So far

Its now my first official weekend, that is a weekend after a full week of class. I have nothing scheduled, so, its going to be sort of nice. Its been a busy week, but it has also FLOWN by. During the day there's hardly a dull moment. On Mondays and Fridays I don't have but about a 25 minuet break for lunch from 8am to 6 pm. On Tuesdays and Thursdays I don't have class until 11:30, but I have crew from 7-11pm.

As busy as I am, its not a drag. Its really, really fun. I enjoy all of my classes except maybe Theatre History, but its at 8am and I'm usually not awake then so it doesn't count. Some of them are short (50 min) and some are long (2 hrs.). Some are relaxing and without stress (Drafting, Drawing), and some are fast-paced and stressful (Color and Design). Those three that I mentioned, in addition to "Introduction to Theatrical Production", are the make up of my "arts" classes. For freshman year, as you can tell, there is little focus laid on what your major is. These classes are general design (drawing, color and design) or technical (ITP, Drafting), but they are all geared in some way towards theatre. The teachers do a remarkable job of helping us understand why we need to know a drawing technique, why we need to know the elements of good graphic design, and why we need to know how to hand draft when there are perfectly good computer programs that do it for you...

A little side note- Its really neat here how it seems that every faculty and staff member is 1. a top member of their field (as with any university), and 2. also in some way connected to the arts. Nearly all the academic teachers hear have some sort of background in theatre, music, film, dance, visual arts, etc. Its not really necessary, but it helps to have a math teacher understand where you are coming from as an artist. In nearly every lecture or discussion I've been in this past week, the teacher has given examples in the realm of theatre. That fact alone really sets apart School of the Arts (as Winston-Salem locals call us. Excuse me- its just "Winston") from any liberal arts program... with a theatre program. Everything is arts based here. That does NOT, however mean that any less emphasis is put on academics. Even though academic classes are held across the street from campus in an old Catholic school building, the school still regards them above all arts. Your arts advisor will tell you he/she would rather see you doing better in academics than arts classes. When I spoke with my advisor, Norman Coates, on Tuesday, he was explaining how eager he was for me to take certain academic classes. His tone indicated that doing well in "Theatre History" and "Foundations of Western Thought" was vital to my success as a lighting designer.

Anyway. This is getting long so I'll move along. Another thing that has surprised me greatly about this, the first full week of classes here, is that I am completely amazed by the wealth of information I've learned in just the past seven days of class (which started last Thursday). If I feel this well educated in just a week here, I can't imagine what a term, a year, and four years will be. But I suppose that's the difference between high school and college.

As far as other than class, its also a blast here. I spend most of my precious free time in the dorm, where we all pass the time by studying, talking in the hall, throwing juggling balls at each other, duct-taping up people's doors (we have become quite proficient at that...), and today four of us purchased nerf-guns. Also, having a film major as a roommate, and having one across the hall, I have watched more movies these two weeks than I have in the past year. But that's not a huge accomplishment. Be Kind, Rewind, The Big Night, The Darjeeling Unlimited, Man on Wire, and some others I can't remember. Next weekend, the school is screening their mint-condition original print of Star Wars in the biggest movie.

One thing I was worried about was that everyone here would be weird and I wouldn't get along with anyone. Well the first part is true. The second is not. However. The weird people here are weird like me. They just really like lights. or movies. or music. or dance. or scenic painting. Otherwise, the campus at UNCSA is not unlike any other college campus... there are loud, out going people, there are reserved, easy going folks, super geniuses, ditzy girls, former line backers (across the hall actually), base-ball players... however I have yet to see any use of the one and only campus athletic field, which I have deemed "The Pickle Bowl".

Winston-Salem, or just Winston, or just "The Dash" (my personal favorite) is a great city. Everyone in town is proud of School of the Arts (except the local paper), and the whole city is just really cool. Last weekend there was a festival called Rock the Block that apparently had a turn out of 50,000. The school had bussing to it, and there were free concerts, skateboarding, etc. I didn't get that memo until Monday... unfortunately.

Anyway, hope things in Georgia are going fine. Its going nice and cool here :)

Peanut Butter

is good.

