stories from the Realm

I got my Cane paper back and my teacher gave it an A+! Celebrations ensue! This is actually the first A+ I’ve earned on any paper at NYU. I’m very happy. I’ve posted the first part of the paper below the jump. It’s called “Ichiro.”

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I made a film! Actually, this is the 3rd film I’ve made this semester, but it’s the first I’ve posted to the internet. It’s sort of an experimental dream piece.

My life has pretty much been overtaken by my two video classes. One is about After Effects animation and the other is a film class. Last week I finished my first projects in both of them. The animation project is below.

The song is “Somewhere in the Between” by Streetlight Manifesto. It’s…well, it’s pretty basic, as far as animations go. I’ve got a lot to learn. There are some things I still want to go back and fix, but overall I’m pretty happy with how it turned out.

I’ll post the film project later. I have to upload it to YouTube first.

See that large figure up there? That number represents the amount of money I currently owe various financial institutions for my college education. I’m only halfway through my second year, so assuming that my loan debt continues to increase, I should be roughly $30,000 in debt by the time I graduate in 2012. Possibly more. The average statistic for post-grad debt (this figure has been quoted liberally in several newspapers this summer, so forgive me if you’ve already read about it) is $20,000.

I don’t want to sound as though I’m whining about my loan debt. Financial realities require that I take out loans to attend college, and if $16,800 is what it takes to stay at NYU, I will gladly suck it up and pay my bank for 10+ years after graduation.

But.

My grandmother used to tell me stories about how she worked as a secretary to put herself through college. And yet, for some reason, the cost of higher education has risen so much in two generations that this is no longer possible. I can only dream of being able to pay for college myself. In reality, paying for NYU tuition requires a joint effort by all my grandparents, my parents, and me. Why? What changed? What am I paying for now that’s worth so much more money?

I’ve read several interesting articles which claim that higher education is becoming overvalued. You can read one of them here. The idea, I suppose, is that higher education is in the middle of a bubble, like dot com and the housing industry before it. It’s an interesting idea, but not one I can really afford to contemplate. When a college degree is required for an entry level position in most industries, I don’t have much choice but to get one if I want a good career.

This entire issue confuses me to no end. I have a rudimentary understanding of economics at best, and no inkling of where my tuition money goes or what it funds. Am I the only person who thinks the cost of education has risen too much? If a decent college education in 2009 can only be financed by massive loans and the joint efforts of three generations, what is it going to take in ten years? Indentured servitude?

Can anyone explain this to me?

September 8 marked my somewhat anticlimactic return to college classes. So far everything has been fine, mostly because I don’t have enough homework to be completely fried – yet. And anyway, I suspect that between my 7 hour film class, an animation class, recording, and jazz practice, I will hardly have enough time to squeeze in mental breakdowns, so whatever.

On top of my lovely class schedule, I am now also writing for NYULocal (yes, the same NYULocal that I kind of disparaged in a previous blog post – it’s a long story). My first article went up yesterday. That was kind of cool. I’m glad to be writing again, even though I have clearly allowed myself to be roped into having tons of work. Thanks, Jessica.

Aaaaaannnnddd that’s it for now. I have a half-hearted post on fashion week in the works, so maybe check back in a few days.

I think I’m having an existential crisis.

I am about to be a sophomore at one of the most expensive colleges in the country, and I have no idea what my major is. I have no idea what I’m going to do when I graduate. I came here calling myself a journalism student, only to find that our paper sucks, the J-dept teaches to dead standards, and despite a desire to write, I have no time to be writing articles for anyone, because I have this thing called a job, which I need so I can pay for annoying necessities like food and toothpaste. (If only I didn’t have to eat. My life would be so much easier.)

While everyone else sits around twiddling their thumbs, waiting for newspapers to implode, I want to do something productive with my time. So instead of taking journalism classes, I’ve started to cobble together various media-related skills, in the hopes that by the time I graduate, I’ll have acquired enough miscellaneous knowledge that I can get a job being someone’s lackey. I can do lots of fancy things with Photoshop, ProTools, and AfterEffects. I can mic a drum set. (Believe me, you have not experienced the true meaning of “time crunch” until you have tried to mic a drum set in less than 30 minutes.) I can write well. I’m learning about film. I’ve learned a lot about audio recording. This year I’m going to take the IATSE apprenticeship test so I can do something productive with all the free time that I don’t have.

But even though I can do all these cool things, I feel like I’m not going anywhere. I’m not following the conventional J-School path to a career in the media industry. I’m not writing for the paper or any local publications. I’m not making any industry connections. My mom keeps telling me that I need to rethink my colloquium because “you can’t make money in journalism.” And she’s probably right. But if journalism isn’t what I’m supposed to do, then what IS? Audio engineering? Film? Teaching? Should I get a job as a midlevel bureaucrat somewhere and spend my nights writing novels on the side?

Journalism is the thing that defined me in high school, but now that I’m in college, it’s become more of a hobby than anything else. I don’t know how to build my major around journalism when it’s changing so quickly that it won’t be the same industry in 5 years.

Maybe I should stop trying. Maybe instead of worrying about standards, I’ll keep learning all these cool skills, and in 3 years someone will hire me for “thinking outside the box.” Maybe flipping the bird in the face of J-schools everywhere is the right thing to do. I really hope it is.

It’s the only plan I can think of.

I’ve had to eat my own pride.

About an hour ago, I ran across Cody Brown’s blog post in response to my rant about The Future of Journalism. Cody Brown is the publisher of NYU Local. And I realize, I was wrong. As someone who’s pursuing an imaginary major called Digital Media for Journalism, I should know better than to scoff as NYU Local’s bloggers as “not journalists.” I’m constantly annoyed that people refuse to call ME a journalist, just because I’m not taking classes in NYU’s official Journalism department.

