Let me see you run it, run it

Another weekly update on my running adventures...

I had a film at the Estes Park Film Festival on Friday so we drove up there in the afternoon; obviously, I had to have a celebratory beer...and popcorn...and chocolate. Oops. Oh well, I'll count that as my weekend cheat day since the rest of this weekend will be crazy busy and I probably won't go out anymore.

That all being said, I set my alarm for 8:30am and went to run at the gym this morning. I thought I would switch it up a bit since realizing that at 4.5 mph, it would take me almost as long to run a 5K as it would for me to walk it. So today, I ran the first mile at 5mph and then lowered to 4.5mph for the second mile. I was definitely a lot more winded after this run and was tired and ready to stop. Overall, I went about 2.50 miles in 35 minutes and 30 seconds.

So much work to do already and it's only the second week of school! I'm still trying to decide if I want to go to the Awards ceremony at Estes Park tomorrow... I have to get up and shoot for my Experimental class. Finished my thesis footage logging. Prepare for my lectures this week. ACK! What am I doing on the computer?!

*runs away*

What can you get for $40,000 a year?

The answer? NOTHING. Both institutions of higher education that I attended had a yearly tuition of over $40,000. Both small, private schools. Both refer to themselves as "The Harvard of the Midwest/West". But yet, it still baffles me that for all the money they're taking in, the people in charge still can't get their shit together!

At DePauw, dealing with housing or the registrar's office was like a personal day in Hell. Nobody knew anything. You got transferred from person to person. And in the end, you usually ended up with no answer and the option of paying for a solution.

Let me tell you about my latest issues here at Denver. I am a graduate student and as such, every professor and adviser has told me that graduate classes don't usually fill up since we have to take certain ones each quarter. LIES. Registration started on Monday at 6:20pm. I registered for my classes at 6:30pm. The classes I need to take were both open, I selected them and BAM. Done. Except for the fact that the Documentary class had a hold on it, saying "prerequisite and test score error." Whatever the fuck that meant.

Long story short, many emails and 24 hours later, I was finally able to surpass the hold. Unfortunately, at that point, the class was full and closed to registration. When I emailed the professor, explaining the situation, she told me that she would have to ask the other professor if it was okay to let me in. ARE YOU FUCKING ME!? I would have easily been in that class if not for the university's stupid errors. And now you're telling me that I may not get into the class at all because of NO ERROR ON MY PART!?

This department better hope they decide to let me in the class. If not, Hurricane Keri is hitting the building and there will be no survivors.

At Last

Finally, the day that I thought would never come, would always be just out of reach, has arrived and gone. Today was the busiest day I've had in weeks, and the most social interaction I've had since I've been here. First, there was my GTA meeting, where we talked about how to interact with undergrads (it's not like its hard)and what is expected of us as TAs. I'm not really concerned. My TA prof seems pretty chill and willing to let me do whatever I want. The only think that sucks is for three years I perfected my editing in Vegas, and now I have to relearn EVERYTHING in FCP. I knew it would catch up me to one day, but...I just don't want to do it! Ugh.

Then, after lunch with the Department Chair, we had Orientation with the new MFJS grad students. There are only 14 or so, and only 4 of them are Video concentrations like me. Small crowd. I thought people would be more mature in grad school, but some things are so reminiscent of DePauw that I want to vomit. Preppy, fratty, rich, douschebag boys who only want to talk about beer and partying and who sit near the 2 in round girls with too much make-up caked on and daddy's money in her Gucci bag. But whatever. There are a few cool people that I plan to associate myself with. I honestly think I'll be too busy to get too chummy anyways.

I know this sounds cliche, but I don't know if I'm smart enough for this program. She kept commenting on how here, we are all the top 10% of the class, with straight A's. And then, on top of that, as a TA, I am the cream of the crop. That's not true at all! There was no way I was top 10 %. And honestly, I got half B's and half A's. And to keep my TA position, I have to keep a 3.5 GPA. 3.5!? And especially only taking two classes (Mass Comm Theory & Scriptwriting), that does not leave much room to slip up.

Damn. I just hope it's not TOO hard. I don't want to be so overwhelmed that it's not even fun anymore. Someone pray for that.

It's been a long, stressful day. I feel no shame going to bed at 11pm tonight. I could really use my friends right about now. It sucks when the person you want to be able to make you feel better, can't.

I whine too much on here. I'm hoping I start classes and they kick so much ass so that I come on here to write about how much I love them. (Please please please).

Cheers.