Rejected!

The BBQ Pit
1

Today I found out who gets to make a nifty film for their senior project instead of taking a crappy class with the worst teachers in the major where you write a ten page essay of “digital media theory” every week. Guess who isn’t going to make a senior film?

I’ve been rejected. On my ass. I never really considered that I wouldn’t get in. My work is good. My proposal was good. I’m an excellent student and the teachers like me.

But not, apparently, enough.

So while everyone I know is working hard on their exciting projects, I’ll be plugging away essay after essay just trying to pass the time before graduation without getting too bitter about all my missed oppurtunities. I was so ready to devote my life to this project. It would have been good. I can’t believe that I don’t get to do it.

Here I am three months from graduation and I feel like I never want to set foot on campus again. I know I ought to help out with as many projects as I can for the experience, but even thinking about that makes me cry. I’m completely drained of enthusiasm. The thought of listening to my peers talk excitedly about their projects makes me want to throw up. Four years of college and I’ve got to finish it off with a bunch of crap. Isn’t it enough that I have no future? Isn’t it enough that I have no prospects of jobs or success or anything, that after graduation seems like a big void? Why can’t I have just one thing to live for, one thing to work hard for? Just one thing to help me through life when I’ve been so close to just giving up…

Okay, I’m gonna go back to crying now. Did I ever mention that I take rejection pretty hard?

2

So, could you make the film anyway?

3

Are only a certain number of people allowed to make a senior film? Maybe you’re just on the wrong end of the bell curve.

If not, is there some kind of appeal process? At my university whether or not you can write an honors thesis senior year is based on your GPA. Mine fell slightly below the line (thanks to a disastrous freshman year), but with the help of a couple of proffesors I lobbied the department head and got in. Then again, just about everything was negotiable in that department if you knew the right people. Don’t suppose you know anybody who might help pull a string?

4

I might still be able to do the project. I can’t make it on film, because I won’t have access to fim equiptment, but there is a chance I can buy a digital video camera and make it on DV. I won’t be able to use the studio, though, so I’ll have to change a lot of my plans. I doubt my mom will help me out with the funding (like she was for the senior project), so I will have to scale things back considerably.

I’m going to talk to some teachers tommorow to see where I went wrong. Only fifteen people could get in, and it was a pretty lengthy application process, so I doubt there is much good I can do at this point.

still sad

5

Any way you can get your hands of equipment elsewhere? Public access station? Borrow a classmate’s camera? Maybe you can take a similar class at Cabrillo College, if only to get their equipment.