Welcome Week

The annual arrival of NYU's "Welcome Week" and this subsequent post about it means that I have reached an entirely new level of pathetic.

Welcome Week was something that was always somewhat of a sign of hope of a promising year for me through the past four years. Despite the fact that I barely participated in any of the activities it signaled a start of a another year at an institution I was in love with, a return of friends scattered across the world I hadn't seen all summer for another year and it was a signal for my return to Manhattan, a place that spelled freedom, home and direction all at once for me.

This year was going to be different because this year Welcome Week was not being held for me, meaning no new exciting year with professors and classes at the institution I had fell in love with, no return of friends scattered across the globe and no return to Manhattan, or for that matter, New York City. The real world, no matter how much I tried, could not be held off any longer. This year, like always, the start of Welcome Week signified the start of a new year, a year in which I was jobless, cut off from friends and directionless.

I had woken up this morning at 9AM with the full intention of getting onto the train and into the city to edit my film and maybe see some faces. However, upon waking at the scheduled time I just couldn't bring myself to get out of bed and go to a place that I no longer felt I belonged so I stayed in bed. At first I put up an admirable fight, telling myself that I would get up and take a later train in but I was doing nothing but lying to myself, I didn't have the will power to bring myself to my beloved estranged university.

The past week had been miserable, I had only managed to get myself up to go to Jury Duty (which I ended up sleeping during when I wasn't called into a courtroom, and even then I came awfully close) on Tuesday and then to my internship on Thursday (where I sat around and did nothing until the end of the day when I had to go and drop a package off uptown. Despite the fact that I had kept telling myself to write I ended up waking up well past 12PM each day, actually, more accurately, past 2PM each day and spending all my time beating "Star Wars Force Unleashed" for the third time and watching "How I Met Your Mother," which I had already watched. Additionally I'm sure there were moments of near yelling at the computer monitor as Ted did yet another stupid thing related to his love life. It wasn't pretty. As I said; pathetic.

For the past 3 months there has been a huge struggle for me to do just about anything. Despite all my big talks while I was in school about how you need to discipline yourself and work on your own projects no matter what you're doing I was unable to get myself to do anything all summer. I was unable to complete something even as simple as a page a day on my screenplay despite the fact that I had so much free time, I felt like a failure.

The worst part of it all was I knew I was making all the wrong moves, choosing the bad choices and taking that step that would ultimately lead me down that slippery slope. Eventually it got so bad that I couldn't even get myself out of bed. I think that's what giving up feels like; giving up is the worst feeling in the world. It's similar to the feeling of powerlessness you feel when events spiral beyond your control only its worse because at least then you know you've done all you could possibly have done but in this case you don't have anything because there's still more you can do; you're just not doing it.

I hope that is what giving up felt like because that would mean that I hit rock bottom and that the only place to go is up. However, whether its rock bottom or not isn't significant because ultimately it's up to me to fight my way back up otherwise the only place I'm going is where I've been for the past week.

Another End

The first wave of students had just gone, leaving myself with two kids for the night. It was difficult and surreal knowing the end of yet another summer high school program had come. What was more surreal was how quickly the program moved after the end of the first week as well as the fact that there would not be any more summer programs for me after this. This was truly the end of my relationship with NYU.

Despite that, however, I did manage to ensure the enjoyment of my and other kids' final night. The major events, in a nutshell, was buying my kids beer with the other PA's, learning the photo kids got busted and then playing Super Smash Bro's with a kid named Woody. Eventually we started free-styling and, well, he's good but even after spending a semester living in tight quarters with a rapper, I am incapable of stringing rhymes together in a consistent beat. We also quoted "I'm the Juggernaut Bitch" while playing Super Smash Brothers.

Overall, I'm glad that the kids had a good time without getting caught. It makes me a little proud.

I don't know why, though, but my endings here never seem to go the way I want them to. Or, well, to be more accurate, they go great but what I go to seems to be rather hard. I guess that, also, is an inaccurate statement, it may just be that I've spent all of this summer postponing the inevitable; ending my college experience and moving home.

Family is a funny thing because they always manage to get you to hate them and love them at the same time.

I had waited until the morning to begin packing, as I always do. Generally it's a big mistake but this time it was okay because I didn't have a lot of stuff. Eventually the last of the kids left the program and I was left in an empty dorm. I was, for the most part, packed and ready to go, the first time I ever left the program on move-out date for the students. They tried to take my I.D. at the front desk so I had to explain to them that I am (was) a student of NYU and not a student of the program so I could still get into Tisch and edit my film.

At any rate, around 3PM my parents came to help me move home. I knew it was going to be bad when, even before I checked out of the dorm they started to bother me about stuff I had to do once I got home.

I wonder sometimes, though, if they have bad timing or I just have an extremely reduced amount of patience with them.

I finish up at my dorm and check out and get home, sadly leaving New York and sending a thank you/goodbye text to my fellow PA's and I come home to a group of overly sarcastic cousins. I think that it has a lot to do with perspective. It's always difficult coming home to my family because no matter what happens, they remain skeptical and confident that they know better.

I guess part of it is because, especially with the film/entertainment industry, there's so much behind the scenes of what happens that they just don't understand how things work. I think there's also a disconnect with them because work is just work for all of them, but for me, film making has become a sort of life for me, breeding a community and family of it's own, a family and community where, at least when connected with NYU, I feel like I can navigate it comfortably. Even without NYU I still feel like I can navigate these treacherous waters while only gaining a few cuts and bruises.

I guess you have to wake up from the dreams some time, but I guess that's when you try to find a way to turn them into reality.