The College Life

Email from a Residence Life Staff Member:

Subject: MISSING CUSHIONS
The cushions that belong on the couch in the C/D Lounge have been missing for over a week. If you have them, please put them back immediately. If the cushions are not returned a fine may be assessed to all students who have access to the C/D Lounge and/or furniture in the lounges may be removed completely.

Thank you,
Residence Life Programs & Housing

Kole Metz
College Life Judicial Coordinator
University of North Carolina School of the Arts
1533 South Main Street
Winston-Salem, NC 27127
Telephone: 336.631.1215
Fax: 336.631.1289
metzk@uncsa.edu

Schedule

This does not include additional shop/"fundies" hours, or crew hours, OR additional class hours, OR time to work on projects for classes.

I don't

I don't want to be a blogger. But I do want to keep people that care (a couple of people do) updated on how I'm doing and whats going on ALL the way up in North Carolina, which really is just Georgia that gets a little colder and with Costcos (everyone loves Costco apparently). SO. Instead of sending lots of different personal emails and calling everybody every day... I figure this will work (I'll still call, mom).

This is day four I believe. Its one of the last days remaining that I'll have any time to do anything other than work on academics and arts projects. The course load between my academic classes (usually two per term, three terms per year) and arts classes is very intense, my hours many days may be from 8-11 in the morning for academics, and 2-11 for arts. But everything depends on what day, what crew, what show, what went wrong, what went well... Despite the difficulty of everything, I'm very excited to be working up here. Everyone from the faculty to the older students are incredibly supportive and willing to help with anything. There's not the typical hate-the-freshman attitude going on here, so that's nice.

But for now, until Thursday when classes start, things are real slow. We've been going around, making sure we know where stuff is, how to use stuff, etc. Occasionally there are some orientation things scheduled . Its funny the amount of choice they have in deciding where to have a school assembly. There are two concert halls, four theatres, three screening rooms, and a large movie theatre on campus, it seems like we have a meeting in just about all of them. Today all I have to do is get a respirator fitting! How exciting!

My dorm is not too small, my roommate and I have got things nice, and I'm pretty confident we have the coolest room in the hall. My film-major roommate has a bunch of cool movie posters, and I brought a bunch of cool posters of my own. Our dorm is on the third (top) floor of our building, of which there are six. Each hall only has about 18 people, although it seems like less. Its nice to have a small hall so we get to know other people. The residence life office decided to experiment this year with all-school halls. So like below us there is an all-music hall. In building E, there is an all D&P (explanation below) hall. I'm sure thats cool and all, but I'm glad I'm in a mixed hall. If my roommate was a lighting major, I'm afraid we'd spend way too much time together and way to much time talking about lights. Hearing the filmmajors on my hall talk about movies may get old, but at least it wont be about lights! I'll get to hear about more lights than I ever wanted to know about (yes, even me).

So, unless you were my parents, you probably just read that and wondered what in the world D&P means. Well. I'll tell you. There are five schools at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts. Thankfully the five schools have much shorter names than the college name. Theres a School of Dance, Drama, Film, Music, and Design&Production. I am in Design&Production, AKA D&P AKA the best school on campus. Each of the schools have their own dean and buildings, just like different colleges in a "normal" college. Because there is nothing "normal" about UNCSA. The scene shop takes up probably double the space the only recreation field takes up. Thats not normal. Anyway, within D&P you can specialize in all kinds of things: sound design, scenic design, technical direction, scene painting, costume design, costume technology, performing arts management, motion control, stage management, and of course, lighting. Its just called lighting because they tell us everything about lighting, and then in our junior year we have to decide between lighting design or lighting technology. That's going to be reeeeeeeeally hard... D&P has a huge facility on the east side of campus (I talk like its a big campus. its not). There's a massive scene shop, props shop, theres a huge scene painting shop, sound shop, sound studios, really cool costume shop and storage facilites, AND best of all... a giant electrics shop with hundreds of lights and light boards that the students are in charge of. One of the things that was so unique to me about UNCSA is how D&P is separate from just a theatre school. We do productions for the school of Drama and Dance, and I suppose a little Music. We work at all the campus performance spaces, including the Stevens Center, which is a large restored movie theatre downtown in Winston-Salem that the school owns. All kinds of traveling shows go through there (think RiverCenter) including Garrison Keillor later this fall.

Ok, I hope that was informational. I have to go to my respirator fitting now!