Well hello there, Honey Nut Cheerios. Honey Nut Cheerios is my version of ramen - I'll be eating it several times a day probably for the rest of the summer. I'm po', folks. At least until the money comes in, which could be . . . never. By the way, there's apparently fifty pages of paperwork that no one told me I needed to do on top of all the paperwork I already did - God love the bureaucracy of the University. But I may have money coming in by the end of the summer. I need a job real soon.
So first things first: I want to thank my parents for molding me into a decent, well-rounded human being, the kind of person that understands basic concepts of physical space and knows what common decency is. The kind of person that understands a little hustle when someone needs something, can anticipate someone's needs, and doesn't hesitate to get my hands dirty. Again, I reference my Facebook status update - I was by far the most useful person in that building today at any given time. I say this knowing how to be humble, and recognizing that my inability to climb 16 feet in the air on a rickety ladder to tie off cables may have hurt my productivity, but even so, my sheer willingness to work has really made me popular around the theater. It seems kind of stupid to me - little things that I take for granted have made some of them love me.
For example, while sitting at my windowside table rotoscoping yesterday, Nick (the one who's legendary. For being crazy) started carrying in a bunch of 2 by 4s. I watched him go by twice before I realized there were going to be a lot more trips, so I grabbed some gloves out of the bag he'd dropped nearby and started helping him carry them in. In my estimation? This was nothing. Just common decency, professional courtesy, what have you. But he was so struck by the fact that I helped out that he mentioned it several times to our co-workers (if I can really call them that) and Simon, and then told me he owed me a beer.
I feel like I'm coming off as really arrogant now, but repeatedly today I was grateful to my parents for raising me in an environment where a hands-on experience was as emphasized as it was. I learned how to move things and fit things, be safe on ladders, and not to be comfortable not working when other people are working. I'm so grateful for that. I kept grabbing things out from under the poor theater intern, who'd apparently never held a pulley rope in his entire life or learned when to grab the other end of a measuring tape. It genuinely baffles me how people can grow up and not have a basic understanding of things like this.
Helping out the hanging people today was a lot of fun, though. It took up seven more hours of my time than I'd anticipated - the two hour projector hang turned into a nine-hour lights/cables/speakers/projector marathon - but at the end of the day when I walked in my door with tie-lines still hanging on my belt loops, I felt pretty accomplished, like I'd just been inducted into some kind of super-special club. These were two of the cooler people I've encountered up here, very down-to-earth and fun to hang out with even when the whole thing was turning into yet another giant mess. Mike, a theater tech professor at some college nearby, gave me this piece of advice: "carry your money loose. If people take your money, you won't have to hand them your wallet and at least you won't lose everything. Just the money." Umm . . . thanks, Mike. He also told me to watch out when strangers tried to talk to me, to "keep your feet moving and ignore anyone who asks you questions."
Tomorrow is - ostensibly - my day off. I'll be getting up at a reasonable hour in order to watch the streaming video of Sarah and Brian graduating (congratulations, dears!), but after that, I think I'm going to go explore the city some. Clearly I won't be hanging out in Times Square anytime in the very near future, but I'd love to go to Central Park and take some pictures, or wander around the shopping area again looking for some new shoes. Poor confused theater intern told me on no less than five separate occasions that I might want to invest in a new pair of shoes. Thank you, Sam. I hadn't noticed that my big toe was hanging out over the front of my Toms. I'll get right on that.
All my grades are on Blackboard now - hooray! I didn't do too badly, so I'm happy. Probably happiest that I somehow accomplished an A in an intensive class taught by a professor who I respect more than just about anyone else. I'm not sure how much I actually deserved that A, but I take it as a vote of confidence and am incredibly grateful for it. There's a small number of professors at USC that make me want to actually try for them, and knowing that they respect me even a fraction of the amount that I respect them makes me incredibly proud.
You are such a joy!
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