Things are starting to pick up speed.
Summer is over. Classes have begun. And I still need a nap.
I find myself perplexed by my answer to everyone’s question: “So what did you do this summer?” my answer usually being, “Nothing.”
While it did feel like another summer wasted working and not enjoying it, I did actually have some times where I did some fun stuff with some really great people. It seems like I’m downplaying those memories because I didn’t take a vacation or didn’t sleep my summer away or something like that.
I guess long story short, after reading this, I just need to stop comparing my summer to everyone else’s.
Yes, some people relaxed all summer. Yes, some people went to Disneyland. Yes, some people went on a cruise. Yes, some people relaxed while they went on a cruise to Disneyland.
But it doesn't matter. Yes, those things can all be fun and worthwhile, but who's to say that just because I didn't do any of those things that I didn't have a good summer?
Sure, I got up early everyday and worked on my feet until late at night, but that doesn't mean my summer was wasted away working.
I made several memories with the few people I did have around me that I wouldn't trade for anything, not even a front row seat at this year's panel for Marvel Studios at the San Diego Comic-Con.
Tempting, but no.
Another thing I need to do is realize most people don’t know I stayed at the college all summer.
All throughout orientation, and even still now, I have been telling returning students “Welcome back!” It’s weird because I never left but they don’t know that.
Oh well.
As I have already mentioned, I worked on O-Staff this year. And it was a trainwreck.
It seems as though I cause more problems when I try to fix others from happening than I would if I had let them happen on their own. I know that gives y'all a vague understanding as to what I'm typing about but someone else explained it to me in a different way, one that I found to be better.
The way she described it to me was sometimes I have to let people learn things the hard way, especially if I had to learn it that way myself.
It's hard.
I know because I have made those mistakes before. I have dealt with those consequences. Why would I want someone to go through the same issues I did, especially when I have the guidance to save them the struggles?
'Cause that's how it be sometimes.
Sometimes, God lets us fall on our faces so that we can look back up at His.
It's hard to see it happening to someone else, especially when you've been in their place, but some people gotta learn the hard way.
Me: "Alexa, play 'The Hardway' by dc Talk."
Alexa: "Which version?"
Me: "Repetition is key, Alexa. Play all dem. Repetition is key."
Oofta.
Now that that little heart-to-heart's over, onward!
I helped the Campbell Hall residence team make their introductory video for the Variety Show. Basically, each dorm creates a fun video introducing their hall's residence team to the rest of the student body at a show put on by the orientation staff the night before classes start.
Campbell's was a Stranger Things parody.
It was all my best friend's idea. He wrote the script, mimicking several elements from the show, mainly the first episode.
Once he did that, he sent the script to me and I edited it into a screenplay, adding and changing a few things along the way. I storyboarded some parts of it and otherwise did my best to remember what else I wanted for the rest of it. He and I talked about it and we were both on the same track.
Cool.
We dedicated two nights to filming. We did it save a scene and a couple shots. Meanwhile, when I wasn't working O-Staff, tech, or marketing, you can bet your gummy bears I was editing that video.
It was quite the process to do that. First, I needed a video editor. My laptop was out of the pot. I bought a laptop last Christmas to replace the one I am using now. Plus, I wasn't going to learn a whole new program in making it. I didn't have time for that.
Marketing was nice and said I could use their computer during office hours. The problem is I wasn't able to work on it during office hours. I was available late at night after staff left for the day, especially for the weekend.
Even my bro friend threw out the option of me borrowing his laptop. However, he needed it for video editing that same weekend and I wasn't about to keep him from that. It was a nice thought and gesture though.
He and I were able to work with one of the college's contracted IT workers, who gave us an admin password to the Macs in the art building.
Sweet!
I immediately went over there to get started with the footage I already had. However, it wasn't that easy. I was met with a locked door to the Mac Lab.
Oof.
So, I had to either make a deal with the new Com professor, whom I had not yet met, or get a key from Maintenance.
I went with Option #2.
After a day, I got approved to borrow a key, mainly because they knew and trusted me. It was also because it was for school purposes and I had Micah tell them it was so since he has some authority.
And huzzah! I was ready to go!
