The Reel Life of Josh

This is the first part in a two part final entry on this blog.  This one is on the lighter side.  Part two is more of an existential rumination and final goodbye so if you aren’t into that sort of thing, feel free to skip part two, although I strongly encourage you to read it if you are in the mood to think deeply.

Here is one more set of lists for you:

Things you want to forget about college:

1. Exams (and useless recall information)

2. The cost

3. The downtime

4. People you don’t like

5. Communal bathrooms

6. Frat parties

7. Old relationships

8. Times with nobody to shack up with

9. Awkwardness (occurring at various stages along the way)

10. Embarrassing moments (occasionally those that take place when drinking)

Things you will forget about college:

1. Exams (and useless recall information)

2. The downtime

3. Awkwardness

4. Daily routines

5. Building names

6. Those fringe people (not the ones you like or hate)

7. Minutiae of many events

8. The times when you were too inebriated

9. Classes you took

10. GRADES you got

Things you will remember about college:

1. Friends

2. Moments of inspiration and enlightenment

3. Great professors

4. Growing and maturing as a person

5. Learning from your mistakes

6. Learning about responsibility

7. The convenience of having everything you need at your fingertips

8. Popular songs

9. The last few weeks before graduation

10. Graduation

Memories are funny things, but they never come back quite the way they went in.  If I don’t forget a thing, for better or for worse, I’ll take it.

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If you are interested, and in the Twitterverse, my roommate and I are moving out to California for grad school in the fall.  As part of the journey, we have formed a Twitter account and you can follow us along the way.  Its named after our joint artistic venture, DOS ANGELES.  So follow us: @dos_angeles

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To be continued….

This blog is a combination of my lack of something to say and an homage to High Fidelity, which I just scrolled past on TV. Just go with it.

Top Five Buildings
5 – Hodson
4 – Levering
3 – Shriver
2 – Bloomberg
1 – Gilman

Top Five Hidden Spots to Hang Out

My apartment. Another good place to hang out or study.

5 – Gazebo in the Sculpture Garden
4 – WJHU (if your friend has a radio show)
3 – Bloomberg Observatory
2 – President’s Garden
1 – (Cannot reveal for fear of outsiders finding it)

Top Five People to Avoid
5 – Loud talkers in MSE
4 – Drunken Frat guys
3 – The “Shush” Lady (she’s nice, but usually you’d see her for the wrong reason)
2 – Baltimore City Police
1 – There is always one person in each year that will fill this slot.

Top Five Ways to Get in Trouble as a Freshman
5 – Thinking too little
4 – Thinking too much
3 – Underage drinking
2 – Steal food from CharMar
1 – Loud party in your dorm

Top Five Ways to Embarrass Yourself
5 – Learning you have weird habits that your college friends don’t have, but were normal at home
4 – Slipping on the marble steps
3 – Dropping a tray of food at FFC
2 – Have an awkward conversation with someone you “pre-Facebook Friended” before coming to school
1 – “Walk of Shame” after a themed party

Top Five “Old White Guy” Professors

You'll have to look around real hard to find this place

5 – J.C. Walker
4 – Robert Kargon
3 – Mel Kohn
2 – Andrew Cherlin
1 – John Mann

Top Five Things About Hopkins that Make Me Feel Old
5 – Getting invited to Young Alumni Weekend
4 – Knowing what Gilman Hall used to be like
3 – Knowing what “Think Theta” on the billboard in the Gilman Tunnel is actually about
2 – Never having Mason Hall as an admissions building on my college visit
1 – Remembering Berts, the T Mobile store, and the stationary store on St. Paul + the Records and Tape Traders where Maxie’s/7Eleven is

I’m sure one of the many things you’re considering when you look at schools is the people you will encounter at Hopkins.  Let’s be more specific:  what are you potential romantic prospects like?  Now, I can only give the perspective from a straight male so I will only analyze it that way and talk about what types of girls I have encountered at Hopkins, but feel free to leave comments about things I leave out, disagreements, or alternate perspectives.

