Up All Night

Remember that show? I used to watch it all the time. Not to be confused with Out All Night which made me fall in love with, not Morris Chestnut, but Duane Martin! I loved that show! I didn't like his most recent show. It never did anything for me. Can't remember the name of it, don't care to look it up. I loved his wife's (best known as Gina on "Martin") show, "My Wife and Kids." I usually watch it at 1 every afternoon.

I know you're thinking, what in the HE... what is this post about and why are you typing it at 4 a.m. I have not been able to go to bed much before 5 a.m. in about a month. I don't know what my problem is. Well, part of it stemmed from unnecessarily stressing myself out about that paper and part of it is a desire for this school year to just END already!! Since I'm up, I decided to give you guys a life update. How terribly exciting for you!! Right now I'll be going home for the summer with some extended stays in Atlanta, maybe a visit to Savannah, likely a visit to Brunswick, GA for my friend's father's 70th birthday party which should be a BLAST. I'm pretty sure all my friends will be there since her father is always the life of the party. I had a great time hanging (and drinking) with my friends' parents homecoming senior year. I had these off weeks in college where I would have enough money for a $5 party and since I lived on campus, I could eat in the cafe, but a $40 homecoming party in a place that's $10 any other week? Yeah... this wasn't one of those weeks where I could afford that which sucked but I partied so much in college, that particular party was really just a drop in the 12,000-gallon party bucket (Can you imagine what such a bucket would look like???).

My partner and I are in the midst of working on our latest project, which is a short film based on our thesis. I really am learning a lot from my quest to watch 750 movies this year. You begin to see what things work and what doesn't and learn how to incorporate those things in your own films. That's exactly why I began the quest to watch this many movies. It's a crazy goal but why not try it? I'm about 11 movies off pace as I work 2-8 hours a day on this film but the summer will allow plenty of time to play catch up. I have a feeling I'm going to be spending a lot of time in the library renting movies and books. You know what's great? Our library at home! It's only 5 minutes away and the building is about 5 years old. I also want to do some shooting of my family history.

Another thing that has been stressing me out is the dean of journalism's (John Wright) decision to cut my program despite the fact that films from our program have won student Emmys the last 2 years. Another film was a finalist the year before that. Wright has deemed the Documentary Institute (DI) "not as central" to the mission of the college. That is clearly all about semantics. How is nonfiction filmmaking not central to the college when some of the best documentary programs in the country, including OURS according to Independent magazine are in journalism departments? Syracuse just started its documentary program in its j-school within the last 2 years. All 4 of my professors, including 2 with tenure, will lose their jobs if the program is cut. The final decision by the president of the university, Bernie Machen, is set to be made by May 1st. Can you tell me how you expect to attract professors to the university if you're cutting even tenured professors? How are layoffs not your last resort? Why is education so undervalued in this nation that cutting it is considered acceptable?

Our program at this point is not accepting a fall class and we will be the last class if the DI shuts down. My education is not expected to be compromised, as our professors have assured us, but it's still disheartening that our program is not considered an asset. It also makes me quite sure I won't ever give a dollar to UF unless it goes to the DI. So Hampton has UF and John Wright to thank for not having to split my donation money when it comes. Hampton will always (and always would have, but it won't be near even now) get to billing. Some alumni and students have started a petition site to try to save the doc institute. We hope for at least 1,000 and are close. Please sign it here and help take us over the edge.

I actually fell asleep around 10 p.m. but woke up at 1:30. Now that it's 5 a.m., aka my new bedtime, perhaps I can fall asleep until Rashan calls at his regular time on the way to work, aka my wake-up call, 11:30 a.m. Sometimes I go back to sleep but rarely. Know what would be nice? If staying up until 5 meant I got more work done. Yeah... about that... that's gonna have to be a no. I'm constantly thinking about going to bed rather than doing something constructive. I know it's stupid and I really, really hope to break this foolish cycle in the near future.