Grad School Interviews = Self Esteem

Wow, I always wait a while between posts. I guess that's why I don't have a consistent following. Well, those of you who read can be satisfied, everyone else will miss out.

The last couple of weeks have been absolutely amazing (no, I am still single). I went to a thing called U/RTA. There are a few dozen grad schools that are members of this program. I got to go set up a portfolio and display in Chicago a couple of weekends ago. When I and the other nearly 60 candidates for lighting, costume, and set design were done we all had to leave and the grad school representatives had a few hours to look at all the displays and information we had each left on our tables and decide if they wanted an interview. Before this I really didn't know how I would compare to other undergrad students. Most of the candidates ended up with 6 to 12 call backs from schools. I had 21. Of those I was scheduled for 18 interviews. It was a crazy interview process, very similar to speed dating. We were given schedules at 3pm, then went back to our stations where the interviews began at 3:30. They were each 15 minutes long, one right after the other. It all blurred together, good thing I took a lot of notes. I had one long break near the end, but then at 9:15pm the last 2 of us that were interviewing left the room. It was amazing to have so many schools trying to talk up their programs. Most of the interview time was the school representative trying to convince me to go to their school. Every school gives a full tuition waiver and an assistantship stipend of between $5,000 and $17,000 a year. Schools can start making official offers to me on the 18th. Most of the schools only accept one or two new students a year. It is very competitive. One of the most amazing things was when I realized during the interviews that some of the reps knew they weren't going to get me and they were just giving their speech in a vain hope that they could get me. I was probably in the top 4 lighting designers at the conference. I owe Aimee big time for all the help putting my portfolio together.

Today I met with the Lighting Designer from Tennessee. He is currently designing A Mid Summer Night's Dream at Pioneer Theatre. I talked with him over lunch today and am really interested in his program. He only accepts two students every other year, but often takes his students to jobs oversees. I imagine that would be an incredible opportunity. I am meeting with him tomorrow to show my portfolio. He is very selective, but a great guy.

I talked with Peter tonight, as my lighting design professor he is one of my references for grad school. One of the schools I interviewed with was Southern Methodist University. They only accept one student a year and are one of the most prestigious theatre schools in the nation. He called Peter to ask about me. He said that they had narrowed it down to two candidates and I am one of them. That really improves my self image and hope of a future.

I leave next Wednesday for my first ever visit to NYC. I will interview with NYU, Yale, and the University of Connecticut while I am there. I will probably get to see Rent, as one of my friends is the house electrician at the theatre where it is playing.

I may be going to Connecticut for an interview with CCM. We will see.

Other than that stuff I have a blind date coming up this weekend due to a very diligent friend that thinks I am too good to be single. I am going to give it my all, even though I am really bad at dates. We are hoping there is enough snow so we can make a big snowman. I have another date on the 8th due to a diligent cousin's wife.

I am in Queen Creek, AZ

So I am in a little place called Queen Creek, Arizona, a little south and east of Mesa. I am hanging with my good friends Alan and Tiffany Haynie. They are having a baby in 2 days and they are so excited and crazy that I don't think they know what to do. It is really fun to be involved in all of this. They are treating me like family. They are in a new home and trying to get it ready. We have hung ceiling fans, pictures, wired the surround sound (most important in my book), painting has been done, and just tried to have a good time. It is crazy how warm it is here. I spent all day yesterday in shorts. It is so nice (sorry Aimee, I am sure that gives you some longing).

 
One of the first days we went shooting. In this picture you see, from left to right, me, Alan Haynie, Scott, Ryan Haynie, and Tiffany Haynie (and in her belly McKenna Haynie). We had a lot of guns. My Springfield XD .40 pistol and Mossberg .22 rifle, Alan's Sig 226 pistol, Sig p229 pistol, Sig p239 pistol, Sig 232 pistol, Sig Mosquito .22 Pistol, JC Higgins 12 gauge 22 inch shotgun, and 9mm High Point Carbine Assault Rifle, Scott's Sig p229r dak pistol, and Mike's High Standard Sportking 22 long rifle competition pistol. We had a great time. We took all kinds of targets. One of the favorites was a couple bags of grapefruits that we pulled off of some trees in Gilbert. But the most amazing was some old textbooks I brought down just for this purpose. I figured it would be rewarding to expend some school stress through shooting books, but I had no idea how rewarding it would be. After putting a few dozen rounds through a couple of the books we threw one of them in the air and I nailed it with a shotgun. It turned into the most amazing display of confetti I had ever seen. The pieces hung in the air forever. We missed taking a picture of that one, but I have a picture of the next attempt, not as good though.