Places to find someone:

Classes

• If there is one reason to go to class, it would be to learn.  But if there were two reasons, they would be to learn and to meet other people.  Classes have people in them.  If you go to these classes, you will most likely interact with them.  So your 9AM Cog Psych class may not be as fun as you thought, but at least it has that cute blonde who sits next to you.  And when she drops her pen under your desk, you’ll be there to pick it up.

Dining Halls

• Everyone eats -- including the blonde.  And a lot more blondes, brunettes, redheads, and [other]heads.  Eat and meet.

Dorms

• AMRs -- just walk around for 3 minutes and you’re bound to run into someone.  They house most of the freshmen so the odds are that you have at least a few girls you are attracted to in there.  Just make sure one of you isn’t on the way to or from the shower in a towel.  Also, make sure if you/she is en route to or from said shower, and if you/she wears contacts/glasses that you/she is wearing said contacts/glasses.  Otherwise recognition or lack of recognition could cause some problems.
• Wolman -- the elevators are perfect places to meet someone.  Get some courage in the 2 minutes it takes to get to the 5th or 6th floor and strike up some conversation.  If you’re on your way down in the morning, it’s likely that you’ll run in to them again considering you are both probably on your way to class.
• Laundry room -- you will do laundry in college and so will girls.  Just remember, that the loud machines can sometimes mask the sounds of two people who have already formed a love connection forming an even closer union.  So sometimes if the machines are a rockin’, don’t come into the laundry room unless you want to feel uncomfortable.
• Common Areas -- common social areas facilitate socializing.  So take advantage of it.

The Library

• The library must sound so lame in high school.  But if you don’t know this, you have to study in college.  Most of the work is outside the classroom.  So lots of people congregate in the library.  With 6 levels to go to, the options are numerous.  It also helps narrow down what type of girl you are looking for.  Q level = coffee lover with not a lot of serious work going on.  M level = social butterfly or just a people watcher.  A = outgoing and wants to be on M, but has a major that involves studying.  B = quiet, reserved.  C = very private and serious about their work.  D = antisocial or failing their classes.

Student Groups

• What do guidance counselors always say?  Get involved.  But getting involved in a student group is also a way to get involved romantically with someone.  You are both already there because you have a similar interest.  Maybe you have more.  Most student groups meet weekly, so you already have a weekly date.

A little guy love in the back of my friend Hannah's car.

People you may try to force casual encounters with:

• The cute girl who works at Alkimia (the coffee shop in Gilman)
• The pretty Sciences Po exchange student
• The girl who sits across the Atrium from you every Tuesday in between your noon and 4PM class.
• That girl from the a cappella group of your choice who sang that amazing solo
• The all-too-common friend of a friend

Questionable people to find romance with:

• Your professor
• Your boss
• Your roommate/suitemate (purely for the logistical consequences of a breakup)
• Your RA
• Your best friend
• President Daniels

So where does that leave us?  How about this:  There are plenty of fish in the sea.  Try to snag one at The Beach on a nice spring day.

You may think all people on a college campus look the same.  But once you get there you’ll quickly learn how to tell them apart.  Here’s my guide to recognizing different people at Hopkins.

Prospective students:

- A good tip off is that they are a younger looking student walking around with their parents.  Although not a dead giveaway, it’s a good starting point.

- The Hopkins drawstring bags you get when you come to campus will make you stand out.  A good place to keep your freebies.  A bad way to hide.

- Looking lost will make it known, especially when around the campus maps stationed throughout campus.

- On a tour is the easiest way to spot them.

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Freshmen:

-   Freshman travel in packs.  You meet so many people early on in the year, you tend to hold onto all of them until you figure out who you actually want to be friends with.  Because of this, freshmen often travel in groups of no less than (hyperbole alert) 50 or 60 people.  It seems that way at least.  But truthfully, freshmen tend to travel in groups of at least 6 or so at any time.

-  The lanyards make it clearly known that you’re a freshman.  If you walk around with your Hopkins ID on a lanyard, you are declaring your freshmanhood.

-  More so at the beginning of the year, freshmen tend to walk around arrogantly.  They were just top dog in their high school as seniors.  They haven’t gotten used to being new yet.

