April 3

It's 2:00 am in the morning. I just finished watching season 7 of Buffy: The Vampire Slayer. It was beautiful. I started crying about 2/3 of the way into the show. It was extremely well directed, scored, and written. The show as a whole has really inspired me. As we all know, I love hero stories. Since this transition began, I've wondered what female heroine I would find myself attached to. Wonder Woman was the first one, but she's not very realistic. Buffy is realistic....well aside from the slaying of vamps part. Her character is real, as are all the characters on the show. I've bonded with the series now.

Joss Whedon, the creator, is an incredible man. He is such a feminist and is brilliant as a storyteller. He has driven me to want to be a part of something like Buffy. I want to create a character, story, family, and legacy out of a TV series or movie that will touch people's lives in the same way. Oh and I found out Joss is writing and directing the upcoming Wonder Woman film. That makes me happy.

My life also changed today in a completely new direction. Well...I guess not completely new. I just wasn't expecting it. I interviewed tonight for the director of the commission of student senate that I have been a part of for a year or so now. I've been the LGBT chair since I was kinda thrown into it at random. I've enjoyed it, but never thought I would be director, or even want to be director. To this day, I'm still not sure I want it. I applied because I didn't want to see the commission fall apart. The only other people that applied had never even been to a commission meeting before. So I interviewed and got the position. Go me...I think. Basically I just threw a huge responsibility on my shoulders. All this time I've been complaining about having so much crap to do, and now I just gave myself more. Way to go me. I'm an idiot. Yet I think this will be a rewarding experience. At least it's paid.

So yeah, I'm not exactly sure how that will go. I think it's odd how it happened in the first place. Over spring break I was called by the student body president and asked to interview. Apparently their first slew of people weren't up to snuff. I find that to be odd since Lisa, the former director, re-applied. I know she's capable. I think there were just some politics of sorts going down, which is bullshit. I very much respect Lisa and know she deserves the position. All the same, I know Lisa is glad I got the position over anyone else. At least things will continue to run smoothly.

April 10

I'm about two hours away from my school right now. It's the general assembly of the statewide student organization that runs several conferences I've been to and stuff. They were the people that set up the meeting with the university system that I spoke at back in December. They've been pushing to get me to come to a GA for a while, but this was my first opportunity. Friday night is the committee meeting time, and then Saturday is the actual general assembly.

Friday night was pretty cool. All us queer people talked about statewide issues for LGBTQ students. One of the big topics was the actual implementation of the new gender identity and expression policy. We wanted to be sure it was being implemented. I enjoyed the meeting. Afterwards I met up with my lil sister. She goes to school in that town. I had been hoping our meeting could be fun since we so rarely get to see each other. I was wrong. The group of us that came from my school had to have a "delegation meeting" and talk about what happened at our meetings. So instead of my sister and I hanging out, she got to listen to boring politics talk. I felt bad. Still we got to see each other. That's something at least.

Saturday morning was really dull. The bulk of the first three hours was spent on electing a new president of the organization. It took way longer than it should have. I just wanted to go home. I had the miniseries shoot I wanted to be at, and I was supposed to meet Audrey to hang out. Sadly, I didn't get back until the shoot was over, and Audrey and I didn't get to hang out for long. Anyway though, the elections took forever. After that they spent a few minutes on resolutions, and then we got to awards. Now, awards ceremonies you're supposed to get an award at are ok. But when you know you've never been to a GA before and you're not getting an award....they're pretty dull. Again, I just wanted to go home.

Then....one of the people gets up and starts reading off this award. As he talks about the award recipient, the person sounds very familiar. After about 30 seconds, I realized he was talking about me. It was all about "this person who constantly puts herself out there even though the environment right now isn't the friendliest. She works hard, sets examples, and without her, gender identity and expression wouldn't have been added to the non-discrimination policy at all." My heart was pounding and I had a shocked look on my face. He finally said my name and I walked up there and gave him a huuuuge hug. What a huge surprise. I felt so great after that. In fact, I felt like a heel for wanting to go home so much. What a great way to get me to come back a second time. Give me an award at my first GA.

That night Audrey and I watched our friend Amanda's softball game. This is the same Amanda that asked for my number. Sadly I don't think anything will happen between Amanda and I. We're both too busy and can never seem to connect. Our schedules are inversed or something. Anyway, the game was cool. Audrey and I went to get food and she headed home. Later on my friend Kevin came over and we watched Requiem for a Dream. Despite the film being about drug use, it's very well done. Technically it's great. I love the angles and composition in the shots. Beautiful. The movie itself...kinda depressing.

April 22

I've been a bad student this semester. I don't entirely blame myself for it though. I don't think there's much I could change. My class load is just so stressful. Combine that with my three jobs and my volunteer work...yeah, that's a challenge. I haven't even tossed the miniseries in there yet. I have shifted around every few weeks at which class is falling behind. For a while there it was my web programming class. Thankfully I'm caught up in that class and going to it every time. Now my art class is falling behind. My women's studies too, but that one I'm not as worried about. I am not a fan of this art class though. It's three credits, yet it's six hours a week in two three-hour blocks. That's a long class. On top of that, the professor is a jerk. He's one of those "I only give As to the graphic design students" type guys. He's hated every one of my projects, even though others in the class have really liked them. I just get so much negative feedback that it's hard to care about the class. Right now I'm just trying to get a C and get myself out of the class. Originally I was going to take the second class in the sequence, but I decided against it. Instead I'm taking a technical writing course. After this class...that course is looking pretty good.