 
Alan is a Deputy Sheriff with Maricopa County. He let me try on his uniform, body armor and all. Don't you think it looks good on me. If the whole lighting design thing doesn't work out at least I know how I look in police garb. I even got to wear his utility belt with tazer, pepper spray, gun, extra clips, baton, handcuffs, flashlight, and the key to the traffic lights. Aren't I sexy.

My crazy dream last night

So here it goes, this is really weird, but with me I guess that is no surprise:

I am on a long road trip by bus. There are 3 other people, though I don't remember who they are. We are on our way back from somewhere and are passing near Phoenix. I want to stop at my friend Alan's house, but don't know how to do it without missing the bus. I decide to get off anyway, but nobody is home. I go to a neighboring store, and start shopping, but they are on their last day of a going out of business sale. I remember looking at some hats, but I can't remember what else. Somehow I end up with the building and start planning a major remodel to make it into some kind of other store.

Next thing I know I am in rural Korea living in a polygamist community. We are setting up props and things for some kind of religious film we are going to make. Mostly we are placing electric candles in a circle on the ground and wiring them together. I spent a chuck of this time trying to discover why some of them aren't working. I also placed a candle on a stand by a Book of Mormon and try to adjust a nearby Bible. There is another man who is a leader of the sect. I am the only other man, there are a lot of women.In the middle of testing the candles in the large circle, myself and a few women decide to leave the group. We run off into the countryside. The man leading the group gets furious. They burn a couple of the women for betrayal. In the dream it felt normal, like they knew it was coming. We begin having doubts and decide to return and face a similar fate. We are standing outside the rickety old house waiting for one of the other women to inform the leader that we have returned. I am hoping for an immediate sacrifice so that it will just be over quickly. It is Monday. The leader comes out and informs me that my sacrifice will take place on Friday or Saturday. I am anxious and don't want to wait that long.

The next thing I know I am in a different part of Korea, I am no longer the man at the polygamist community, I am just observing things somewhere else. There are 3 Americans flying a military helicopter. They are shooting at some Korean soldiers who are returning fire from some trenches. A Korean man with a large gun gets the gunner in the back of the helicopter, then nails the pilot. The helicopter comes down for a rough landing, but in tact. I watch as the Korean rushes toward the helicopter and shoots the last American as he escapes from the helicopter and runs for it. The Korean jumps into the helicopter and begins trying to take off. He shoves his sock down his pants for energy. He gets the helicopter airborne and is attempting to return to base. It is incredibly difficult to fly. Without noticing anything weird, the helicopter just kind of changes into a suite. I experience a lot of this flying in the first person. We end up in a large city. I can't get the helicopter very high, in fact I keep having to jump off the ground and narrowly missing walls and poles.

Now I am the polygamist again. I meet the Korean, who I don't yet know, in an ally. We get acquainted. He asks for a sock so he can get more energy. I give him mine, but it is kind of wet. Turns out to be a good thing, because the grosser the sock the more energy. He flies off over the wall and I return to the polygamist house where I am still awaiting my punishment. I am pretty much on house arrest now. The Korean, who is now identified as Lee, his wife, and four daughters come to the house to visit me. I think they know they aren't supposed to be there, but they try anyway. One of the women answers the door. Lee and his family are sitting on a couple of couches in a lobby like room outside the house. The woman tells the leader that they are here to see me. They decide that I am not to have any visitors. They don't tell me that Lee has come, and they tell Lee and his family that I am busy and can't be seen right now. They just stay there on the couches waiting. Night comes, and they all just lay down and sleep. The next day we go to a large indoor competition event. There is something similar to a crazy river on steroids going around this room that is roughly the size of a stadium. Lee and his family have snuck in. For some reason the polygamist leader can't kick them out. I hear one of the women try to whisper something about them to the leader, and realize they are there to see me, so I begin looking around. Lee is in the river just cruising along. He has a head on collision with someone coming down a slide, you can tell it hurt. Then there is this sporting event with 2 men on inter tubes suspended 10-20 feet off the floor with these paddles in their hands that score points every time they hit each other. Suddenly I am one of the men on the inter tubes. We are swing around hitting each other when suddenly Lee comes swinging in and dominating the game, he swings high and fast and just comes in for a quick hit. He jumps on my inter tube with me and we team up to defeat the opponent.

Just about this time I wake up. I never did get to be sacrificed. I guess I will have to wait until another dream about crazy polygamists. So, if you made it all of the way through this give me your opinion on if I should make a separate blog about my dreams, I do get a lot of them.

Timmy Made Me Do It!

So, I thought that blogging once a month would suffice, but apparently Tim has different ideas for me. The lucky bugger (I shouldn't really use that word) has a kid due in a month. Imagine a little Timmy running around. That thought makes me smile.

