community developing problem

[K&D]

hey i have a rather philisophical thought/problem

i feel like it's so fucking easy for me not to make decisions, but i'm not getting what i want out of life. i too want to live to the fullest, like thoureau talks about, be awake all the time. i think i know what i want out of life but i don't know how to get it, and i don't know how i should live desisivly. i thought switching to Doc Studies would be a step but what if film isn't the answer. i know i want to create and i want to work in a group, but how can film be an unaleinated production? the only classes that i feel like i'm getting anything out of is my politics classes, my film classes aren't pushing me to think of any answers for myself or think about anything pertinant to my own life.

all i got so far, is that i think i should be getting up earlier and i think i should be doing more of what stimulates me to come up with ideas of my own, sollutions, not just theoretical stuff but practical solutions about living deliberatly. and thoureau is right, if my interpetation that he thinks that finding the self is subjective, because i know i couldn't live or find answers for myself living like he did in a cabin. you know how we use to build set peices and shoot the breeze, i can't think of anything that i enjoyed more and i don't have that here. i think there is also something to be said for doing an activity and creating in a very physical way, and i've missed that now for a year. i don't have a theater to hang out and build with people in. i think my newest task is to find something similar, i think that activity affirms humanity and though i hate to use the word, spirituality....not to mention a sence of freedom.

[Arcadia]

what do you study? I mean, the name of the course/carrera.

[K&D]

film. right now i'm a film major, i'm considering switching to Doc Studies Major.

[judih]

Doc is Documentary studies?

If i may offer something from my past shock of University - BA studies are frustrating. Mine involved studying what others thought, did and wrote and offering comments that were encouraged to be fairly unimaginative.

The good courses were 3rd year with exceptional professors who still believed in personal expression. Take them if you can.

The best stuff comes later on.
But whatever you do, search out the most lively, eccentric Professors and lecturers. Seek out anyone no matter what the course.

Those will be the experiences that will help you stretch your intellect.

[mtmynd]

Very wise words from Judih, K&D... a good approach, one that I had no patience for when I tried the route to 'higher education', but that is another story...

[gypsyjoker]

But whatever you do, search out the most lively, eccentric Professors and lecturers. Seek out anyone no matter what the course.

Easily said. Eccentric is one thing, neurotic another. Difficult to deal with crazy professors, that love to teach, love the subject they are teaching but who have some issues with the "university about unfinished thesis for example. They come into class pissed and start inflicting their woes on the their students. My case was Cultural anthropology 401, my first interesting third year course after dicking around as a sophomore for twelve years.

Well what would set him off was the Medeaval Mercenarie Militia. A group of people that used to dress up and play knights at war on the mall. Unfortanely for Mr. Cosnow his class room was loacated in the ROTC armory building that all land grant cow colleges were required to have by law. The militia would ...practice down the hall, screaming and yelling, then he would lose his train of thought and get pissed run out of the room and start yelling at them, come back slam the door and start ranting about the got dam cow college and calling us all a bunch of niggers for taking this shit and then I got up and left. My last day of college. Trouble was I could not laugh at the time, too neurotic myself. I saw too much of myself in him.

sorry for the ramble judih is right, and take it from a twelve year veteran sophomore, second year is toughest. Good stuff coming, all you got to do is have compassion for those eccentrics.

[Lightning Rod]

judih is totally on time. Get the instructors who are crazy for what they do, the ones that are excited about telling you what they know and are not afraid of learning from you.

I had an anthropology professor in college one time that made the subject come dead for me. He hated his job and he was excited about nothing. It took me several years to get over my aversion to this very fascinating subject.

Perhaps the best teacher I ever had was when I was locked up. Dr. James Olsen from Sam Houston State University would come into the prison and teach history classes. I took four or five semesters of his courses. He would walk into class with nothing but a number two pencil clenched between his teeth and proceed to make history come alive with his lectures.

Every day when Dr. Olsen came into the prison he had to pass a sign that announced that the Texas Prison System didn't recognize hostages. In other words, "if you get grabbed by the Mexican Mafia or the Ayrian Brotherhood, you can kiss your sweet ass goodbye, because we shoot to kill." It takes courage to be a great teacher.

[gypsyjoker]

It takes courage to be a great teacher.

Yeah I wish I had more courage, should have stood up to him told him to call one eight hundred cry baby and how about we shift the class to a discussion of eleventh century france. Sad case with cosnow, I googled him once and he is now a dis barred lawyer and antique dealer down in south beach I think.

It takes courage to be a teacher these days, I wish I would have had more compassion for cosnow. He really loved anthropology. So did I, still do.

Sorry sparky, did not mean to hijack your post, I can't even remember your question, except j gave a good answer. Third year is

[K&D]

thanks for the advice, its advice i've been using since i was in high school...the thing is in the film department, i'm not sure there really into sharing there knowledge, there not teacfhers first, i think they are filmmakers, all the ones i've met.

[mtmynd]

Patience, K&D, patience... it's a good thing.

[gypsyjoker]

i'm not sure there really into sharing there knowledge, there not teacfhers first, i think they are filmmakers, all the ones i've met.

I find that peculiar. Are you supposed to learn by watching them work do they not answer your questions? I mean I am confused, how can teachers not share their knowledge? Help me somebody. Is this some sort of Zen teaching?

[Artguy]

"The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes “Awww!...."

By guess who

[mtmynd]

artguy - "By guess who." Weren't they a Canadian band from the late 60's, early 70's..?

[K&D]

"American Women" yeah!

no they teach, i just think there not into teaching that much sometimes.

[lovingpenfull]

That's easy, Artguy, you're refering to an essay written in the 1870's by a Dr. Algernon Gray on a certain madness in those employed in the manufacture of fireworks, particularly Roman Candles, or as they were called at the time, Greek Eruptors, as he observed it in late 19th century London. He held that as the result of continuous contact and interaction with powder stuffs used in the production of Roman Candles, individulas would degenerate into a malady affecting both temperment of mind and attitude as well as the nervous system. Victims were said to be 'Candle Mad' or were said to have the shine of 'Candle Wax' about them. It was then some decades later into the 20th century that a certain Jean Keruoac of French Canadian parentage, having studied completely the works of Dr. Gray, pened a little known novella by the name of "About the Road" in which your passage is to be found, some where about the end, I believe, of this pamplet, the paragraph appears.

K&D, I don't know the answer, but I did know a person who attended some film school in the state of Florida, and her only job prospect was in some climate controlled film vault somewhere, keeping the film from spoil as film goes bad as a banana goes black inside a humid ziplock baggie inside a summertime Ford Escort with the windows rolled up in a tropical parking lot; anyway, you can do your film thing on your own, that way you can take all the credit as being self taught when your film hits the big time big city markey, your name in lights above it; you can change your major; yeah that is the problem, a topic you love and a fool 'teaching' it whom you detest. Don't forget, those who can't do, teach. I hope that's encouraeing, well that is a bit cynical of me, but really, just go with what FEELS the most natural, trust all instinct and don't take anything in this post too seriously, especially the Roman Candle bit, we all know it was Compsky who wrote those immortal words as put forth by Artguy for our guessing as a linguistic sample and example in one of his laborious proofs.