-  Freshmen tend to yell a lot.  Maybe it’s because they are excited about everything.  Maybe it’s because they just want their voice to be heard.  Who knows?  But those kids crank it up to 11.

FFC. Photo by Greco S.

-  Freshmen are models of viewbook pictures.  They do everything you see in college viewbooks.  I don’t even think they like it or do it consciously.  But they are the ones playing Frisbee on the quad and wearing sandals all year.

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Sophomores:

-  They try to be like upperclassmen, but still have to do freshmany things.  Sophomores are a little harder to pick out.  They try to blend in to the crowd.  But when you have to carry around your JCard to get into your dorm or find a way to get rid of your extra dining dollars because you’re required to have a meal plan but tried to eat off campus more, you definitely know it’s a sophomore.

-  On a similar note, sophomores purchase unnecessary quantities of strange items at CharMar due to their meal plan.  If you see someone (possibly a suitemate) walking around with an entire crate of Muscle Milk or a block of cheese and a 2-Liter bottle of Coke, you’ve found a sophomore.

-  Sophomores try to avoid doing freshman activities as not to be confused with their similarly-aged peers.

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Juniors:

-  If you find someone who has a lot of friends abroad, you’ve probably found a junior.

-  Juniors start to find their own voice in the world, but don’t know how to use it yet.  They tend to be quiet.  And the loud ones don’t have much interesting to say.

The Hopkins sign and the Beach. Photo by Greco S.

-  Juniors also tend to try and get away from campus and spend time in Baltimore.  So if you overhear someone saying, “Let’s go to Mt. Vernon,” or “Let’s grab a drink down in Fed Hill/Canton/Fell’s Point,” you’re almost certainly listening to a junior (or at least an upperclassman).

-  You make it clear you’re a junior when you start off the year complaining about how terrible it is to live in a dorm and then end the year complaining how annoying it is to have to deal with all the troubles of real world apartment living.

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Seniors:

-  Seniors can be found thinking a lot about the future.  Acronyms like GREs, MCATs, LSATs, and GMATs can be tip offs.  Questions about what you’re doing after graduation are also clues.

-  Look for people who look like they have just run a marathon.  They look ragged and tired.  This is a symptom of the combination of work hard/party hard.  Seniors tend to put sleep last on their list of priorities.  It’s time to get it all in now before college is over.

-  If someone is absent from or late to class a lot second semester, they are probably a senior (or maybe an athlete).

Cafe Q. Photo by Greco S.

-  Seniors secretly look longingly at their old dorms and wish to go back and do it all again.  Try to catch them in this moment.

-  The look of ‘I don’t care what people think of me’ is also a good indicator.  Seniors are pretty comfortable in who they are.  [Think of seniors like hot plastic in a mold.  It’s taken shape, it just hasn’t had time to cool and solidify yet.]  They also, honestly, have 10,000 other things to think about so they don’t have time or room in their consciousness to care.

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So those are some key features of the people on campus.  Leave comments if you think of others.  Or if you disagree…just keep it to yourself.

(Photo by Greco)

Tiny little insignificant details.

These can change the whole direction of your life.  When I am having self-doubts or just wondering what the future holds, I look to these little moments that show me that I’m right where I’m supposed to be.

Take this:  I was not sure I wanted to be a film student when I came to Hopkins.  I thought possibly film, possibly writing sems, maybe psychology or political science or philosophy.  But it grew on me as I started taking classes.  The one key moment in all of it though was a lucky break.

My first semester, I was in Intro to the Study of Film, which at the time was taught by the head of the Film Program.  I really enjoyed the class and was about 90% sure I wanted to be a FMS major.  I also knew I wanted to take Intro to Film Production in the spring semester.  Knowing there weren’t a lot of film majors trying to take that class, I kind of expected to enroll in the class easily.  The class is capped at 9 people.  And little did I know, but there was pre-registration for my major (where people majoring and minoring can come at designated times before university-wide registration to sign up for classes in that department).  I also didn’t know that to find out about registration, I needed to be on the FMS listserv.

So I found out from one of the other students in the Intro class that she had preregistered for the production class already.  And so I went back and sent my professor an email asking about it.  She said that there were already 9 people signed up for the class, but the last name had been crossed out so she added my name to the list.