I took my last final this morning. It may be the last final of my undergrad. YEAH! So, for the rest of you whom I have not bragged too, I have one easy semester left of my bachelor's degree. And by easy I mean that I have already earned 5 of the credits, I will get 3 for assisting Peter, 3 for a 6 day backpacking trip, and 2 for a weekend cooking camping trip. I am excited to be done, but I am sadistic enough to be trying for grad school. I think I have already talked about that stress. If anyone has any good ideas on how to start a personal mission statement please let me know.

Cassie and I went out on the 7th and took some sweet pictures of the new snow. We started around midnight. Because of all the city light reflecting off of the overcast skies, and because of the long exposure time, some of the pictures look like they were taken in the middle of the day. It was a peaceful night. Cassie and I hadn't been able to spend much time together since she moved out. It was a relaxing way to spend the night, even though I had to be up early the next day.




My sister gets married in a few days, how crazy. The only single ones left in the family will be me and Austin, who is currently serving a mission. Wow, as I was typing that the realization hit me, how sad I am. One of my coworkers is trying her hardest to set me up, but I just don't know about dating. I am a little more confident lately. I really need to get to know someone first, I haven't done that yet. With all the time I won't be spending in school maybe the next few months will be great for me.

Well, it is late. I hope I have partially satisfied your needs, Timmy. Good night.

Where Has It All Gone?

So, where has my life been? Good question. Since my last post I have teched and designed The Diary of Anne Frank, The Winter's Tale, turned in my U/RTA application, and tried not to let school drive me crazy.

Anne Frank went incredibly well. The move to Kingsbury Hall for the 3 extra performances was quite well. It was incredibly stressful as I had to nearly redesign the show in 2 days. It was certainly a learning experience. I got along really well with the director. I feel like I adequately contributed to the look of the show. It was incredibly stressful in another way, however, as I was trying to prepare for The Winter's Tale at the same time, and I was trying to complete homework for my History of Theatre class. I ended up turning in a paper proposal late. That class is going to be the death of me.


After Anne Frank I got a very short break, then it was off to tech for The Winter's Tale. This show had a very unique set of challenges for me. The set design was almost curtains. This wouldn't be as bad except that part of the way through the show they were swagged up to the ceiling and cut off most of my grid positions from any effectiveness. I basically ended up lighting the show from booms on the sides. It certainly created a lot of looks I wasn't used to. Another challenge was that the floor was painted very pale and had a tendency to really reflect light and fight my design. I ended up satisfied with this show, but it was quite a process trying to get there. During the tech process we started having more and more problems with the director. He seems to have an uncontrolled temper. He never used it against me, but I would get incredibly irritated when he would irrationally yell at the stage manager and sound designer, both of which are good friends to me. I wish I had stood up to him more. He was an incredibly irrational man to argue with when he was mad. It got to a point where we were counting down the days until he was back in New York. Every year the department does a show with a guest director hired by the Pioneer Theatre Company. This year's director was certainly not our favorite.

So now my big stress is getting into grad school. I am incredibly scared and overwhelmed by the prospects. I have turned in my U/RTA application. It is a grad school interview thing where I go and set up a portfolio and dozens of schools look at it. If any are interested I later get an interview with them. I have a lot of work to do to get my portfolio ready. I have done so little. My 3 top choice schools don't go to U/RTA. They are NYU, Yale, and UCSD. I need to complete my applications for these schools, then I will be traveling to NYC and SD sometime in February to go interview with them. Such a scary prospect.

I guess one of the reasons my stress is so high is because I have done so little outside of school and shows. I haven't played ultimate frisbee in weeks. It is getting too cold now, so the games have all stopped. It hasn't snowed enough to go skiing either. I am determined to make it out this winter. Katrina and I have decided we are going to go as soon as there is enough snow.


In the meanwhile the little relief I have had is from going shooting. I have been able to take a couple of people for their first time, and I am quite impressed at how well they shoot. I have, however been disappointed in my own progress. My aim is quite poor. I currently own a Springfield XD.40, I also bought a Mossberg .22 rifle at Cabela's yesterday, they were having a sale. I went with Ryan, Chad, and my dad out to a field in Cove Fort yesterday where we put some good use to my guns, along with a 30-30 rifle, 2 more .22 rifles, a sweet .45 rifle owned by Chad, 2 12-gauge shotguns, and a .22 pistol. We had several leftover pumpkins as targets, it was a great time, though I did worse at the trap shooting then usual. It was cold, especially when the wind kicked up, but it was well worth it.

So much has happened, apparently I need to update my blog more often. Keep reminding me.