Uneasy triumph

The Burning Five is finished--the first copy, although having some bonus footage I want to modify, was successfully burned onto a DVD early this morning.

There are, of course, many small problems I am aware of that I could go back a tweak, but running after "small problems" always leads to wanting to completely revamp entire scenes, adding months more of production . . . so I'm stopping with that. The movie is cohesive in a way that I find quite satisfying--I hope everyone else will, too. This is what I wanted . . . I made too many mistakes early on to achieve perfection with this project.

These things noted, I feel uneasy . . . quite lacking in energy and motivation. I had been expecting that finishing the movie would give me a large boost of both things that would easily fuel everything necessary to set up a handful of local public screenings, as well as sending out copies to friends in other colleges to screen abroad.

I didn't think I would finish things this month . . . it's a surprise, really--entirely the product of having a week without classes, particularly so unexpectedly.

I'm glad I really made the most out of my week off . . . but now I'm not sure if I'm actually rested in the way the week was supposed to give NIU students. I probably am, and have just hit a mild depressive mood that will dissipate shortly. However, at the moment I am uneasy.

Still thinking about the same ancient ghosts . . . still speculating when might I finally see my sun.

anxiety

tons of it, all at once, all right now--i don't know where it's coming from, but feel like maybe writing through it could help . . . in public; in pseudo-public since, really, no-one reads this fucking thing.

maybe that's it . . . maybe that's part of it, being acutely aware that, regardless of my dreams and wishes, less than two-dozen people have even really pretended to give a shit about anything i've made in years and years. and that's all i've done in years--is write a couple things, here and there. i don't work, i don't help out with the community or anything . . . i just lock myself in my room for most of the day, hopefully finding about four hours a week to spend making something that no-one else can make.

that no-one else wants . . . and that's it, too, this awareness, or maybe mistrust is more accurate, that the people around me really don't care, either--or, at least not in the way i--right now desperately--want them to. no-one else is running after unrealistic dreams, no-one else is pursuing deep thoughts into rooms rarely unlocked . . . it's this loneliness, and this perception that this loneliness is unnecessary, and it's being so close and so far, at once, from all of my goals.

i am chewing on a shirt right now--it's one of the few mechanical habits i've noticed in myself to deal with stress: chewing on things. i refuse to drink, i refuse (and wouldn't even know where to look for) drugs, i refuse tobacco and prostitutes and god. i face things with my own faculties, with my own will--i try, always, to stare down my problems face-to-face, to pierce right into the heart of my fears, my insecurities, so i can become a stronger, an ever-more rounded person.

and i look around, and it looks like i am alone in my vision--in my need to move forward, in my drive to constantly improve my situations by asking questions. that's what i want to see more people doing: asking questions--because i ask so much, and . . .

and shit has been too strange, lately . . . too chaotic, for once.

i want, most desperately of all, to find a way to a universe where i could be with the person i most admire right now . . .

(and delusional fantasies don't count.)

Huh . . .

My reaction around 3:30PM was entirely apathetic--I was inbetween class, waiting for the second of two that are back-to-back in the same room in DuSable to start. Only six students showed up for the second class, and the prof. came in with the first rumors I heard. "Something about a shooting outside of Cole . . . they were trying to get me to lock myself in my office . . ."

The eight of us decided to proceed with class, figuring it was probably safer to stay in the fourth-floor room than to walk around campus in case the assailant had escaped (as one of the students related). About forty minutes later, we were told to leave--campus was completely locked down.

It finally started dawning on me that something out of the ordinary had happened when I got to the bottom of the stairs in DuSable and a policeman pointed me to the nearest door. I walked outside to see an army of ambulances, lights blinking erratically, in the parking lot after noticing three helicopters hovering above campus.

The scene had ended over an hour beforehand when I was walking home. It took over an hour to manage an outgoing call to let my parents know I wasn't a victim. I've heard from just about all my friends on campus, but can't help worrying about finding a name I recognize when the full list of victims is finally released. It's irrational . . . no one I know would have taken the class it happened in . . . but the worry keeps coming back, making me uneasy.

The situation makes me think about death, and about terror . . .

it's grim.

avengers in sci-fi

The last weeks have been . . . troubling, in ways, but in a mostly-disconnected form. Lots of light worrying, and pandering to low-productivity habits. Also, much learning and uncovering--thinking I am nearing a number of creative breakthroughs that will positively enhance things in a profound way.

Listening to some music: Miki Furukawa, iLL (Koji Nakamura), and Avengers in Sci-Fi. Perhaps shifting back to Eastern musics has amplified the weirdness I've been feeling lately.

Really, it's hard to describe--I've tried in some correspondence since last week, & have not done very well. I feel fundamentally disconnected, yet inspired in strange ways . . . maybe what I've been working at personality-wise is starting to surface. That is, I've been trying to better understand my emotions, and to not run away whenever an insight comes to me without rational packaging.

I can't say where any of this will lead . . . hopefully to taking a step forward in my desired path to becoming a "professional" artist--probably a poet. Poetry is something I have really been excited about this year, something I've been looking forward to figuring a lot more about since I failed to snag a spot in the Writing Poetry course last Spring. Therein, I believe I've already made some breakthroughs . . . but I can't say, once again, where, when, or what might come of things.

I have my own ideas . . . dreams, mostly--ideals. These are personal, and I will keep them guarded for now. I am still quite aware of the lessons articulated in 2006: particularly "hope rides alone."

As distant & worried as I've been feeling, there has also been a deep calm when I've taken moments to think in solitude. Inspirations have been visiting such moments. I'm in the middle of writing a 180+ line poem, and am close to pinning down concepts for several more.

Unfortunately, I haven't been in a proper mood to finish the movie since just before school started back up, and this is particularly annoying because I am *so close* to encoding a final cut. It'll be done before June . . . but I keep making and breaking promises of "within the week" and "certainly before the end of the month," so I won't say that. There's something like 30-40 hours of work left . . . I've been tackling about 50 hours of movie work every six months or so. Thus, before June.

Listening to: "Dance to the Future" by Avengers in Sci-Fi