flashback!

september 26th

high school, to me, will always best be remembered as incredibly late nights of sitting in the media cave going blind staring at my G4, occasionally taking tongue exercise breaks with my boyfriend. i was an a/v geek, but not really cause we were only working on a very specific project. i, we, made THSTV (tigard high school television). this was mostly comprised of filming the antics of the hilarious matt and nathan (both of whom i was totally crushing on at one point or another, if only for the way they made me laugh). 'we' consisted of a couple more crushes of mine, a couple ex's (yeah, i don't know how to keep personal life and work separate), and some other people who didn't do a lot of work. my late nights were spent editing the final product into a cohesive whole. sometimes this meant cutting together every last moment of film that had to be aired the next day (hence me being at school till two in the morning, on occasion), but sometimes this just meant putting together the segments and intros in the right order--i made it out of school only a few hours late on those nights. now, i didn't find this home till the last two years of high school, but ever since then i have been vying to get back into that hole of an editing lab. this is important to me at the moment because i relived these moments today. at my base high school there are many clubs that meet before and after school. they stay way too late and get there way too early. i could not imagine doing this in high school, when motivation is at its lowest for american students, until i of course remembered not only my early mornings going to symphony practice but my late nights and occasional weekends put in for THSTV. so i felt a little kindred spirit with those students who were putting in the extra hours, although i was never as much as an over achiever as these psycho kids. then today, the ESS club finally met and asked me to check their pronunciation for their school video, and there i was. i was back in high school, 15-16, awkward and dying to get my hands on their editing project (even if it was on imovie). of course, my better judgement said, 'i'm the teacher. i'm supposed to assist, not do'. so i sat back and watched. it was crazy. the same tiny, smelly awkward cave of a room (although i could see the setting sun from theirs). the same dedicated bossy girl (that would have been ME) and the same support staff who just did what they were told because they knew better than to try to get too involved--a little selfish, yes, but damn it looked like a good finished product. this was the first night i stayed late, all the way till seven; and there were some desperate moments when dehydration and starvation began to creep up on me, when i was tempted to skip out, but i stayed. i stayed and tried to help them work their way through the english they had written themselves. i watched as 'leo' put everything together on their emac and controlled the recording of their narration. i chatted with the cutest girl as of yet, who got all genki and excited about harry potter and 'mr. allen rickman'. i tired to explain the absence of a subject in one sentence, asking the higher level english speaker to help out. and yes, i did rush out once the last girl finished her recording, after reading through it twenty times and recording about six different takes. but she was so sweet, and was trying so hard, that it just made me smile. these english club(/broadcasting club) girls remind me of me. they remind me of high school and everything i loved about it. but they are also very much japanese high school students: hard working and demanding perfection. the one difference i saw, from the other students whom i've worked with, was that they were not overly impressed with me. oh they appreciated my help, they asked me where i was from, but they did not take me at face value. i don't think they would have blindly followed if i told them that they should adjust their project one way or the other. for that i was truly proud to help them out on their video.