Me and My Life - Part 1

Finally, the day has come where I upload the first part of my video I had to do for my class Digital Tech and Film. Basically, the assignment was about shooting and cutting a video where we present ourselves and our life. That is what I did - presenting some things from my life back in Europe as well as some insights in my life now in the United States. Since I'm a filmmaker and there is a little producer in me I decided to upload the video in two parts in order to create a cliffhanger so that you have to come back in order to see the second part (if you haven't seen it already on facebook) - hehe ;

)More updates on recent events coming soon, but I get buried under a pile of homework, assignments and studies I have to do.

So long - enjoy!  

First Part (second will be shown at the beginning of November)

Chicago

This weekend, I did my little road trip to Chicago. I started my trip right after my Script Analysis class on Friday heading to Chicago for the international short film festival. I checked the rout on Google Maps and it said it's gonna take like 4 hours to get there. From Bowling Green, Ohio through Indiana to Illinois/Chicago. Well, it took me a little longer than that. First of all driving on a highway in the United States is not quite the same as it is in Austria. Your just allowed to drive 65 mph which is something like 110 Km/h if you speed chances are that a police car is chasing you down the highway giving you a speeding ticket. But the biggest difference is the distances, you drive like miles and miles straight ahead which makes you kind of dizzy 'cause it's boring, there is nothing to do actually and when you have a car in which the air condition doesn't work and it's freaking hot outside you get even more tired. So this lead to the thing that I almost fell asleep like three times opening my eyes in middle of two lanes. That's why I had to take some pit-stops for recharging my energy. The other thing was arriving in chicago on a Friday evening is not that of a good idea because I drove directly into a traffic jam which took me like an hour to get to the hostel I was staying. But, rumor has it that Chicago is the second shittiest city in the United States concerning traffic because whole Chicago is just one huge construction site - and I made it through it without any break down. Haha I'm really proud of me.

The reason why I went to Chicago was the International Short Film Festival which I attended on Friday night watching some nice comedy and scifi/action movies. Honestly, I think they weren't any special at all so I'm really going to consider submitting my short movies to similar festivals. After the screening, which ended 11 pm we had a little guided city tour in the famous Chicago trollies, which was actually pretty nice a city tour at midnight, but unfortunately I was really really tired from driving and the tour lasted like 2 hours passing by one skyscraper after the other I kind of fell asleep after the first hours hehe. But anyhow, the start was great and the had some free pizza and drinks. After that I headed directly back to the hostel trying to get some sleep in order to have enough energy for Saturday. I tried to get some sleep in my room with four french guys and a guy which nationality remained undefined to me on the, well I guess I can really say it on Americas worst mattress. I swear to god that was more anything else than a mattress - that was unbelievable it felt like lying on the ground in the woods or something. But better than nothing.

On Saturday I went up like 10 am, wandering around Downtown which didn't impress me at all. New York City still remains my favorite city so far. On 1:15 pm the screening of the shorts started again and I have been there until like 5pm. I took the train home, taking a nap and a shower and went to the Navy Pier which is some kind of an entertainment area because I wanted to see Transformers on the IMAX screen. When I arrived at 6:30pm the 7pm show was already sold out so I had to wait 3 hours for the next show. I really can tell you that 3 hours can be a very long time waiting on something. First of all I thought well it's not that bad, I ended up riding the fairys weel, the carousel and all the things by myself. All the people looked at my as if I were crazy because just couples and parents with their children were riding and me - all alone. That was a strange feeling, but I somehow started to like it, it was kind of fun the push yourself over the limit concerning embarrassment. Hehe - I finally attended Transfomers at 10pm which kind of overwhelmed me auditive and visual vise so that I had to throw up after the show very badly. Thanks for that Michael (Bay) and Steven (Spielberg)! ;)

The rest of the evening was just unbelievable strange and weird, If you wanna know what happened wait like 2 years and you can watch it as a movie because I really have to write a script based on some of those events. ;)

Finally!

Finally, I passed the driving exam on the road. This means I can legally drive in the United States, since I drove illegal the last few days. Hehe It was pretty cool actually since I had another examiner this time and he was pretty relaxed and did talk to me in full sentences instead of half finished imperatives like "right", "next left". The examiner even told me about Heineken kegs and asked me if I don't like their music because I had my iPod plugged to my radio. hehe

Anyhow I passed and I'm glad about that since I need it in order to get into bars as well because that's how they verify your age, otherwise I needed to bring my passport to the bars and even that option was uncertain since not all bars accept foreign passports.

I think I didn't talk about my car so far. I bought a car like 2 weeks ago a 2000 Pontiac Sunfire SE. It's a used car (obviously) and I got it for like 3.000 euros which is a pretty good price vor 127.000 miles. And it got automatic transmission - of course - I really start to like it, especially the cruze control. Hehe! I'm very happy with the car because it taught me a completely new feeling of freedom. Now I can go wherever I want and whenever I want to - that is a really great feeling. I also got my title and my license plates today and I also have insurance for my car so I'm set and ready to go.

This is why I'm looking forward to going to Chicago over the weekend since their is the international Short Film Festival. It's gonna be my first road trip and I'm going all by myself. I'm gonna start my trip tomorrow noon and I'm going to be in Chicago in about 4 hours, so by 4 pm I should be there. I'm curious how it's going to be - it's going to be a whole new experience. Hehe

I'm really going to try to take some pictures of the trip so that I can write a post about it. So, that was the update on one aspect of my life in the United States. Of course there is going to be more like what's the university like, where and how do I live and who are my roommates besides Martin. And I also plan several other road trips like to New York City in about 2 weeks for the New York Film Festival.

