two weeks. Then, per our own plans, we'll take a week "off" to do whatever. When we come back, we'll start COBES, assuming classes procede as scheduled. This entails a week or two of classes which are historically boring to us foreigners. I don't say that to be disrespectful, but it's just the truth from every first-hand source I've asked. It's just the nature of the class, since the teacher is teaching what we learned as MSIs as well as some things that don't pertain too much to us, like how to build a well. On top of that, Kenyans are soft-spoken, so traveling students couldn't hear much anyway. Our participation in the class is to help integrate us with the other Kenyan students, to experience their educational system, and so that when we go into the field with them later, they know who we are. After the classes, we will be integrated into community groups with the Kenyans and live in a remote site for a few weeks. What we do there I'm not entirely sure, but I think it involves learning about and helping the local community with healthcare projects and otherwise. I must sound awful not knowing that much about what I'm doing in Kenya. I don't mean to sound like I don't care or anything, but there really are a lot of questions we won't have answered until we step foot in Kenya. To loosely quote one of the partnership founders, the Slemenda program has always always been really flexible, but this will be its most "fluid" year ever, mostly because of what happened this year. Good thing I work all right with or without a schedule. Besides, it's summertime. Summers and schedules don't get along very well, anyway.
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