A sample text widget
Etiam pulvinar consectetur dolor sed malesuada. Ut convallis
euismod dolor nec pretium. Nunc ut tristique massa.
Nam sodales mi vitae dolor ullamcorper et vulputate enim accumsan.
Morbi orci magna, tincidunt vitae molestie nec, molestie at mi. Nulla nulla lorem,
suscipit in posuere in, interdum non magna.
|
I’ve been looking forward to taking Scriptwriting since first semester of freshman year when I first heard it was offered. It’s a 3000-level cinema class, but the only prerequisite was having a certain number of credits. I didn’t have space for it last spring, so I was ecstatic to sign up for it this semester.
Our class on Tuesday, to my heart’s despair, was cancelled due to snow, so our first class was on Thursday. Our professor explained the syllabus, and that we would have to write a 100 page screenplay by the end of the semester. He looked around and asked if any of us were realizing they hadn’t known what they were getting into. He looked at me specifically, and said I was the one person in the class he hadn’t met–I’ve never taken a cinema class in my life. However, it turns out that he’d worked for a literary/talent agency, and as I’m interning for one currently, we already had something in common.
The English department is allowing me to count the course towards my major, thankfully, as I really think that I’ll learn a lot of skills that will be invaluable to me in a career using my English degree. Already, there have been some themes in common with themes from the fiction writing class I took last fall. It’s fascinating to see how the two overlap. And if the screenplay I write has any elements of political science in it, which it might–government dramas and conspiracy themes can be fun–then I’ll be adding a third element in!
It’ll be writing for a new medium with a different audience to think about. While in novels you can see a lot of what goes on in a character’s head and words, in movies, the visuals are the most important part, and a lot of the time the script really needs to be concise because any redundant words will just waste time.
I need to come up with a proposal for the script I’m going to write in the next week, so I’m wracking my brains like crazy. I have the bad habit of not planning what I write, so this is an excellent opportunity for me to hone my writing in a different manner.
 Today was only the fourth day of classes, but already, I’m super busy!
On Tuesday, I had my Graphic Novels and Poe classes, both of which were quite fun. For Graphic Novels, we read and discussed Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis part one for today, and next week, we’ll be discussing Art Spiegelman’s Maus I and Maus II. After doing my entire senior sem on web comics, it’s nice to get to analyze some other comics. Poe has been very relaxed. Dr. Kachur, who teaches it, is very funny, and I think he and the class appreciate my own jokes : )
Yesterday, I was excited to find out that I’ll be working as an intern at the Carroll County Health Department in conjunction with my Writing for Nonprofits class. I’m not yet sure what exactly my job will entail, but I get to meet with my new supervisor tomorrow morning. On Monday, my classmates and I had been given a list of organizations we could potentially worked for, and each of us selected our top four organization choices. When I saw the Health Department, I knew I needed to make it my first choice, since I knew it was something I needed to try. Even though I’m an English major, I’ve always had a bit of a side interest in medicine, but incorporating this interest into a career had somehow not been something I’d really considered before. Now, I have the chance to explore this path for a bit and see if it could be right for me.
Over the past few days, I’ve also been taking care of some of my editorial duties for Contrast, McDaniel’s literary magazine. Every February, we hold a writing and art contest open to the entire campus so we can gather submissions for our annual issue, published in April. So on Wednesday, my co-editor and I sat down to hammer out when submissions would be due and when we would want to release the magazine (which entails a small release party). I poured a lot of effort into creating a professional looking poster to promote the contest, copies of which I’ll pick up from the campus copy center tomorrow morning. I’m excited to see the posters around campus and to get the contest rolling!
Things are only going to get busier form here on out. My job at the Writing Center starts up again next week, and the week after that, I’ll begin my internship. Fortunately, I’m doing so many things I’m excited about, and I hope this will keep me motivated as I race across the finish line in May.
A little snow didn’t keep things at McDaniel from running full swing today! (It did, however, cancel grad classes tonight.) My first class wasn’t until 11:30, but if I have too much time to sit around before my first class of the semester, I tend to get a little anxious, so I pretended that it was a snow day anyway and slept in until 10. It was nice!
 First day of class selfie in Writing for Nonprofits! The course is held in the English department’s beautiful Mac lab. That first class was Writing for Nonprofits, an English class that pairs students up with an internship at a local nonprofit. Today we learned about the expectations for the course and about the organizations we would be working for. Then, we wrote down our top four organization choices. I hope that whatever organization I’m paired with is a good match for me and that I’m a good match for them!
My next class wasn’t until 2:20, so I chatted with some friends who I ran into, got my mail, and returned to my campus house to make lentil soup for lunch — with plenty left over for when I need a quick meal.