After that, it was dealing with the consistently inconsistent crashing of Premiere on several of the Macs. However, I knacked away at the video whenever I wasn't doing something else.
During one of my editing sessions, I was interrupted by a bearded man. It was a little awkward. He poked his head in "just to see who was in here." I had never met him before. I was expecting him to be the new Com professor. If he was, I was going to introduce myself and explain the situation.
He didn't ask, so I didn't do any of that. He just nodded and went on his way.
Turns out, it was the new Com professor.
He had actually just closed and locked the door, and was just coming back out of his office. He was taken aback by this strange occurrence, but he assumed if anyone was in there with the now unlocked door and now logged in Mac that he had permission to do so.
I did. It felt cool. :)
Anyway, long story short: we got the shots we needed. Shoutout to my man Jeremiah at Dollar General who let us shoot inside the store. That was fun. Also, shoutout to Micah for letting us borrow some of his video equipment. We couldn't have done it without y'all.
There were other minor setbacks along the way, but that's just how life goes.
When it came to present the video at the Variety Show, it was met by a larger positive reaction than I thought. Everyone clapped at the sound of the Demogorgon. Everyone cheered through the opening titles. And everyone has been complimenting me on the video since.
Again, I'm still not used to taking compliments but it is nice to know that people know me at least partly by the good things that I do.
I keep giving credit to the RAs who worked with me on the project. They had little to no video experience and put up with me for two and a half long nights of shooting. The video turned out way better than everyone else's (if I do say so myself), but they didn't know that when we were shooting it. They had never done anything like that before.
They rarely complained. And when they asked questions, especially about reshoots, it was more out of curiosity than it was annoyance. It was a nice change of pace, and it went a really long way.
I was blessed by the RD by receiving an invitation to have breakfast with him and the RAs the first day of classes. He said it was because of all my work and that I was basically an RA at that point. Well, sorta. I have applied both years and got denied by those who don't really know me despite having the RAs and RDs who do vouch for me. One of them actually said he'd give up his RAs job if it meant that I would get it. That was very humbling of him to say but I was just happy to get a free breakfast with an exclusive group composed of my friends during a celebration period.
You can watch our video here:
We need a blooper reel.
We also have a lot of new students here. Not as many as last year but still a lot.
I haven't really gotten to know very many of them very well. It's mostly because I suck at socializing and meeting new people, especially if I'm not required to, but I have met a few new people and hit it off pretty well with even fewer.
Another part of it is that I am usually working.
Since working with the marketing department, I have covered nearly every orientation event by getting either video footage or taking photos, mainly video. While I sometimes do take time to engage in the activities going on around me, I typically choose to step back and capture the people around me doing whatever it is that we were doing.
I'm fine with it though.
I've never been one for large groups of people. It socially exhausts me. Also, my lack of social experience renders me socially inept to fit in with everyone else.
So, helping document others who can helps me become more comfortable in handling a camera while collect videos and photos for people who want them.
Plus, the extra little money is nice too.
Working events like that is also kinda nice too because it's pretty probable that I'll already be at said events.
For example, my last event I covered was last night's Luau on the Lawn by CAB. They wanted music at their event, meaning I had to run extension cords and setup a Bose tower. They also had me play music for their event. Since the audio jack is worn out on my old phone that I was going to use, I had to use my new phone as the audio device. This required that I stay there at the event.
All that to say that getting photos for the event worked for me because I was already there for other work and it worked.
I also want to become a better photographer. I love looking at photos and taking them. I just never have any good ideas of what to capture. Doing candid helps.
Fine, I'll talk about my classes since it's on everyone's minds.
Classes have started off pretty alright. I'm glad they are starting off nice and slow for a change. What's nice is that my earliest class is at 9:15am. When it's not a chapel day, it's 11am. I'm doing my best to not sleep the morning away but that little cushion is nice to have.
It was weird that one of my classes moved locations last-minute. Wednesday was the first day of class this year, and chapel was the first thing I had to go to. After it, I had a class on the third floor of the building.
No biggie. Just head upstairs after chapel is dismissed.
I hung around a little bit after chapel before embarking on my journey up the flight of stairs.
