Life balancing, vidding, essays and my boys
Gah you people really do post when I'm away. I love it but it takes forever to catch up on it when I just want to luxuriate in all of beautiful fandom. I missed it a lot and as always, I feel like I'm coming home. Don't know where I'd be without it. Lots of vidtalk which makes it take even longer but I'm hoping that's because people are on break and therefore have more time for vidding, right? Right? Let's hope so.
I was shocked and horribly saddened to hear of tv_elf's death :( She was so nice to me at Vividcon and it was good to talk about The Wire or see one of her vids. What a tragic loss to the world, fannish or not. A memory post is here.
I feel like I know what direction I want to go in now although I don't know specifically what I want to be yet. But I am learning to be okay with it (or maybe the universe will provide a path for me! as I like to say) with the uncertainty. I know there is a ton of things I want to do that take a lot of time and I am trying to find out the best way to balance them in the way that will make me the happiest both now and in the future. The one constant I know is that I NEED narrative. Whether it be the books of my past, the TV of my future or a fun movie now and then, I've got to have it. Can't imagine life without it. Now there's a ton of TV shows I need to catch up on and I don't want to devote too much time to only watching TV and neglecting other things but at the same time...I need context for vids! So who knows how many shows I'll get through in the coming year. That leads me to vidding in which I need to get my self in gear and FINISH these damn vids. My goal this year is to get rid of all my obligation vids, vids for cons and vids that I've had for over three years because they really need to get done no matter what new, shiny vid idea comes along. In fact, one JUST did for The Wire which I'd have to metaphor the hell out of but it would be fun. Still looking for my perfect Wire song and I'm hoping my new music collection will turn up a song not to mention my other orphan vid ideas. Vidding takes a lot of time though; I've given up on clip notes because I look at it too much as writing=work and then it never gets done so I'm going to just watch a lot of the show and clip it in Premiere. But that's the vidding plan for the Vividcon Year.
So then there's the other non-fannish stuff. I feel like I have a large gap in reading knowledge in truly understanding the world and how to make it better. So I'm going to need to read up on all the classic books, stuff on political systems and action and lots of stuff about TV for my future career. My love of learning is coming back stronger so I think it should be possible if I can find the time. I have to fit that in with college classes (and getting A's) and part time work (not to mention clubs and events and stuff) so who knows how much I'll be able to get done. Then the last big thing is getting involved in activist stuff whether it be gay rights or Obama related things. Kind of scary and not sure how much time its going to take and what I can do but I know I've got to do something because the time is now. So there's that. Those are the basic things I'm trying to figure out how to put off so I have enough time for them all and I know it may involve some sacrifice so I'm trying to figure out what I can give up in terms of time demands. We'll see.
Then I've been trying to figure out my aversion to writing especially essays. I think maybe I finally found a reason through vidding. So I've always loved that vids can be like visual essays and that they can say so much about the source. But that visual essay love never translated to loving/liking essays and I was trying to figure out the difference. And then dollsome posted this brilliant Stephen Fry quote which expresses it so much more eloquently than I ever could:
"Had I the patience and the discipline I should have chosen literature. But, while I can read Middlemarch and The Dunciad or, I don't know, Julian Barnes or Jay McInerney say, as happily as anyone, I have this little region missing in my brain, that extra lobe that literature students possess as a matter of course, the lobe that allows them the detachment and the nerve to talk about books (texts they will say) as others might talk about the composition of a treaty or the structure of a cell. I can remember at school how we would read together in class an ode by Keats, a Shakespeare sonnet or a chapter of Animal Farm. I would tingle inside and want to sob, just at the words, at nothing more than the simple progression of sounds. But when it came to writing that thing called an essay, I flubbed and floundered. I could never discover where to start. How do you find the distance and the cool to write in an academically approved style about something that makes you spin, wobble and weep?
... You could only write successfully about books and poems and plays if you didn't care, really care, about them. Hysterical schoolboy wank, for sure, an attitude compounded of nothing but egotism, vanity and cowardice. But how deeply felt. I went through all my school days convinced of this, that "literary studies" were no more than a series of autopsies performed by heartless technicians. Worse than autopsies: biopsies. Vivisection."
YES, this. I don't necessarily agree about the not caring part but for me, that's exactly it. But vids for me DO capture that emotion, that love and it's not so much as splitting up a source as celebrating it, reliving it and creating something anew from it's beauty. And even in writing posts on LJ or not, I feel my thoughts are like birds, free of any bounds and restraints and yes, disorganized but spirited and alive and full of energy. And putting them to paper/screen feels like it's taking all the soul out of them to make it sound regular and ordered and...just there. Maybe there's a way to overcome this or at least help the effect but that's why I love vids as opposed to essays.
In extremely happymaking news, I got my House and Arrested Development DVDs!! Just now :D Well only S4 for House but S3 is coming for my vidding pleasure. And I've waited so long for AD, stuff just kept coming up but now it is mine! It's so nice to be able to watch my show whenever I want to not to mention all the extras. Eeee Bluths! I've been enjoying a lot of the TV this season although not feeling particularly excited about a lot of it (The Office is always delightful and full of love though). However lest I long for an obsession, I have House which remains after three months, my favorite and I'm so in love with House/Wilson it's not even funny. It's not an all consuming love but one that just needs a spark for me to fill up with glee and to believe so deeply in their pure true love. I just cannot see only a friendship and I don't want to because they are so perfect together and I love them. And now I can vid them :D While looking for clips the other day, I found the video where Wilson actually says LOVE POETRY to House. God, they slay me, I had a full on squeeing session after that.