So stay tuned! ;)

FAILED!

Well, the time has come, finally it was time to get to my driving exam since I already have my car. I know I have been lazy with updating this blog, but that's because I really and when I say really, I really mean it - really - had a lot to do for university like homework and stuff. There is coming some more informations soon about everything you just missed so far. Anyhow - I have to update that now, because today I had an appointment for my driving exam ... and well - call me crazy but somehow I knew I won't going to pass it from the moment when I saw my driving examiner - it's this typical asshole you wish isn't going to sit next to you in the car during your driving exam. Anyhow, I think I did not that bad but obviously he just looked at his rules very strictly and didn't judge the overall driving experience. Anyhow - I failed! If you want, you can see my sheet online here - Road Test Scoring Sheet

My next appointment is next week Tuesday at 2 pm, keep your fingers crossed for me that I won't have to drive with the same officer.

My second birthday!

Finally ... finally ... finally! I declare the 24th of August as my second birthday. One week ago, I was surfing a little on eBay looking for some nice posters, as all of a sudden I found a screenplay. To be more precisely, the screenplay of Fight Club. For all of you who are not in the picture right now why I'm that excited about that - Fight Club is my favorite movie! Anyhow, I found it and it was not only the actual shooting script, which they used on the set, but it is also personally signed by actor Brad Pitt, yeah that's true baby! And now guess who won the bid on eBay! Yeah that right - me! This is the most precious thing I own I guess, cause it doesn't have any material value to me rather than emotional value. I was so excited when I found it today in the mailbox. It's soooo fucking awesome! Yeah!

Still try to orient ...

So second week of orientation and things still change. We finally moved in to our apartment. (more information on that will follow shortly with pictures and roommate description). We also started registering our courses which was a bit of strange 'cause we had to wait until this week. Unfortunately, most of the courses were closed already so I need to go to professors personally next week and ask them if there is room for one more student. Currently I have 12 credit hours which is enough to be a full time student here but I want at least 3 credit hours more which means one course. At the moment I'm registered to the following courses:

* Introductory Writing (English Course)
* Introduction to Film
* Film I: Cinematography
* Digital Tech & Film

I try to get in either Script Analysis or History of Film. I also got the list of books I need for my courses and they are insanely expensive. I pay for my 3 books for Introductory Writing 150$.

I also plan on starting a short film project outside of courses, for which I contacted a professor via e-mail. He is pretty nice and told me that I should come to one of his office hours because he wants to get in touch with me and he will support me with knowledge and equipment - so I'm going to start writing the script soon which will be a short movie in length of 5 - 10 mins. The movie is going to be character driven, this means it won't contain a lot of action, otherwise it would get too complex, Yeah well, I'm curious about that.

Yesterday Martin and I have been too Wallmart with the two asian girls because they have a car and they drove us. I just can tell you that buying grocery or whatever in the US is insane. Everything is soooooooo big, they are just family sizes and like 10 different brands for each product. I thought I drive crazy. We have been there for 2 and 1/2 hours to get our stuff and I was just exhausted afterwards - Unbelievable. I really need get used to it.

BTW: We found a piece of home in the middle of Ohio:

This week all the freshmen came to Campus. Finally, the town gets crowded. There are several events this and the next week. Yesterday, was the welcome bash at the baseball field. You can see Freddy and Frieda at the picture above which are the mascots of BGSU. We got free food and beverages. It was also a band playing. It was quite fun.

Today, I spent my day with Andres a guy from Costa Rica. He is also an international student. We played for 2 hours Playstation 3 which was pretty cool and headed to a dodge-ball tournament. Afterwards we went to the arcade and had some pizza. I also noticed that since I just spoke english the whole day that this somehow exhausts me a lot. My english gets worse and worse and I simply can't talk properly anymore - it sounds like school english, just worse. You can even see it right here in the post. I guess I just need another couple of weeks to get used to it.

Anyhow, that's it for today, I added some more photos in the orientation week set. Just click Orientation Week on the right hand side.

My Precious ...

Today - Finally! :) I woke up at 8:45 and got up. Took a shower, shaved myself and get all cleaned and nice - because I got my MacBookPro today. Fred arrived at Founders Hall 9:30 with his roommate. The three of us drove up to Michigan which is approx. one and a half hour from Bowling Green. Since we were to early we grabbed a coffee at Starbucks and headed to the Apple Store.

It was 11:10 when we arrived at the Mall and it was like heaven - hehe! They had everything you can imagine - unbelievable. One of the employees headed to me and asked me if he could help me. I told him that I want my MacBookPro today and told him everything I wanted started with the configurations of the machine to the software I wanted. 10 minutes later he was back with all my stuff inclusive an iPod nano which I received fro free - yeah! :) We took the stuff and drove back to Ohio - stopped at a BestBuy which is something like Saturn or Media Markt and at Burger King, gettin' one of those tasty veggie burger.

Almost the rest of the day, I was in front of my Mac installing programms and configuring everyting. I like it pretty much. It's awesome! :)

You can see the whole story told in pictures here:

The Apple Story

By the way, it was also the first time that I had the chance to try out the new Apple iPhone. Oh my got - I just want it. It's sooooooo cool! Yeah, maybe some time in the future. We'll see! ;)