On my way up, I was met by several other students heading up there as well. The class I was heading to was supposed to be a small one. So, I asked, "Y'all got So-and-So up there?"
And they were like, "Uh, I dunno. All I know is I got Oral Interpretation."
Funny thing: So-and-So teaches an Oral Interpretation class, but that's not what he was supposed to be teaching Monday, Wednesday, Fridays, at 11am, nor was it the class I was walking all the way up those stairs for.
When I got up there, I was met by even more students. I walked down the hall and into the classroom.
So-and-So wasn't there.
I turned around and was met by one of the Theatre professors. With a confused look from the both of us, he asked me if I was in his Oral Interpretation class.
"Nope. Organizational Communication," I said.
"With So-and-So?" he asked. "That got moved to 2nd-floor Cooper."
Oof.
"Well, looks like I'm going to 2nd-floor Cooper," I said, thanking him before I made my return journey down the stairs, around the auditorium, and outside to Cooper Hall.
It actually would have been quicker if I had used the fire escape but we don't talk about that.
As expected, Prof. So-and-So was gracious to us who were a few minutes late. He said he sent an email to all five people in the class regarding the location change.
"When'd you send it?" I asked.
"Like halfway during chapel," he replied.
"So, like 20 minutes ago. Oof," was all that came to my brain.
As long as I didn't miss anything and I wasn't getting marked as late, I was fine. I had made it. I wasn't going to let this little mishap of my first class ruin the rest of my day.
It was actually quite funny. Stuff like that seems to happen to me all the time.
Something similar happened with last night's luau.
Its location was changed to Upper Wilson due to potential rainfall.
Cool. That's where all the Bose stuff is. It makes my job super easy, barely an inconvenience.
Little did I know that, when I showed up to setup, that the event was moved back to Cooper Lawn.
I didn't even bother to ride my longboard from Campbell to Wilson, but this little hiccup made me go back to Campbell for it. I was not just about to haul a speaker base and two speakers two blocks.
I was also not about to leave them locked in a closet on the second floor in a locked building if I was just coming back. So, on my way back down the steps, I took everything I needed with me and left it in the locked entryway while I got my longboard to scoot it across campus.
When I returned literally three minutes later, I someone making off with the equipment and loading it all into the back of a pickup truck. Turns out, CAB thought they were the ones to pick it up and set it all up themselves despite our email thread explaining my role in helping them out.
Once I explained it all to them, they were nice enough to haul everything over to Cooper.
Once we got there, we couldn't get into the building to plug it in. Originally, we were going to plug it into the entryway at the top of the steps. There's like three plugins in there. It's super easy, barely an inconvenience.
I don't have a key like I'm supposed to. My boss doesn't even have one. Super hard, obviously an inconvenience.
I ended up having to go back to Wilson to grab a couple long extension cords and ran them from the main lobby of McCreery, the closest dorm to Cooper, to the tower at the bottom of the stairs since Cooper doesn't have outdoor outlets.
OK. That worked.
Little did I know that CAB also had a sno-cone machine. I tried making it work with the extension cords that I had, but I couldn't. I ended up having to go back to Wilson yet again to get all our short extension cords.
OK. That worked.
The event was a decent success. Sure, it took a lot longer to setup than originally thought. Sure, I wore several long extension cords over my shoulders moving everything back to Upper Wilson.
But that's how it be sometimes.
All in all, I think God is teaching me to have patience and work with others.
I had issues working with people during orientation because I was trying to do their jobs for them. This caused tension and impatience between and for everyone, whether they were directly involved or not.
Now, I have to problem-solve with the help of others, especially when I'm helping them with their event. That's my job: To help them with their event so that it runs smoothly tech-wise. Not to fix all their problems and run the event myself, but to work with them and help them.
God created me to be a problem-fixer. It's what I do.
God also created me to work with people and not always by myself. It's what I'm working on.
I'm used to being by myself, working by myself. That's not the way that it should be but that's the way that it is.
Still, it can be overcome. I can get past it. Not alone, but with His help and the help of those close to me.
It's simple, just hard. And sometimes I gotta learn the hard way.