Now that I think of it, “The Future of Journalism” doesn’t really reflect my normal view of new media at all. I’m honestly surprised I wrote it, considering I quit going to WSN’s meetings after two weeks because of their sluggish, behemoth structure, and was half considering applying for an NYU Local post three weeks ago. So what got into me? I think I was momentarily blinded by my floormate’s impassioned arguments in defense of WSN. I felt bad for her, and the paper in general. I wanted to defend them because I like print as a medium; because that’s where the roots of journalism are.

I really want to like the paper. But if WSN is really as great as she made me believe, why is NYU Local doing so well? And why did she clearly feel threatened by the blog’s existence? The only reason I personally pick up a copy of the paper is because it has the NYTimes crossword (which I love). The paper has been around so long that it’s become complacent. NYU Local’s appearance has actually done a lot of things to push WSN to improve – for example, they’re FINALLY redesining their website this summer (thank god).

AAAarrrghhhh why did I let myself fall into the trap of an emotional argument? I should know WAY WAY WAY better than this.

So, basically, I suck. I’m going to go sit in the awkward corner for a while with a dunce hat on, and when I come back hopefully I won’t continue to post stupid, ill-thought out ideas on my site.

Read Cody’s post here.

The following was my response to his post:

Hi Cody,

I am glad you took the time to read my blog and I’m sorry your comment didn’t appear on the site. I’m not sure what happened but if you’d like to email me I can make sure it gets posted.

I’ve given a lot of thought to this issue, and in hindsight, I think my statement that the NYU Local bloggers are not journalists was, as you say, a misnomer. In fact, I got a little too caught up in trying to define journalism, and hence, failed to recognize my own advice about Jenkins.

So in other words, you are right.

I suppose I’m still dealing with an internal resistance to the blog format, like many journalists in love with print are. My main reason for writing the original post was to state the following: I believe WSN and NYU Local must coexist in order to fully benefit the NYU community. In the conversation with my floormate, which I mentioned at the top of the post, I was surprised at the vehemence with which WSN systematically attempts to deny NYU Local’s credibility as a source of news (a crime which I’m equally as guilty of, I realize now).

I realize it must be frustrating to constantly fight the notion that the work NYU Local does is not as valuable as the work of the newspaper’s. I apologize that I contributed to that. Perhaps the struggle is necessary – as you gain more readers, WSN will be forced to evolve and change, and that will ultimately lead to better journalism on both sides. For now it’s best to take pride in the ways the blog is different from WSN. The acceptance will follow. I think I’m probably a good enough example of that.

In response to the short-term vs. long term views of NYU: I don’t believe the blogging medium necessarily LIMITS NYU Local’s view. But it does lend itself better to short-term coverage, and the site currently does that quite well. In no way do I suggest any sort of permanent limitation.

(The poem in question was written by a friend of mine. His name is Chris Brady, and I’m not sure how he’d feel about a song-and-dance interpretation of his work, but I’ll point him your way.)

Sincerely,
Avallonne

So, a few weeks ago I got randomly yelled at by one of my floormates. Said floormate, who works for the Washington Square News, was mad about my recent comments on the NYU Local blog, and asked why I never comment on WSN. The exchange (=argument) I had with her prompted a lot of extra thought about the future of journalism. *

The guys and gals at NYU Local make wonderful social commentary, and that’s why I read the blog. The funny quips and sarcastic observations about life at NYU are honest and endearingly condescending. But I hesitate to call the NYU Local bloggers journalists in the traditional sense. They do an excellent job of aggregating news from various sources, but rarely go out and pursue investigative journalism on their own. (A sort-of exception: Charlie Eisenhood’s liveblogging of the Kimmel occupation was definitely the fastest way to get information about TBNYU!’s protest while it was happening. I often wonder why WSN didn’t also have a reporter embedded there. Then again, I found it painful to sift through Eisenhood’s opinions and sometimes sloppy analysis of the protest.)

In contrast, WSN provides information and detailed analysis of things that may seem boring to some, but are in fact important when students want to consider the future of NYU.  WSN consistently analyzes the budget, various administrative decisions, and official developments that NYU Local hardly bothers to mention. NYU Local is good at getting the little picture – the snapshots of campus life and real-time events that people are desperate for information about – but often falls short when it comes to the big picture. In fact, they usually just link back to WSN’s articles (or articles on CNN, ABC, or the Times), rather than attempt to replicate or even build on the findings of WSN’s staff.

I usually find I can’t favor either organization, and end up reading them both equally. WSN’s website is shitty and their overly-hierarchical staff structure prevents new blood from sprucing up the publication. NYU Local’s writers seem to hate the world and anyone who doesn’t subscribe to their sarcastic, internet-savvy viewpoints.

Honestly, anyone who still thinks that blogs are going to take over the world needs to read Henry Jenkins’ book Convergence Culture. The new media model is going to rely on symbiosis. It has to. Blogs cannot survive without the base newsgathering that happens in traditional publications, and newspapers and other print behemoths need the new, variant ideas that blogs can provide so they can re-learn how to be relevant.

Really, why can’t we all just get along? There’s no reason to create a death match in which these two parties seem bent on beating each other into the ground, when clearly they would benefit more from a measured, friendly rivalry and a mutual understanding to stick to basic journalism principles.

*I’m kind of ALWAYS thinking about this, so I’m not sure this is really anything new…

As promised, animation is up on YouTube:

Win.

Bubbles!

I made this for my Media Convergence class at NYU. It’s an ad for a Japanese soda called Ramune. The bottle has a marble in it and when you buy the soda, you have to use a little plastic plunger to push the marble out of the bottle seal. I also made a 15-second animation with these graphics. YouTube takes forever to load things so I’ll post a link to the video later.