That time went by quickly, and soon enough, I was off to my second class of the day, the Senior Honors Colloquium. All seniors in the Honors Program have to take the Honors Colloquium in order to graduate as an Honors student. The course meets once a week, and it basically consists of student presentations and discussions. Students can present their senior capstone, a departmental honors thesis, or on any other project they’ve done that they feel passionate about. I’ll be presenting my senior sem about web comics and depression, since it’s the most significant project I’ve taken on here at McDaniel and it’s also the one I have the most passion for. Hopefully, I’ll be able to lead a good discussion about it.
Colloquium let out early, so I had time to run an errand on campus before visiting my lovely advisor for a little bit. I was thrilled to see her, and it was a lot of fun to chat with her and some of her other “fans.” Afterward, I went home, rested a little, and then congregated in the kitchen with four my housemates to make and eat dinner. It was a little hectic for everyone to try to cook five separate meals in our small kitchen, but it was worth it, since it’s not often that all of us get to sit down and eat together.
Tonight, I have to tackle some projects and new assignments, since the semester is always quick to rev up. It’s my last semester on campus, so I intend to make it a great one!
In exactly four months and one day, on May 26, my Yellowstone contract starts.
While I’m not positive that I’m going back this summer, this also shows how much time is left in the semester.
Seniors graduate on May 23. To me, since I will be abroad next year, it feels like the juniors are also graduating as I won’t see them on campus again. This is going to absolutely break my heart, as some of my closest friends are seniors. But I’ll keep in contact with them and we’ll make these four months count.
This semester will be an interesting one for me. I recently accepted two remote internships–one with a literary agency and one with a literary scouting agency. Both are unpaid, and both are requiring quite a lot of my time. However, in the past semester, I admitted to myself that I want to be in the publishing industry when I graduate. I absolutely adore books more than anything and I think reading can truly change lives. The industry is crazy hard to get into and doesn’t pay well at all, which is why I had never admitted it to myself, but through these internships I’m seeing that I’d love my job. For the most part right now, I’m reading manuscripts and writing reader’s reports for them, but one will have me doing more specialized tasks later in the year.
As of now, I’m also taking 22 credits–five regular classes and four EPEs–though there’s a high chance I’ll drop one of the major classes and perhaps an EPE. British Novel is the class I might drop depending on how my workload looks, as I’m least excited for it. I’m also taking International Law and Organization, which is a basic PoliSci requirement but concentrates on the UN and world politics which I find immensely fascinating and is being taught by one of my favourite polisci professors. My Sophomore Interdisciplinary Studies class is called Justice, Fairness, and the Law, and should be interesting. Both are three hour long once a week night classes. This in theory will be good for me–while I can be guilty of having a short attention span it’ll mean that I have a lot of time to do work, which will allow me to plan ahead. I’m also taking a class on Poe with one of my favourite English teachers. The class I’m looking forward to most, however, counts towards neither my majors nor the McDaniel plan, so I have no justification for taking it except that it’ll be fun–Scriptwriting. I’ve never taken a cinema class before so I hope it’ll be how I expect it to be, but if it doesn’t pan out, Writing in Law and Policy is taught at the same time and I’d be almost as excited to take that.
This will be my last semester on campus before a year abroad and my last semester with a lot of good friends, but I’m ready to make the most of it.
JanTerm is truly the best time of the year.
I had taken a JanTerm class last year, so taking another class would have meant paying for the credits, but I had to be on campus as I’m an RA. I talked to a teacher who was teaching personal finance, and she let me sit in her class. She was a fantastic teacher and I really learned a lot even though I didn’t take the tests or do some of the homework.
A few of my close friends were on campus with me and it was just really happyifying to get to hang out with them without us being perpetually stressed. We actually got to laugh and have fun without thinking we should have been working. We spent quite a bit of time in the Rec Lounge playing Mario Kart on the Wiis there, something that we would only do on rare occasion during the semester. We also got to go to Baltimore and to Philadelphia. While I was kind of hoping we’d also get to go to New York City, I was definitely happy to explore even a little bit of the East Coast.
I worked on a lot of applications for scholarships. I’m studying abroad next year, and while I’ve planned my finances really well, I still wouldn’t mind getting a few extra hundred dollars here or there, so I’ve applied for pretty much anything I’m eligible for. I also wrote a few cover letters for summer internships–while I already have a job offer from Yellowstone, if I were offered a paid internship in New York City I might take it. I also planned a lot of my RA events for the semester, which is a load off my back.
I haven’t had much time to read for fun, but I’ve read quite a bit for my internships, and I read more than enough over actual winter break, so I’m not too disappointed there. I did have time to listen to a lot of New Order music–they’re my new favourite band and I’m loving almost every album I listen to of thiers.
Still, JanTerm is by far my favourite time of year. While the abroad JanTerms sound absolutely incredible, being on campus with my friends in a low stress environment is a treat enough for me.
|
|