A week ago I inadvertantly made the newspaper again. This time I had very little to do with it. On Wednesday, a friend of mine who teaches at the local high school and is the advisor for the GLBT group there asked me if she could show my before/after pictures in her class on Thursday for their school's recognition of the Day of Silence. Of course I said yes. Friday she called me to tell me about the article in the paper. Apparently there was one boy in her 3rd hour class that had a problem with the pictures. He left the class and called his dad. His dad then called the Superintendent of the district asking for my friend's suspension. Following that, he called the newspaper and said that she was pushing her "twisted point of sexual view on his kid". They of course jumped all over it. Thankfully most of the article featured my friend talking about how the pictures and lesson were completely appropriate and focused on critical thinking and diversity education, which the school district has policies supporting.

Regardless, I'm not a fan of hearing someone insult me even if my name isn't mentioned. I decided to write a response to it. I spent a few days, called in a few friends, and eventually wrote a 600 word response touching on the issue of ignorance in the local area. I decided not to go with the whole "Hey....you're an ass for calling me sexually twisted" response and stuck with a more poignant, intelligent, non-argumentative response. I felt that it was more of a slap in the face to come off as an intelligent, well rounded, respectable, not sexually twisted person than to just get all in his face. The response ended up being twice as long as the letter to the editor section allows. I submitted anyway. The editor e-mailed me saying they would print it completely and in it's own column. They also wanted a picture to go with. So....which picture to use...none other than the one shown in the classroom. SCORE!!! The article will be printed tomorrow. I'm excited. I'm not the only one who is responding either. There's a professor on campus, as well as a few others. I think that kicks ass.

Last weekend I hung out with my friends Kevin and Nikki. We watched the movie "Sideways". I really liked it. I don't drink alcohol, and the movie was about wine tasting. Even so, it was great. The story was excellent, the directing was great, and the camera work/technique was really cool. Lots of interesting angles and choices for shots. I get into that sort of thing cause I'm a geek about film. Still, I'm glad the movie won an Oscar. It deserved it. I give it 4.5 out of 5 brownies. (My old rating system if you recall). I think the only thing that dropped the .5 points for me was the drunkenness in the film. I live next to a bar and see it enough. But that's the only reason. Great film.

No news on the internship yet. I've been waiting for more than a month now. They said that they would let us know if we were finalists by the end of April. We're getting close. The worst part about this is that I can't commit to a summer job. I wont know if I can work the summer for probably another month. I'll probably end up working a shit job this summer because of it if I don't get the internship. I know I can work at TV10, but that's only 20 hours a week. I'll have to look into another job on campus too. Something to fill the other 20 hours. We'll see what comes up. Of course that's only if I don't get the internship. I'm still thinking I stand a really good chance of getting in. I'll keep you all updated.

Since Buffy is over, I've had to fill the gap of a series to watch. I decided to watch an old favorite of mine: Sailor Moon. Yeah yeah, I know I'm a huge dork. Anyway, Sailor Moon was the first anime series I ever watched. It got me into anime. So, it holds a special place. This time though, I'm watching the japanese version. Holy crap is it different. There's more violence. There's gay couples. And amazingly there's a lot more episodes too. They cut out a lot in the english version. It's been cool. After I finish this, my friend Kevin loaned me "24" season 1. So I'll get myself hooked on that next. I figure the miniseries is a spoof of 24. I might as well get to know the series it's based off of.

The mini-series is coming along. In fact it's getting close to it's conclusion. We have shot through episode 8. That leaves two more episodes left. We shoot ep 9 tomorrow. I can remember the fun of the first shoot. I've learned so much since then about logistics of putting together a series. I feel so much more professional now. What shocks me so much is that people really like the show. I mean...I shouldn't be shocked. I just have gotten to expect that people don't generally like the in house productions at my station. This is different though. No one's done a full out series like this before. Plus, it's well written and executed. Even people in administration like it. I'm so happy about that. We've submitted it to the student independent film festival on campus, and we're also submitting it to a national college broadcasting competition. I really think it stands a chance too. People have walked by during shooting and given us compliments on the show. I've walked into rooms and said some quote from the series and people have recognized it and laughed. Courtney downloaded every episode and burned them to DVD. Oh, and we're also going to make a real DVD of it after it's all finished complete with blooper reel and special features. I've had people ask when they can get a copy of it. So, I know people are interested. How cool is that?

I think I'll end this tome with a happy note. Earlier this week my friend Kevin announced that he is throwing a "Jess Appreciation Party" this weekend. Everyone at the studio is invited. It should be fun. I was so flattered when I heard that. I didn't provoke it or suggest it at all. It was actually his and Thadeus' (the miniseries writer) idea. By the way...Thadeus is a very cool name. So that party is tomorrow night. I'm excited. I'll let you know how it goes. :) That's it. Have a fabulous weekend everyone.

Luv,

Jess