Back to catching up!
I was shocked and horribly saddened to hear of tv_elf's death :( She was so nice to me at Vividcon and it was good to talk about The Wire or see one of her vids. What a tragic loss to the world, fannish or not. A memory post is here.
I feel like I know what direction I want to go in now although I don't know specifically what I want to be yet. But I am learning to be okay with it (or maybe the universe will provide a path for me! as I like to say) with the uncertainty. I know there is a ton of things I want to do that take a lot of time and I am trying to find out the best way to balance them in the way that will make me the happiest both now and in the future. The one constant I know is that I NEED narrative. Whether it be the books of my past, the TV of my future or a fun movie now and then, I've got to have it. Can't imagine life without it. Now there's a ton of TV shows I need to catch up on and I don't want to devote too much time to only watching TV and neglecting other things but at the same time...I need context for vids! So who knows how many shows I'll get through in the coming year. That leads me to vidding in which I need to get my self in gear and FINISH these damn vids. My goal this year is to get rid of all my obligation vids, vids for cons and vids that I've had for over three years because they really need to get done no matter what new, shiny vid idea comes along. In fact, one JUST did for The Wire which I'd have to metaphor the hell out of but it would be fun. Still looking for my perfect Wire song and I'm hoping my new music collection will turn up a song not to mention my other orphan vid ideas. Vidding takes a lot of time though; I've given up on clip notes because I look at it too much as writing=work and then it never gets done so I'm going to just watch a lot of the show and clip it in Premiere. But that's the vidding plan for the Vividcon Year.
So then there's the other non-fannish stuff. I feel like I have a large gap in reading knowledge in truly understanding the world and how to make it better. So I'm going to need to read up on all the classic books, stuff on political systems and action and lots of stuff about TV for my future career. My love of learning is coming back stronger so I think it should be possible if I can find the time. I have to fit that in with college classes (and getting A's) and part time work (not to mention clubs and events and stuff) so who knows how much I'll be able to get done. Then the last big thing is getting involved in activist stuff whether it be gay rights or Obama related things. Kind of scary and not sure how much time its going to take and what I can do but I know I've got to do something because the time is now. So there's that. Those are the basic things I'm trying to figure out how to put off so I have enough time for them all and I know it may involve some sacrifice so I'm trying to figure out what I can give up in terms of time demands. We'll see.
Then I've been trying to figure out my aversion to writing especially essays. I think maybe I finally found a reason through vidding. So I've always loved that vids can be like visual essays and that they can say so much about the source. But that visual essay love never translated to loving/liking essays and I was trying to figure out the difference. And then dollsome posted this brilliant Stephen Fry quote which expresses it so much more eloquently than I ever could:
"Had I the patience and the discipline I should have chosen literature. But, while I can read Middlemarch and The Dunciad or, I don't know, Julian Barnes or Jay McInerney say, as happily as anyone, I have this little region missing in my brain, that extra lobe that literature students possess as a matter of course, the lobe that allows them the detachment and the nerve to talk about books (texts they will say) as others might talk about the composition of a treaty or the structure of a cell. I can remember at school how we would read together in class an ode by Keats, a Shakespeare sonnet or a chapter of Animal Farm. I would tingle inside and want to sob, just at the words, at nothing more than the simple progression of sounds. But when it came to writing that thing called an essay, I flubbed and floundered. I could never discover where to start. How do you find the distance and the cool to write in an academically approved style about something that makes you spin, wobble and weep?
... You could only write successfully about books and poems and plays if you didn't care, really care, about them. Hysterical schoolboy wank, for sure, an attitude compounded of nothing but egotism, vanity and cowardice. But how deeply felt. I went through all my school days convinced of this, that "literary studies" were no more than a series of autopsies performed by heartless technicians. Worse than autopsies: biopsies. Vivisection."
YES, this. I don't necessarily agree about the not caring part but for me, that's exactly it. But vids for me DO capture that emotion, that love and it's not so much as splitting up a source as celebrating it, reliving it and creating something anew from it's beauty. And even in writing posts on LJ or not, I feel my thoughts are like birds, free of any bounds and restraints and yes, disorganized but spirited and alive and full of energy. And putting them to paper/screen feels like it's taking all the soul out of them to make it sound regular and ordered and...just there. Maybe there's a way to overcome this or at least help the effect but that's why I love vids as opposed to essays.
In extremely happymaking news, I got my House and Arrested Development DVDs!! Just now :D Well only S4 for House but S3 is coming for my vidding pleasure. And I've waited so long for AD, stuff just kept coming up but now it is mine! It's so nice to be able to watch my show whenever I want to not to mention all the extras. Eeee Bluths! I've been enjoying a lot of the TV this season although not feeling particularly excited about a lot of it (The Office is always delightful and full of love though). However lest I long for an obsession, I have House which remains after three months, my favorite and I'm so in love with House/Wilson it's not even funny. It's not an all consuming love but one that just needs a spark for me to fill up with glee and to believe so deeply in their pure true love. I just cannot see only a friendship and I don't want to because they are so perfect together and I love them. And now I can vid them :D While looking for clips the other day, I found the video where Wilson actually says LOVE POETRY to House. God, they slay me, I had a full on squeeing session after that.
Back to catching up!