This crossed out name set the rest of my life into motion.

I took the Intro class my second semester.  In that class, I met my professor (and at this point, it’s safe to call him a mentor and friend) Matt Porterfield.  I also met a few of my fellow film majors who I am good friends with today.  Taking Intro my second semester allowed me to take Intermediate my fall semester sophomore year.  (And being punctual to this class helped the journey as the last person to arrive to class was kicked out since the class was over-enrolled by 1)  With these classes under my belt, I could take Writing with Light and Advanced Production spring semester. (Intermediate and Advanced were not offered for another year after this and Writing with Light has not been taught since).  Moving up the ladder so rapidly, I was able to meet a lot of the upperclassmen film majors who really pushed me to do better work and helped me along the way.  From there, I was able to do what I did this past year, as I spent my junior year working on a full-year project [usually only offered to seniors].  And now I have a lot of options open to me for my senior year as I look to develop bigger and better projects.

Not only did that one little cross out change the course of my classwork, but it also allowed me to really become passionate about filmmaking.  If I had to wait until 2nd semester sophomore year,  I may have already decided I wanted to be writing sems or another major.  I would not have been influenced soearly on to find this thing I love so much.

That cross out also allowed me to get enough experience to become a TA by the second semester of my sophomore year and become one of the more technically experienced filmmakers on campus giving me the opportunity to work at the Digital Media Center as the Video Lab Coach.

My life was changed by a tiny little insignificant cross-out.

With the dawn of a new year, it brings us one year closer to the dreaded 2012. (Although, not quite as scary as entering the real world in 2011.) Some of you that passed on Early Decision or were frustratingly pushed aside by an ED/EA school (as I was) may have the more pressing dates of RD decisions in mind, but since most of you reading this won’t even finish college if the world comes to a screeching halt in 2012, let’s skip ahead to show you why it’s not worth stressing about college decisions and grades.

Doomsday possibilities I think might occur:

1) Catastrophic natural events – i.e. volcanic eruptions, tsunamis, tornadoes, earthquakes,  blizzards, monstrous hail, forest fires (that only you can’t prevent), sandstorms, mudslides – all coinciding to wipe off all human life.

2) Science fiction becomes non-fiction – Meteors are on a collision course for Earth.  NASA decides to send a rag-tag group of misfits into space because they think that they would have the best knowledge to save humanity and destroy the meteor.  They blow up the meteor, but sacrifice Bruce Willis over Ben Affleck in the process marking the end of intelligent life on Earth.

3) Humanity turns on itself – with the threat of the end of the world, people become frantic and instantly become destructive to humanity itself.  Robberies and murders occur.  People look for a final thrill before the end.

4) The Chicken Little scenario – The sky literally falls on Earth.  The atmosphere implodes and life is no longer sustainable on the planet.

5) President Bush is re-elected.

6) The Cold War movie plot scenario – Nuclear proliferation occurs.  A war hungry American General battles for power with the President in order to obliterate the enemy.  Peace is made, but just seconds too late as the General has sent missiles overseas.  The enemies retaliate and nuclear war wipes out civilization as we know it.

7) The Rip Van Winkle scenario – All life forms around the world fall asleep as usual on the night of Dec. 21 (or Dec. 23), 2012.  Everyone, one by one, goes to sleep but just never wakes up.   The world peacefully dies in its sleep.

Then again, life may just continue as normal.  Either way, make the most of your 2010.

And good luck with those final college apps.

The semester is coming to a close (too quickly in the grand scheme of things, but too slowly according to my finals schedule).  But to get through, I’ve come up with some calming messages for you.  So get in a zen mode and read some (bad) finals haikus.

It is 4 AM
What am I still doing up?
Oh yeah, that paper

Paper due today
Too windy and cold to walk
Will just e-mail it

The clock says it’s noon
I am comfortable in bed
Sleep for one more hour

Exam this Friday
Out of black ink for printer
Wish for snow to fall

Semester ending
Graduation three away
Now home for the holidays

And best of luck to those of you waiting for ED decisions!  I’ll be back after finals for some more informational reading.

Also, here are some winter movies to see.